All across the world, there is poverty, war, terrorism, and threats of human violence. We may not realise the dangers that can place the entire humankind on its knees in one full sweep.

This article aims to make people aware of what is happening in our planet’s deeper trenches.

We discuss environmental issues in four extensive sections. Click on one or scroll through the entire post to learn the causes, effects, and what you can do to act against their worsening.

CHAPTER 1: CLIMATE CHANGE

The world is experiencing a massive change in its behaviour. This shift has disastrous implications for Earth’s human, animal, and plant life. Find out more in the sections that follow.

Experts believe that this is most likely the greatest threat our century will ever face.

Are climate change and global warming the same? There is a distinction between the two, even though they may seem interchangeable.

Global warming is a significant and long-term increase in the planet’s temperature. It has become evident that the Earth is heating up quickly and steadily.

The Industrial Revolution in the 18th century prompted the beginning of global warming. This was a period of great change. Industries in Europe and the United States shifted its manufacturing processes. They began to produce commodities through machines, veering away from manual production.

This shift caused significant energy use through the burning of fossil fuels.

Climate change refers to alterations in global climate patterns. It covers a much more extensive set of phenomena. The primary cause is the emission of heat-trapping gases from burnt fossil fuels.

But climate change also refers to shifts in the planet’s behavior. A few alarming changes include the rise in sea levels and the loss of ice mass in the Earth’s coldest parts. Plants and trees have also changed their blooming and fruit-bearing seasons. Extreme weather conditions like heat waves and droughts also occur more often.

As a result of having the same root cause, the two terms are usually interchanged. Although their causes are the same, neither physical phenomenon is. The emission of greenhouse gases causes global warming. While global warming causes climate change.

Causes of Climate Change

Global climate change has occurred in the past, only at a slower pace. Changes would occur over thousands, even millions, of years. Today, it’s a completely different scenario. We can observe drastic changes in only a year or a few years.

Many natural as well as man-made factors contribute to the changes in the Earth’s climate.

The Earth’s Orbit

The planet revolves around the sun in the shape of an ellipse, but this changes over many years. Sometimes, it traverses around the sun in an almost perfect circle, and its distance from the sun remains the same throughout that period.

Other times, it forms an ellipse, so its movement varies from being nearer to the sun. The nearer it gets to the sun, the warmer the Earth becomes.

Volcanic Eruptions

The explosive eruptions of volcanoes endanger the lives of organisms within its radius. Not only that, but it also contributes to the state of the Earth’s stratosphere. When volcanoes erupt, they release significant amounts of Carbon Dioxide and Sulfur Dioxide. They come in volcanic gas, aerosol droplets, and volcanic ash.

Ash spewed from volcanoes forms dark clouds in the atmosphere. These clouds hover over the Earth’s surface and provide temporary cooling. The smallest dust particles released can stay in the atmosphere for months to years. They can also travel vast distances, causing a cooling effect in farther regions.

Sulfur Dioxide forms into Sulfuric acid aerosols when released and combined with water. These aerosols form tiny droplets that reflect the sun’s rays back into space. This is why they cause much colder temperatures than the volcanic ash particles.

CO2 and water vapour that volcanoes release don’t affect the climate in a significant way. But, there have been years when the planet experienced intense volcanism. This caused a considerable rise in Carbon Dioxide and water vapour in the atmosphere. This, in turn, contributed to climate change in a significant way.

Man-Made Greenhouse Gases

Carbon Dioxide is an example of a greenhouse gas. As mentioned in the previous section, it can come naturally from volcanic eruptions, but a significant amount also comes from man-made activities.

Soil degradation occurs when flooding or human actions feed pollutants into the soil. The deterioration of land can also add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide has existed in our atmosphere for hundreds and thousands of years. It can only diminish when the oceans beneath it absorb these gases.

Statistics

How much evidence exists that proves climate change is really happening? The straightforward facts that tell it all.

