Purchase Solution

Reducing Air Pollution: Designing a City

Not what you're looking for?

Ask Custom Question

How would you create a city that does not produce more air pollution than the atmosphere can cleanse naturally? In creating this more sustainable environment, consider livability, safety, and convenience.

Consider this as your personal game of Sim City. How do you design a city that does not produce more air pollution than the atmosphere can naturally cleanse? What contributes to air pollution? How can those contributors be addressed? (The key is to reduce air pollution, not eliminate it).

Purchase this Solution

Solution Summary

This solution examines how to create a city that does not produce more air pollution than the atmosphere can cleanse naturally. considering several dimensions such as livability, safety, and convenience. It also examines the factors that contributes to air pollution and how they can be addressed. It focuses on ways to reduce pollution as opposed to eliminating it.

Solution Preview

How do you design a city that does not produce more air pollution than the atmosphere can naturally cleanse? What contributes to air pollution? How can those contributors be addressed? (The key is to reduce air pollution, not eliminate it).
Generally, pollution is defined as the changing of a natural environment, either by natural or artificial means, so that the environment becomes harmful to the living things normally found in it. It most often refers to the input of toxic chemicals into the environment. In other words, it is the undesirable state of the natural environment being contaminated with harmful substances as a consequence of human activities. Pollution is the act of contaminating or polluting, including (either intentionally or accidentally) unwanted substances or factors into the air. (Source: http://www.biology-online.org/term.php?do=search&search=pollution&submit=Go). Historically, humans probably first experienced harm from air pollution when they built fires in poorly ventilated caves. Since then we have gone on to pollute more of the earth's surface. Until recently, environmental pollution problems have been local and minor because of the Earth's own ability to absorb and purify minor quantities of pollutants. The industrialization of society, the introduction of motorized vehicles, and the explosion of the population are factors contributing toward the growing air pollution problem. At this time it is urgent that we find methods to clean up the air.
What contributes to Air Pollution?
The primary air pollutants found in most urban areas are carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, hydrocarbons, and particulate matter (both solid and liquid). These pollutants are dispersed throughout the world's atmosphere in concentrations high enough to gradually cause serious health problems. Serious health problems can occur quickly when air pollutants are concentrated, such as when massive injections of sulfur dioxide and suspended particulate matter are emitted by a large volcanic eruption. (Breuer 1)
Pollution in Your Home
"In 1985 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that toxic chemicals found in the air of almost every American home are three times more likely to cause some type of cancer than outdoor air pollutants". (Miller 488) ...

Purchase this Solution


Free BrainMass Quizzes
How Much Do You Know About Genetic Inheritance?

Most of us studied the basics of dominant and recessive genes at some point. However, genetics are much more complicated than this. How far beyond the basics does your knowledge go?

Infant Development: Sleep

How much do you know about infant sleep? Test your knowledge with this quiz.

Basic Immunology Quiz

Intro to immuno quiz. Covers the basics of immunology and recognition of foreign substances by the body.

Breast Milk and Breastfeeding

How much do you know about breast milk and breastfeeding? Double check your knowledge level with this quiz!

The Plant Body

This quiz will test your knowledge of the anatomy of a common plant.