Introduction
Even though cars offer fast transport all over the world their presence and use has some effects on the environment. Cars contribute greatly to world’s air pollution problem. Emissions from cars are also damaging to the environment, destroying the surrounding through adding to the green house effect damaging the quality of the air as well as depleting the ozone. Cars are responsible for the growing smog problems, damage associated with land fill and to large extent the problem of water quality.
Therefore cars affect the environment in a number of ways. Cars have several influences on the environment in terms of air quality, green house gases, ozone depletion, water quality, noise and utilization of natural resources among others.
Air Pollution
Cars are known emitters of carbon dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, hydrocarbons and particles. As per the inventory of Melbourne Air Pollution by EPA-Victoria vehicles release into the air 47% carbon monoxide, 40% nitrogen oxides, 27% hydrocarbons and 4% of particles.
Vehicles are also known to cause pollution through fuel that evaporates. 30% of vehicle hydrocarbon emissions are due to evaporation that takes place when driving, during refueling and sometimes while standing. Pollution of air by vehicles is also increased by poorly sealed fuel tanks, spilling as well as overfilling of the fuel tank.
Green house Gases
Emissions released from a cars combustion system is damaging to the environment. Some of these emissions affect the environment through altering the greenhouse effect; infra-red rays find their way to the earth’s surface via this effect. These rays are trapped by the earth’s atmosphere keeping it warm and habitable. Emissions from cars beyond levels that are conducive weaken the atmosphere causing more rays to reach the atmosphere.
Excess of infra-red rays upon the earth surface causes temperature to rise. Increased temperatures are harmful to the environment as it destroys (kills) vegetation life and causes snow caps to melt among others. Among the gases that pose threat to the earth’s surface are carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.
Cars account for ⅓ of carbon dioxide found in the earth’s atmosphere. Cars in motion release carbon dioxide through their exhaust pipes. Research shows that for every gallon of gasoline burnt by an automobile, translates to 22 pounds of emitted carbon dioxide. As aforementioned better part ofcarbon monoxide found in the earth’s air is emitted by cars. Carbon monoxide is harmful to human health as to reduce the blood’s oxygen carrying capacity to the heart and brain.
In short, since cars burn a mixture of octanes’ on top of oxidizing such compounds, their release into the environment causes global warming, (John Decicco & FredaFun).
Contribution to smog and acid rain
Internal combustion engines of cars radiate a lot of heat. Due to these high temperatures reaction takes place between oxygen and nitrogen found in the air. The resulting compounds Nitrogen oxides further react with hydroxyl radicals found in the air to form nitric acid. Nitric acid contributes to acid rain along with sulphuric acid. Even though nitrogen oxide is known to break down in the presence of sunlight forming ozone that is useful to the stratosphere, nevertheless it does get to the atmosphere as it remains on the earth’s surface causing harm to habitats of living things.
Nitrogen oxides are also known to combine with volatile organic compounds such as hydrocarbons found in the air to peroxycyl nitrates constituents of smog. Smog is not harmful to human but also to the vegetation.
Ozone depletion
Ozone is composed of a molecule of three oxygen molecules. Ozone protects people from ultra violet rays, through absorbing radiation from the sun. Depletion of the ozone layer affects humans with non-melanoma skin cancer, damages plant as well as marine and animal life. Air conditioners fitted in cars contain compounds that break down to form halogen, free radicals (reactive atoms with impaired electrons). Reaction of these radicals causes disintegration of the ozone (break down). Availability of these radicals such as Cl, CFCs destroy ozone molecules in large amounts. CFC is chemical commonly found in refrigerators and car conditioners among others.
Solid Waste
Whereas majority of scrapped automobiles is recycled, a better amount of them remain littered and filling the land. For instance EPA reported that in the US over 11 million automobiles were grounded in 1996. ¾ of this number underwent recycling while ¼ of it filled the land as remains. The same year 76% of 266 million scrapped tyres were recovered and recycled while 23% of the remainder was presumably dumped. This amount increased the number of tyres stockpiled in dumps creating conducive grounds for mosquito habitation. Scrap metal from car remains and tyres are environmental hazards. Tyre dumps pose serious fire hazards as some dump for more than a year. Burning tyres release smoke and haze into the environment. Such smoke is harmful to humans as well as animal life. Tyres being non-biodegradable if not recovered and recycled end up in dumps causing a great threat to humans.
Water Pollution
Cars pose a great danger to water safety as they damage water supply via runoff lubricants, coolants as well as gas deposits. The wash off from cars finds its way into the rivers and seas through the sewer systems. Reports by EPA in 1996 indicated that out of 693, 905 river miles, 13% of these river miles impaired due to urban runoff.
Water pollution is also associated with leakage of underground storage tanks. Finally, improperly disposal of waste fluids such as motor oil contaminate fresh water. US EPA assessment is that 14% of used motor oil is dumped anyhow while 12% is land filled.