The warming trend during the middle of the 20th century is particularly significant. This is because there is more than a 95% likelihood that the leading cause is human activities.
Global temperatures have risen by 1.62oF since the 19th century. Most of these occurred in the last 35 years, with the 5 warmest years ever recorded since 2010. Records show that 2016 was the hottest year ever recorded. Eight of its 12 months (January to September, excluding June) were also the warmest on record.
18 of the 19 hottest years the world has experienced occurred since 2001.
The oceans’ surfaces have absorbed most of the heat rise. In fact, the top 700 meters of the oceans’ surface have also increased in temperature by 0.4oF since 1969.
The glaciers and icebergs in Antarctica and Greenland have decreased in mass. In fact, data from NASA shows Greenland lost an average of 286 billion tons of ice per year between 1993 to 2016. During those same years, Antarctica also lost about 127 billion tons of ice per year. The rate of ice loss in Antarctica has alarmingly decreased thrice its usual speed in the last decade.
Arctic sea ice shrank to its lowest level on record in 2012.
Satellite data shows the Earth’s polar ice sheets are losing 413 gigatons of mass yearly.
Global sea levels have risen by 8 inches since the last century. But, the rate of the rise in the previous two decades is double that figure and continues to increase every year.
Since the onset of the Industrial Revolution, the oceans have become more acidic by about 30%. Scientists believe the oceans’ surfaces absorb about 2 billion tons of CO2 per year.
CO2 levels in the atmosphere are now at their highest since 650,000 years ago, reaching up to 411 parts per million.

What This Means

What do all these statistics mean for the living organisms on Earth? Here are the implications of all these phenomena we are all experiencing.

The Rise in Global Temperatures

Temperatures fluctuate all the time. So why should you care if global temperatures rise by half a degree?

It matters a lot, actually. Temperature thresholds will have adverse effects on many ecosystems. An increase by a few degrees can literally mean death for some species.

In fact, sea turtles face extinction risk because of the warmer climate. Female sea turtles nest in beach sands. When the sand becomes warmer than ideal, these turtles will bear only female baby turtles, which poses the risk of the eventual extinction of this species.

Scientists have found that an increase in temperatures of 2oC can already be fatal.

The Long-term Rise in Sea Levels

Our oceans play a significant role in tempering the effect of climate change but at the risk of their own health.

They absorb over 90% of the heat trapped by the greenhouse gases. This has caused sea levels to rise above 8 inches while increasing by 0.13 inches yearly.

Based on the present melting level, experts predict that sea levels will rise from 19 to 63 inches in the next 200 years. They also claim that Greenland will likely lose more than 99% of its ice sheet by the year 3000.

Today, regular snowfall can still compensate for the loss in ice mass. But, due to warming, the glaciers continue to thin from the inside due to the melting ebb and ice flow. The glaciers decrease in height, so snowfall cannot solidify into new ice.

The same experts warn further that Greenland will melt completely if we continue as we do now. This will create a long-term impact on the sea levels and, by extension, our society. This means damage to coastal habitats due to frequent flooding. This also means diminished ecosystems of birds, fish, and plants.

The Lengthening of Frost-Free and Growing Seasons

The frost-free season occurs when the last 32oF in the spring and the first 32oF in the fall is read. This stretch of time has notably increased over the previous 30 years.

This can be an excellent indicator of the growing season. The longer the period without a frost, the longer the growing season. Knowing the length of frost-free seasons can help farmers plan the growth of crops.

While lengthening frost-free seasons may seem ideal for growing, the effect is twofold. Longer growing seasons can mean pests have more time to destroy crops, mainly because they thrive in warmer climates.

Why Is It Important?

Adapting to climate change is crucial in today’s times. There is a pressing need to reduce the risks of its impacts on people, places, and resources. Undoubtedly, it is happening and the further warming of the planet is inevitable. We want to reduce the negative effects of climate change. Thus, we have to plan by identifying its vulnerabilities and preparing for them.

Climate change serves as a catalyst for a series of adverse events to occur on our planet.

We are aware that we cannot do anything to reverse this phenomenon. The toxic gases in the air won’t disappear (not for a long time) even if we no longer emit them. The gases in the atmosphere will continue to hover over us for thousands of years to come.

However, we must plan for climate change for the survival of our species. It will not be easy, but it will be worthwhile.

Timeline of the Issue

The planet’s climate has changed throughout its history. Let’s examine how drastically it has evolved over the centuries.

It was 7,000 years ago when the era of the Ice Age ended. The civilization of man – and the period of the modern climate began soon after. In the last 650,000 years, 7 cycles of glacial advances and retreats have occurred.

In the 1800s, studies suggested that man-made gases could impact the Earth’s behaviour. Most people reacted to these studies with curiosity, not panic.

In 1837, a Swiss-American scientist, Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz, introduced the ‘Ice Age’. He scientifically proposed that the Earth did experience the era, during which glaciers still covered Europe and a large part of Northern America.

