Technology

Pollution refers to the introduction of foreign bodies into the environment thereby causing instability, harm, discomfort or disorder to the environment or ecosystem to which the contaminants are introduced. Pollution can be in the form of energy or chemical substances. The energy forms of pollution include heat, noise and light. The pollution elements known as pollutants are substances that are foreign energies or substances, or they occur naturally. When such energies and substances occur naturally, they can only be considered to be pollutants when their presence exceeds the levels that occur naturally (Sell, 1992 Theodore et al, 1994).

Forms of pollution
There are several types of pollution that take place on a daily basis leading to the presence of high levels of pollutants in the environment. Air pollution is the most common of all the other types of pollution that affects the environment severely. Air pollution takes place when particulates and chemicals are introduced into the atmosphere through various processes such as industrial emissions and the emission of nitrogen oxides by the motor vehicles. This form of pollution has a lot of impact on the atmosphere thus affecting its natural processes. Some of the pollutants introduced into the atmosphere react with the sunlight producing harmful products. Since the human beings, animals and plants breathe in air from the atmosphere, the presence of pollutants makes the air to be contaminated and thus be of low quality. Breathing polluted air on a regular basis for extended periods of time can have dire consequences. The living organisms taking in such air can easily contract various diseases as well as weaken their body systems making them to be more vulnerable to diseases (Colls, 2002).

High levels of air pollution lead to poor visibility due to the presence of artificial fog in the atmosphere. Poor visibility has been cited to be one of the major causes of accidents both in road transport and air. Air pollution that mainly leads to poor visibility is when industries produce a lot of pollutants in the form of smoke that is dark into the atmosphere. This type of pollution is most common in urban centers especially of developed nations where there are several industries that are producing thousands of tones of such smoke. This therefore implies that accidents are more likely to be caused by poor visibility in such regions as compared to the rural areas. In nations where this form of pollution is rampant and there is likelihood of several accidents taking place, then lighting must be provided in order to improve visibility and thus reduce the probability of accidents taking place due to poor visibility (Harrison, 2001 United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, 2007).

Ocean pollution is one of the main problems affecting the global oceans. This pollution affects directly the organisms that live in the oceans and affects indirectly the human resources and health. Toxic wastes, oil spills and the dumping of several harmful materials are the chief sources of the pollutants that pollute the oceans. Noise as one of the ocean pollutants greatly affects the marine animals. Most of these animals especially fish and the marine mammals are highly sensitive to noise or any other form of sound. Underwater, it is possible for noise to travel for very long distances, covering large ocean regions and thus potentially preventing the marine animals that are sensitive to sound from hearing either their predators or prey, getting their way or linking with their mates. In fact, as a result of noise pollution in the oceans, the population of dolphins and whales has greatly reduced (Weilgart, n.d).

Oil spillage is a major source of ocean pollution, and it has very adverse effects on the marine life. As a result of oil spillage in the oceans, the marine water is deprived of air circulation thus making the marine life to die in huge numbers due to lack of air to breath. The feeding system of the marine animals is also interfered with as the food sources are destroyed by this form of pollution. The toxic pollutants that are usually disposed off into the global oceans have very adverse effects both directly and indirectly. The marine life is affected directly by these toxic elements that are introduced into their habitat, making them to either die or to suffer from several diseases. Some of the toxic elements that are introduced into the oceans are consumed by the marine life, which are in turn consumed by human beings making them to suffer indirectly as a result of ocean pollution (Advameg, Inc, 2009).

Soil pollution is yet another form of pollution that is widespread world over and which has very adverse effects. It mainly takes place when various pollutants and other contaminants are introduced into the soil via various processes. Some of the pollutants introduced into the soil take a long period of time before they can be depleted and thus their effects are felt over much longer periods of time. Pollutants introduced into the soil usually lower the quality of the soil making it to be less productive, especially when used for agriculture. Furthermore, there are pollutants that are absorbed by plants and are therefore taken in when such plants are either consumed by animals or humans as food. This implies that some of the pollutants that are introduced into the soil are not only harmful to the plants, but they are also indirectly harmful to the consumers of such plants (Siegfried Fred Singer, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1970).

The above three forms of pollution that have been discussed are instances where pollutants are introduced into the environment or an ecosystem. There are also other forms of pollution which are in the form of energy. Noise is the major form of pollution under this category it encompasses aircraft noise, roadway noise and sonar of high intensity. Light is also another form of energy pollution and it includes astronomical inference, over illumination and light trespass. Visual pollution occurs when there are objects that are placed in such a way as to interrupt good visibility. It can occur due to the presence of motorway billboards, overhead power lines and scarred landforms (Dales, 2002 Shiva, 2002).

Conclusion
Presence of pollutants in an environment or ecosystem interferes with its natural processes, hence creating some imbalance. In virtually all cases, pollution leads to very harmful effects and should therefore be minimized as much as possible. There are usually very high environmental costs that have to be met by governments and other organizations because of pollution. Such environmental costs can be a great impediment to the economic growth of a country especially when they are inevitable. Therefore, governments around the world should take pollution much more seriously and deal with it in an objective manner in order to prevent the menace that results from pollution.