After reading “The Plain English Guide To The Clean Air Act” it came to my attention that all of these efforts in preserving clean air are extremely important. Out of all the current environmental issues, I find it most worrying that we are in a situation where we must protect and defend the right to the air we breathe. Air is an undeniable human need. If we do not have air for more than one minute, we can no longer live.
I found it very interesting to learn from the Clean Air Act that polluted air not only affects us as humans, but also alters our environment, maybe even faster than its negative consequences reach us. For instance, the act notes that polluted air is not only harmful to plants and crops, but also to buildings and statues, which are simply just objects. I think it is quite pertinent to look at air pollution in this way, when we come to see that it impacts inanimate things, and that even those somehow need air to survive through time. It is frightening to already see our surroundings deteriorating in front of us.
Image Source: http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2014/04/8544521/new-york-air-quality-better-still-uneven
Furthermore, I believe that the issue of air contamination should entice people to be more conscious just because it affects all of us on the earth, contrary to the food or water contaminations which some would argue are only specific to certain areas of the world, having not reached them yet. Polluted air is nearly everywhere and especially in the types of urban settings that we live in. More than any other, this should be a subject that we pay close attention to before it completely ruins the air of our cities.
