User:Onceler/Sandbox4

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In addition to those suggested on article talk page, Pollution article changes needed:

1. Major Revisions:

+"Ambiguity" section to "Controversy"
~Controversy: market based system, burden of proof, precautionary principle, liability, economic interests, ...:
+Reorder from ...

0 Intro

1 History

2 Ambiguity

3 Sources and causes

4 Effects on human health

5 Regulation and monitoring

5.1 Europe

5.2 International

5.3 United States

6 See also

7 External links

to ...

0 Intro

1 Classifications (new}

2 Sources and causes

3 Effects on human health

4 Effects on biology

5 History

6 Controversy (formerly "Ambiguity")

7 Regulation and monitoring

7.1 Europe

7.2 International

7.3 United States

8 See also

9 External links

2. Fill out regulation section with intro. and more information about specific countries. Mention the dependence of regulation on functioning regional governments, state of peace, political stability.

Clean Air Act gives good background of series of US federal air pollution regulations.
1956 UK air pollution act after 1952 smog is linked to from Clean Air Act
After UK air act in 1956, Ca air act of 1959 preceded the federal act of the next decade. (per [1])
Best historical summary I've seen about regulation is at: [2].
California Air Resources Board
Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act of California

3. Thorough accounting of different kinds of pollution with links to appropriate articles.
4. More human health effects with links:

chronic fatigue syndrome

5. Garbage deserves its own section practically
6. Some mention, for distinction from:

land use/irrigation (eg Everglades, New Orleans delta)
land use/agriculture (eg Greece and olives)
topic of human health whether or not environmental pollution is implicated (eg toxicity, consumer protection, pesticide use in agriculture; many of these have an effect on the consumer as well as the labor involved in a commodity extraction(mining) or cultivation(agriculture) or product fabrication

7. Mention as complementary topics:

recycling

8. Other history:

Iraq oil wells (relates to #2 above)
Pollution in England during industrial revolution; the turning point of the "great stink" on the river Thames

9. General mention:

Persistent organic pollutant
Mention Outgassing and add or point this out on Air Pollution talk page.
Brake lining asbestos dust
Marine pollution article references/highlights
Water pollution article references/highlights

10. Draft of revised Histiry section:

1 History

[edit] History

Early Soviet poster: The smoke of chimneys is the breath of Soviet Russia

The Lachine Canal, in Montreal, is badly polluted

Air pollution

Pumping of highly toxic (dark black) sludge: much seeps back into the ocean in the form of tiny particles

Traditional forms have included air and water pollution. Water pollution has also often been associated with soil contamination due to the involvement of groundwater. Broader contemporary considerations of pollution also embrace thermal, light, and noise pollution.

Pollution can be thought of in local or global terms. In the distant past, as travel and widespread information were less common, only local pollution was thought to be a problem. For example, coal burning produces smoke, which in sufficient concentrations could be a health hazard in its vicinity. Septic contamination or poisoning of a clean drinking water source was very easily fatal to those who depended on it, especially if such a resource was rare. One slogan, said to have been taught in schools, and which summarized a more primitivethe of waste management was "The solution to pollution is dilution." The theory was that sufficiently diluted pollution could cause no harm. Such simple treatment of the issue might have had a practical side in earlier centuries when physical survival was often the highest imperative, human population and densities were lower, technologies were simpler and their byproducts more benign.

As medicine has advanced, many causes of disease and mortality have decreased in significance, especially in wealthier nations. Rising living standards have resulted in vastly higher populations. Advances in science and technology have increased industrial productivity tremendously and resulted in a civilization with a much greater collective footprint on its surroundings. It was to be expected that the beginnings of environmental awareness would occur in the most populated, advanced cultures, particularly in urban centers. The first medium of concern in the modern western world would be the most basic: the air we breathe.

King Edward I of England banned the burning of sea-coal by proclamation in London in 1361, after its smoke had become a nuissance and a health threat. But the fuel was so common in England that this earliest of names for it was acquired because it could be carted away from some shores by the wheelbarrow. Air pollution would continue to be a problem in England, especially later during the industrial revolution, and into the recent past with the Great Smog of 1952. That same city also recorded one of the earlier extreme cases of water quality problems with the Great Stink on the Thames of 1858, which lead to construction of the London sewerage system soon afterward.

Chicago and Cincinnati were the first two American cities to enact laws ensuring cleaner air in 1881. Other cities followed around the country until early in the 20th century, when the short lived Office of Air Pollution was created under the Department of the Interior. Extreme smog events were experienced by the cities of Los Angeles and Donora, Pennsylvania in the late 1940s, serving as another public reminder. These were the basis for the series of federal legislations known as the Clean Air Act. The very boundless nature of the earth's atmosphere lends itself eventually to the unavoidable consideration of wider implications of pollution.

With concerns raised in the English-speaking and wider world, an awareness of similar problems has been precipitated by occasional but particularly catastrophic incidents of local pollution. From Dioxin contamination at Love Canal, PCB dumping in the Hudson River and Chromium-6 releases in California--the champions of whose victims were made famous, such as Erin Brockovich, very prominent examples of soil and water contamination have been witnessed by mainstream culture. Pesticides such as DDT have been banned in many parts of the world after it was learned what the environmental results of its use were. Brownfields and superfund sites have become standard elements of the public dialog about pollution issues.

In the period after WWII, a new form of pollution came into existence called radioactive contamination. In recent decades, awareness has arisen that such forms of pollution pose a global problem. Nuclear weapons were tested near inhabited areas in the earliest stages of their development. One legacy of nuclear testing has been significantly raised levels of background radiation, leading to higher rates of cancer and associated mortality worldwide. The toll on the worst-affected populations and the growth since then in understanding about the critical threat to human health posed by radioactivity has also been a prohibitive complication associated with nuclear power. Though extreme care is practiced in that industry, the potential for disaster suggested by incidents such as those at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl pose a lingering specter of public mistrust.

Patent evidence of local and global pollution and a public increasingly informed about its consequences has given way to the environmentalism movement, which seeks to limit human impact on the environment.

Notes about some research here to go elsewhere--eg controversy/regulation sections: -Practice of dilution of waste with tap water in order to meet environmental regulations (in dubious circles, termed "shandying" in Australia).

Sources: