Question: how does polution effect the enviorment,how does it effect nature and what can we do about it?

Dalya Soond answered on 13 Jun 2011:

Polution fills the atmosphere with particulate matter (extremely small solids), gases and chemicals. Some of the most common pollutants include carbon monoxide and dioxide, nitrogen and sulfur oxides, and chloroflurocarbons.

Generally, pollutants can act to 1) trap heat under the stratosphere (the protective atmosphere sitting between Earth and oyter space) 2) Poking holes in the ozone (part of the strotosphere) which allows sun rays to hit the Earth more powerfully. 3) Changing the amount and type of rain we get (like making acid rain), to name a few.

Global warming is the effect you will hear most about. It causes the polar seas to melt more ice, raising the levels of the oceans, which can flood our coasts. It can raise the temperature of the oceans which can kill off sea life and change the amount of rain that if produced from a warm ocean. On land, it can change the timing of the seasons and the average temperatures. So if a certain plant strats growing a month earlier because of the extra heat, but the bugs that eat this plant take longer to change when they are around, then the plants might overgrow and squeeze out other vegetation, and the bugs may not have food to eat and so they will die off. And the birds that eat those bugs then won’t have the food to eat either. The cycle goes on and on because Nature is all interconnected.

What can we do about it? I wish I had the answer, but people are working on it. I guess a short answer is: pollute less and if every one in the world followed this, then we would be much better off. Simple things like cycle rather than drive (or drive a low emissions car), buy locally and organically when possible, buy LESS overall, recycle efficiently.

There are also machines that can help de-pollute small amounts of air, but the Earth is a big place and it is better to prevent a problem than cure it.