Noise Pollution
Noise from cars affect eh environment. Community noise in urban areas is caused by road traffic among other factors. Noise harms the peaceful environs of work places, disturbs sleeping people. Noise is also known to cause mental stress, chronic exhaustion, high blood pressure as well as heart disease.
Vehicle noise pollution depends by and large on the size and speed of the car and how the tyres are designed as well as how the vehicle is maintained. It is worth noting that the noise of a pick-up truck traveling at 50 mph is four times louder than an air conditioner and eight times louder than a refrigerator. Survey by Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 1980, indicated that ⅓ of US population was exposed to ‘annoying’ levels of highway noise, whereas 7% of the population encountered problems in conversation due to traffic noise.
Land use/Reshaping urban environment
Cars require enormous space and as people revert to dependence of cars, it reciprocates to devotion of large tracts of land for them. Consequently the environment is robbed of green spaces as well as public squares by highways and parking lots. This setting affects the environment’s microclimate as asphalt is known to absorb solar energy, therefore raising the temperatures of a particular urban centre.
Cars and deaths
Cars are known to cause death to passengers on a daily basis. Whereas this might seem not to be an effect on the environment, however deaths causes imbalance in the ecosystem.
Cars and wild life
Majority of wild life deaths are caused by man, not really hunting and trapping, but through hitting or collision. Speeding cars collide with wildlife attempting to cross highways killing them. It is presumed that cars kill over a million animals daily through collision in US.
Use of resources
The process involved in manufacturing a car has effects on the environment. From manufacturing through operation and maintenance, non-renewable resources such as metal, petroleum are utilized. Use of such resources impacts the environment in a number of ways. First there is depletion of the resources since they are limited. Secondly extracting these resources causes damage for instance the damage caused by mining. Finally disposal of the end products upon ending their life time poses serious problems to environment.
The net effect of cars on the environment can be summed under the following terms: – With increased temperature due to depletion of the ozone there is increase in frequency, duration as well as intensity of factors conducive to air pollution formation (Monastersky, 1994). In addition with increased temperature as a result of heat trapping emissions, some countries will experience snow pack decrease e.g. Sierra Nevada snow park. The melting of this snow has consequential effects on other environmental aspects for instance continued global warning will adversely affect the already over stretched water demand in some regions, California serves as an example of these regions that are considered to be adversely affected upon continued global warning due to emission from cars among other contributing factors.
There is also a possibility of degradation of the states estuaries, wetlands in addition ground water aquiver. Specifically due to intrusion of salt water, reciprocates to, a threat in the quality of water and its reliability (Monastersky, 1994).Global warning menace is also projected to alter forests and landscapes. With increase in global warming, there is increased risk in wildfire, which consequently has the effect of altering natural vegetation character as well as distribution. Fire in most cases causes imbalance in the Ecosystem as it enhances wildlife and vegetation diversity. Temperature being one of the main determining factor of wildlife risks, the future of wildlife with increased temperatures hangs on the balance. As seen elsewhere that cars require large space, land exploitation and other changes occurring due to economic developments are altering natural habitats through out the world. Continued global warning through out the world will intensify these pressures on the world ecosystems and biological diversity. The menace of global warming greatly affects the health and productivity of forests (Monastersky, 1994). There is also the propensity of seat levels to rise with increased temperatures due to global warming, not forgetting that coasts are habitats of unique ecosystems, there will be imbalance orchestrated by persistent global warming (Monastersky, 1994). With global warming some states for instance California risk floods, coastal storms as well as warm water temperatures. Increase in sea level will alter land forms through acceleration of coastal erosion, damaging levees, as well as altering wetlands (Monastersky, 1994). Increase in sea level will transcend to shrinkage of beaches for some nations. Consider a country like California that relies on sand replacement programs for its beaches; with increase in sea level due to global warming translates to in viability of the programs in addition to offsetting the entire ecosystem (Monastersky, 1994).
Global warming is associated with tropical storms and hurricanes frequency. Global warming is known to cause ocean warming, a major component in the formation and strengthening of storms. Researches show that there is interconnectedness of global warming with hurricanes (Monastersky, 1994). These hurricanes are very distractive in that the future of coastal people as well as ecosystem is significantly at risk.
Reference
Climate change in the U.S. North East. A report of the North Climate Impact Assessment 2006.
John Decicco and FredaFun Global warming on the Road. The Climate Impact of Americans Automobiles.
Monastersky, Richarch “Temperature on the rise in deep Atlantic” Science News, 1994.
Sustainable Transportation for a World Beyond Oil. EcoSystems. 1998. Web.
Ozone Depletion. Environmental Protection Agency. 1998. Web.
The Greenhouse Effect. Greenhouse Effect Page. 2009. Web.
The Car and the Environment, 2009. Web.