Air Pollution In North Carolina Essay

504 Words3 Pages

Air pollution is the introduction of harmful materials in the Earth’s atmosphere, which can possibly cause diseases, infections, and in the worst cases maybe even death. Air pollution is a problem that is happening now in the world. It can cause short term, and even long term side effects. Air pollution even causes harm to our environment.

The air we breathe is being polluted every second on a regular basis. Some activities that cause this are driving cars or trucks, burning coal, oil, and other fossil fuels. Air pollution can also add up over time from smaller scale activities such as, dry cleaning your clothes, filling your car with gas, and even doing something like painting. Even though the world doesn’t have the best air quality as …show more content…

They said you could see for miles and miles at some of our most famous tourist attractions, such as Grand Father mountain or the Great Smoky mountains. Scientist have estimated that visibility has decreased by about 80% over the last fifty years. Also since traveling miles have started to reach an all time high our scenic views will only get worse. Most of North Carolina’s air pollution comes from big industries such as coal burning power plants, paper mills, and other industrial factories. Since the government has passed the Clean Air Act, states are required to monitor air pollution levels, and report their findings to the government. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has set air quality standards, that the state has to meet. The EPA found out that some of North Carolina’s counties weren’t meeting the expectations. Most of the counties that didn’t meet the standard were along the busiest interstates. As of 2014 only the eight counties in the Charlotte region are violating the EPA standards. North Carolina ranks eighth in the country in air pollution, due to our coal - fired power plants. North Carolina as a whole needs to set up projects to help clean up the state. So we can get it back to the state we were fifty years