Lesson 6.04 Air Pollution

• Introduction
• Learn
• Try It
• Task

Introduction

Earth's atmosphere is vital for life on earth.

• We take in its air and use the oxygen to release energy from the food we eat.
• We depend on it to protect us from the effects of the sun's harmful radiation.

At the same time, we contaminate it through the burning of fossil fuels that we have come to rely on to provide our expected standard of living. This puts us in an important balancing act between the high standard of living that we have become used to and the protection of the resource that provides oxygen, helps regulate the earth's temperature, and protects us from the sun's ultraviolet radiation.

In this lesson, you will learn about the factors that contribute to and cause air pollution, the types of air pollutants, and how protecting the earth's atmosphere from pollution is a political, social, economic, and environmental issue that is not easily solved.

Watch Regulating Air Pollution (2:13) for an overview/review of air pollution. Login information.