Understanding Environmental Pollution

The reality of outdoor air pollution is more than the words “ambient air pollution” can convey. It is the eye-stinging pollution surrounding us in a city crowded with motor vehicles, the odor of ozone on a hot hazy day, the choking of a heavy dust storm, the smoke from wood or coal fires on a winter day, the fumes from an uncontrolled industrial facility, the odor from uncontrolled sewage or an open dump. Many living in wealthy countries are spared the worst of these. Not so for many people living in less-developed countries, who suffer from heavy exposure. And more and more often, air pollution far from where we live is reaching us.1