Smog is an unsightly and dangerous reality of life for 125 million Americans, and many more millions of people around the world. It is associated with poorer lung function, and can even cause a reduction in life expectancy for people who live in areas with high amounts of smog.
Since smog is created by human activity, it’s possible to combat it through research-based environmental initiatives. Like most environmental endeavours, however, reducing smog will require a great deal of dedication and work by well-trained experts.
Read on to learn more about the issues surrounding smog and how environmentalists can help.
Smog is Derived from Various Types of Pollution
Since smog is formed from various sources of air pollutants—such as car exhaust, factory smoke, hairspray fumes, and more—smog prevention is a complex issue. Through interacting with sunlight, these pollutants can create a thick blanket of ozone low to the ground. This blanket of ozone is what we call smog.
To further complicate matters, one city’s pollution can travel through the wind and create another city’s smog. Some of the smog found on the west coast of the USA, for example, is the result of pollution generated across the ocean, in countries like China.
That means, in order to combat smog in a particular location, it will first be necessary to uncover the sources of local smog. While this can be a challenge, graduates of Environmental Science Master’s programs have training that can help them meet it. A sustainability science education can help you learn to gather statistical information and use it to create accurate computer models of environmental phenomena. These skills could help you track the causes and origins of smog, and thereby learn where improvements need to be made to improve the air quality of a particular area.
A Degree in Environmental Science Can Help You Lead the Way to Cleaner Air
Because there are so many contributing factors to smog, clearing it from the world’s air will require extensive action on many fronts. Manufacturing businesses, for example, will need to find ways to cut down on the smoke they produce when making goods. People, too, may need to make lifestyle changes, and give up things like some hairsprays, spray deodorants, and other aerosols that can contribute to the formation of smog.
The power of habit makes implementing these types of change difficult, as it’s often easier to stick with business as usual. A Degree in Environmental Science can equip you to motivate change at many levels of society. At Unity College, students learn to develop and help implement sustainability initiatives to assist companies in making significant reductions in the amount that they pollute. They also learn the valuable communication and leadership skills necessary to inform the public of the importance of becoming more sustainable, and can contribute to the development of public policies centered on this goal.
These business and communication abilities can enhance your training and help you exert a powerful influence in important areas of society. Applying these skills to aiding in the reduction of industrial air pollution, as well as changing consumer behavior, and developing governmental pressures and incentives for cleaner air, could go a long way to clearing our air of smog.
Do you want to learn how to reduce pollution in the world?
Enroll at Unity College, one of America’s best environmental science schools!
