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Ever since the industrial revolution, people have needed machines for everything from transportation to manufacturing. As a result, fuel emissions have entered the atmosphere, sometimes with very dangerous results. When coal heating was the most common way of heating buildings, cities like London were choked with thick clouds of pollution, called �London Fogs.� The smog became infamous when, in 1952, more than 3,000 people died of carbon monoxide poisoning in London. This incident was repeated ten years later, in 1962, when another 700 Londoners died. Although increased restrictions on air pollutants were enacted, and coal power became less popular, there were still some deaths. The worst and most recent episode was the Bhopal deaths in India. In 1984, an American-owned factory emitted large amounts of methyl isocynate (C2H3NO) that were concentrated into the local atmosphere. More than 3,300 people died from methyl isocynate poisoning in this incident. The Future
Future
We have already made such enormous changes to the atmosphere, what could come next? While no one knows for sure what the habits of today�s civilizations will do to the atmosphere, there is an abundance of theories. Global warming has become a household term, causing some to believe in a doomsday-like scenario in which whole coastal cities are swallowed by rising oceans, which are growing deeper as the polar ice caps melt- making thousands of polar bears, penguins, and seals migrate to midland America; which will be a filthy cesspool of industrial pollution, and a breeding ground for incessant strains of malaria that flourish in the new hot climate.
Exaggerations? Sure.
However, there are many reasonable predictions among the doomsday predictions. The chemicals we produce are incredibly powerful, and history has proved that we have the ability to wreak havoc on the balance of our atmosphere.