Effects and Damages

Smog:

Photochemical Smog
-its unpleasant properties result from the irradiation by sunlight of hydrocarbons caused primarily by unburned gasoline emitted by automobiles and other combustion sources

-The products of photochemical reactions includes organic particles, ozone, aldehydes, ketones, peroxyacetyl nitrate, organic acids, and other oxidants.

-Ozone causes eye irritation, impaired lung function, and damage to trees and crops

Industrial Smog
-created by burning coal and heavy oil that contain sulfur impurities in power plants, industrial plants, etc

-consists mostly of a mixture of sulfur dioxide and fog

-This smog is common during the winter in cities such as London, Chicago, Pittsburgh. When these cities burned large amounts of coal and heavy oil without control of the output, large-scale problems were witnessed. In 1952 London, England, 4,000 people died as a result of this form of fog

Damage to plants:

-Pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, ozone and peroxyacl nitrates (PANs), cause direct damage to leaves of crop plants and trees when they enter leaf pores (stomates)

-break down the waxy coating of plants that helps prevent excessive water loss and damage from diseases, pests, drought and frost

-In the midwestern United States crop losses of wheat, corn, soybeans, and peanuts from damage by ozone and acid deposition amount to about $5 billion a year

Effects to humans:

-The World Health Organization states that 2.4 million people die each year from causes directly attributable to air pollution, with 1.5 million of these deaths attributable to indoor air pollution

-result in 12,000 fewer premature mortalities, 15,000 fewer heart attacks, 6,000 fewer emergency room visits by children with asthma, and 8,900 fewer respiratory-related hospital admissions each year in the United States.

-breathing, wheezing, coughing and aggravation of existing respiratory and cardiac conditions.

Children
-develop asthma, pneumonia and other lower respiratory infections as well as a low initial birth rate.