OPPapers.com

Acid Rain

Acid Rain

INTRODUCTION: Acid rain is a great problem in our world. It causes fish and
plants to die in our waters. As well it causes harm to our own race as well,
because we eat these fish, drink this water and eat these plants. It is a
problem that we must all face together and try to get rid of. However acid rain
on it's own is not the biggest problem. It cause many other problems such as
aluminum poisoning. Acid Rain is deadly.

WHAT IS ACID RAIN?
Acid rain is all the rain, snow, mist etc that falls from the sky onto our
planet that contains an unnatural acidic. It is not to be confused with
uncontaminated rain that falls, for that rain is naturally slightly acidic. It
is caused by today's industry. When products are manufactured many chemicals are
used to create it. However because of the difficulty and cost of properly
disposing of these products they are often emitted into the atmosphere with
little or no treatment.

The term was first considered to be important about 20 years ago when
scientists in Sweden and Norway first believed that acidic rain may be causing
great ecological damage to the planet. The problem was that by the time that the
scientist found the problem it was already very large. Detecting an acid lake is
often quite difficult. A lake does not become acid over night. It happens over a
period of many years, some times decades. The changes are usually to gradual for
them to be noticed early.

At the beginning of the 20th century most rivers/lakes like the river
Tovdal in Norway had not yet begun to die. However by 1926 local inspectors were
noticing that many of the lakes were beginning to show signs of death. Fish were
found dead along the banks of many rivers. As the winters ice began to melt off
more and more hundreds upon hundreds more dead fish (trout in particular) were
being found. It was at this time that scientist began to search for the reason.
As the scientists continued to work they found many piles of dead fish,...