Acid Rain

6 Pages 1402 Words

Acid Rain

First of all I’d like to start off with some thoughts on acid rain. Acid rain is a serious problem with disastrous effects. Each day this serious problem increases, many people believe that this issue is too small to deal with right now but I believe this issue should be met head on and solved before it is too late. In the following paragraphs I will be discussing the impact that acid rain has on the wildlife and how it is destroying the atmosphere.
Now I will explain the causes of acid rain. Acid rain is a cancer eating into the face of eastern Canada and North Eastern United States. In Canada, the main sulfuric acid sources are non-ferrous smelters and power generation. On both sides of the border, cars and trucks are in the main sources for nitric acid (about 40% of the total), while power generating plants and industrial commercial and residential fuel combustion together contribute most of the rest. In the air, the Sulfur dioxide and Nitrogen oxides can be transformed into sulfuric acid and nitric acid, and air current can send them thousands of kilometers from the source. When the acids fall to the earth in any form it will have a large impact on the growth or the preservation of certain wildlife.
There are many areas that just don’t have any defense against acid rain. In areas like Ontario or mainly the southern regions that are near the Great Lakes, contain substances like limestone or other known antacids entering the body of water thereby protecting it. However, large areas of Ontario that are near the Precambrian Shield, with quartzite or granite based geology and little top soil, there is not enough buffering capacity to neutralize even small amounts of acid falling on the soil and the lakes. Therefore overtime, the basic environment shifts from an alkaline to an acidic one. This is why many lakes in the Muskoka, Haliburton, Algonquin, parry sound and Manitoulin districts could lose their fisheries if Sul...