Correct Answer - Option 2 : Nuclear test
The major difference between natural and man-made air pollution is that continuous or temporary natural events cause natural air pollution, but human activities are responsible for man-made pollution. We can't prevent natural air pollution from sources like volcanoes, but we can reduce man-made pollutants and their consequences: respiratory diseases, acid rain and global warming.
Natural Sources of Air Pollution
- Natural air pollutants include radon, fog and mist, ozone, ash, soot, salt spray, spores released by plants, windblown dust and volcanic and combustion gases.
- Radon is a radioactive gas that seeps from the ground in some areas, and fog and mist are both dense water vapor at ground level that obscures vision.
- Ozone, a chemical formed naturally by the action of sunlight on oxygen, is a pollutant at ground level but beneficial in the upper atmosphere. A molecule made of three oxygen atoms, ozone shields the Earth from harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun, but it damages plants and causes breathing problems in the lower atmosphere.
- Volcanic eruptions and forest, swamp and grass fires launch soot and ash into the atmosphere, which reduces sunlight and lowers temperatures. Eruptions and fires also produce carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and other polluting gases.
- The large number of nuclear weapons tests carried out in the atmosphere and underground during 1945–2013 (the last nuclear test was performed by North Korea) was responsible for the current environmental contamination with radioactive waste which resulted in ecologically and socially destroyed sites, due to high levels of radioactivity.
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The 2000 Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation to the General Assembly states that:
“The main man-made contribution to the exposure of the world's population [to radiation] has come from the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, from 1945 to 1980. Each nuclear test resulted in unrestrained release into the environment of substantial quantities of radioactive materials, which were widely dispersed in the atmosphere and deposited everywhere on the Earth’s surface.”
