Acid Earth ; Soil Pollution Due to Acid

Acid pollution is one of the side effects of our addiction to fossil fuels. When coal, oil or natural gas are burned, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are released into the air and undergo a series of chemical processes in the air, in moisture and water, and inside living organisms; this turns them into acids that cause different kinds of damage. All precipitation is slightly acidic because of the presence in the air of naturally occurring sulphur, nitrogen,and carbon dioxide, but acidification has become much worse since the industrial revolution, with more toxic consequences. The first signs of a widening problem were identified as industrial coal consumption grew in Europe and North America in the mid 19th century. Fossil fuel consumption then widened to oil and natural gas and continued to grow as demand from the residential and transport sectors expanded. Economic reconstruction and expansion in the 1950s and 1960s led to a doubling of demand for fossil fuels in Europe and North America, and new levels of consumption in Asia and Latin America. The world now relies on fossil fuels for 90 percent of its commercial energy supplies. Meanwhile, rapid economic growth in the newly industrializing countries of Asia and Latin America has brought increases in sulphur and nitrogen emissions, and the promise that acidification will be associated less, in most people's minds, with countries such as Britain, Sweden, the United States and Canada, and more with China, India and Mexico. It has already taken more than a quarter of a century to encourage policy-makers in industrialized countries to address the causes of acid pollution; it is likely to take much longer in emerging states who place a premium on economic development.