In 1859, Irish physicist John Tyndall used Foote’s research. He investigated the absorption of the sun’s rays by gases in the air like water vapour, Methane, and CO2.

In 1856, Eunice Newton Foote, an American scientist, talked about the effects of CO2. She suggested that carbonic acid gas (CO2) significantly affects the planet’s warming.

By the late 1800s, scientific opinion was against the belief of human activities as an influence. Scientists could not believe humans caused the warming of the planet.

In 1920, Serbian astronomer and geophysicist Milutin Milanković hypothesized the Milankovitch cycle. These cycles describe the massive effects of changes in the movement of the planet on the climate for thousands of years.

In the 1950s, some of the first documented evidence corroborating global warming claims appeared.

In 1956, Gilbert Plass published a study on The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change. Here he estimated a doubling of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide.

In the 1960s, the warming effect of Carbon Dioxide emissions became more evident.

In 1968, Stanford Research Institute conducted a study. This noted that the rising temperature would eventually lead to a series of events, including the melting of the ice caps in Antarctica and a rise in sea levels. He also mentioned the warming of the oceans and that these events were almost certain to occur by 2000.

In 1969, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was the first to address the issue globally. It established a research hub on acid rain and the greenhouse effect.

In the 1970s, scientific opinion began to favour the warming viewpoint.

In 1988, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created. This group aims to provide an objective and scientific view of climate change.

By the 1990s, a consensus position was formed due to the validation of the Milankovitch theory. The consensus was that greenhouse gases contributed to the changes occurring in the Earth’s climate and that emissions from human activities are causing noticeable global warming.

Since the 1990s, research has progressed further in understanding climate change. This research has expanded our understanding of the relations between various causes. Historical data have linked many fields, such as atmospheric sciences and numerical modelling.

Experts are now able to model climate change numerically, which contributes greatly to plans for reducing and managing its risks.

What Can a Business Do?

First, a little background.

In 2015, 196 countries signed an agreement to commit to a comprehensive plan. This plan aims to keep global temperatures from rising beyond 2oC, or more ideally, 1.5oC. The rise above this threshold will mean catastrophic effects and permanent climatic disturbances. The agreement aims to strengthen the international response against climate change.

The agreement doesn’t dictate how each country can achieve this. But it does provide a roadmap for cutting emissions and increasing those cuts over time. Each country specifies how much emissions it pledges to cut and then develops a plan of action for achieving it.

In a recent report, the IPCC mentioned that it is still possible to lessen warming by as low as 1.5oC. However, maintaining it at this level will require unprecedented measures.

This includes lowering the total emissions of toxic gas into the air by 45% from 2010 levels. In 2010, CO2 composed 65% of the Earth’s atmosphere. We also need to aim for zero emissions by the year 2050.

Government efforts shouldn’t be a movement composed of them alone. It should be a global effort geared toward global well-being. Businesses can take massive steps to contribute to climate action.

Measure Your Carbon Footprint

You need to start somewhere. The ideal place to start is to know how much greenhouse gas your business emits annually. Conducting a carbon accounting audit will allow you to create an appropriate plan. Use a third party’s help in creating this plan to decrease the footprint from existing levels.

Develop a Climate Action Plan

Once your annual data is set, developing an action plan is time. Dissect your processes and business activities systematically. Identify which of your business activities emit greenhouse gases. Make appropriate and sustainable changes to them. The most common areas you should look into are the ones below.

Supply Chain
Energy
Transportation
Food Supply

Set Targets and Goals

Once you know how to implement your plan, set time-sensitive goals and quantify targets for achieving those goals.

An excellent idea is to set an ‘internal carbon price’. This price will represent your company’s emissions. This will allow you to assess useful metrics. Metrics like opportunity costs of invested capital, ROI, and payback periods. You can achieve this by plotting the project costs involved in your plan before you implement it.

Track and Regulate Your Progress

A third-party consultant should do this for you. This will ensure accountability and measure your actual progress. Monitoring your progress will confirm the efforts you’ve accomplished and help you spot areas that may need improvement.

Support ‘Climate Active’ Politics

Most businesses shy away from involving their company in politics. But whatever our opinions of politics, governments’ influence is undeniably far-reaching. Actively support political organizations or movements in legislation. Select those that aim to create a better environment.

This will create a positive impact on your environmental advocacy. Support for policies like the Clean Air Act will eventually drive down the cost of energy use. In turn, the cost of your company’s energy consumption will also decrease.

Why Should a Business Care?

