Air pollution is not a new issue, especially for people living in big cities. It’s suffocating, toxic and had even caused fatal deaths.
Whenever the issue comes up, we would quickly blame the most apparent source: smoke-producing machines, such as vehicles and factories. A more industrialized area could be more polluted than densely populated areas (with less industrialization), even if their population is much less.
However, vehicles and factories are only machines. They are only giving effect when they are used. So, the blame is supposed to be directed on those who use them. More critically we should question why people use them so much in the first place?
The root problem lies in our population. Our overwhelming world population demands more resources to maintain our welfare. This puts pressure on the available resources, causing a branching problem: animals extinction, land deterioration (from agricultural exploitation or used for living purposes) and habitat destruction.
The biggest source of air purifier is slowly diminishing: the forest. Plants are the only ones who can turn carbon dioxide to oxygen through photosynthesis. Forests are the lungs of the world. Sadly, countries around the world are competing to build “modern” civilization in every corner of their country, seeing tall concrete buildings as the symbol of modernization.
More urgently, We push the nature to grow and give their resources as many and as fast as possible through mass producing factories, boosting chemicals and massive land clearing.
Forests are being cleared to become agricultural fields. Farming is something we’ve done since ancient times, but today’s farming is exploitative and unsustainable.
Fields are used to grow a single crop for a long time, without rotating for other crops, which causes the soil to be used for only a set of nutrients. The land will eventually be lacking of this set of nutrients, wasting the rest of unused nutrients inside. The lack of nutrients will cause barren land and farmers (or big companies) will leave the land be, without planting back the land.
Air pollution is an urgent issue. It can potentially cancel out health efforts we do, as you may read here, and even impact our economy. Yet, blaming is no use. We need to reflect on ourselves and our contribution to pollution.