There is an urgent need to act against climate change today. It can damage worldwide economies, ravage populations, and decrease the availability of resources. It can also dramatically impact the cost of doing business.

So it is humanitarian and astute business practice to take steps against the issue.

Also, governments are driving aggressive policies. They want to apply these policies on an international level. From a business standpoint, changing internal policies is proactive. It will serve as an excellent business decision in the long run.

Aside from that, companies can also save money and secure energy sources. The reduction of solar energy costs and other renewable resources will enable this.

Also, surveys reveal that consumers today have changed their purchasing qualifications. They look at a brand and see if the company that owns it aims for environmental conservation. They want to support a business with a vision of a better world.

Fighting against climate change can serve as a marketing tool. This can create excellent storytelling opportunities for your marketing initiatives. You can assure your consuming public that your brand is meaningful by empathizing with them by standing by the same values they do regarding caring for the environment.

CHAPTER 2: BIODIVERSITY LOSS

We all are inhabitants of the Earth, held together by an intricate web of connectivity. What each species contributes to its ecosystem impacts other species outside of it. So the loss of even the smallest part of biodiversity creates huge effects that we shouldn’t disregard.

Loss of biodiversity doesn’t gain media coverage as extensively as it should. Organizations and large industries are now raising awareness globally. Even so, individuals are still unfamiliar with what it is and the depth of its effects.

Read more as we discuss the causes and effects. Including the dangers it poses, which make this a primary environmental concern.

An Overview of Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the foundation of our ecosystem. It is the variability of living organisms from different ecosystems, including marine and other aquatic ecosystems. Managed and unmanaged ecosystems are all included in biodiversity.

This means that plantations, farms, and croplands are also part of biodiversity.

Even rangelands, urban parks, nature preserves, and wildlands belong to it.

Our well-being as humans is more intimately linked to biodiversity than we realize. Therefore, we should be aware of the loss of biodiversity.

What is Biodiversity Loss?

Extinction is the extinction of species, including plants or animals worldwide. It also covers the loss or reduction of species in a particular habitat. Minor changes in the species composition can have a dramatic influence on the food chain. Extinction can affect co-extinction, which can lead to the reduction of biodiversity.

Biodiversity covers all species worldwide, and its loss can pose a danger to food security. The food chain is a complex web rather than a ladder. Species interact with each other in direct or indirect ways to survive. Any minor change can have a dramatic effect on a large number of species. We will delve into this further as we discuss biodiversity loss.

The Decline of Global Species

Human activities are causing mass extinction of species worldwide. Human civilization has had a negative impact on most living things, whether we want to admit it or not.

We have been losing species 1,000 to 10,000 times more than we used to. This is the most significant number of species extinction in the last 60 million years.
Between 1970 and 2012, marine biodiversity has declined to 36%.
The world has harvested more than 30% beyond fisheries’ biological capacity.
Biodiversity declined 81% in the freshwater system between 1970 and 2012.
Over 650,000 marine mammals worldwide get injured or caught by fishing gear annually.
One in eight birds is at risk of extinction globally, which means a 40% decline in the world’s bird species.
Climate change has made the lizard population vulnerable. A recent study reports that 40% of all lizard species will go extinct by 2080.
A new study showed a decrease of 75% in the insect population over the last 28 years in Germany.
60% of the world’s 504 primate species are under extraordinary threat of extinction. 75% of those primate species have a severe population decline.
The world’s big cats are in dangerous decline. Many of them, including tigers, cheetahs, and leopards worldwide, will become extinct in the next 10 years. They are being hunted and exploited for their skins and body parts.

What Causes Biodiversity Loss?

Different factors contribute to the loss of biodiversity. We will discuss the significant threats that contribute to habitat loss.

Habitat Loss and Degradation
- Simply put, habitats are the places where organisms live. Habitat loss and degradation happen when either natural or human activities cause changes. This changes the habitat so that fewer species can live there.
- An example of human activity is cutting down a section of forest to make space for farmland. This eliminates the habitat of hundreds of species and can drive them to extinction.
- We often think of landslides and earthquakes as ruinous natural events. Although they alter the landscape, the ecosystem can still recover from such events. However, human-caused habitat loss often creates irreversible destruction. It changes the ecosystem on a global scale and poses a significant threat.
- The primary culprit of forest deterioration is illegal logging. We lose 18.7 million acres of forests annually worldwide due to illegal logging. That’s equal to 27 soccer fields of forest every minute.
- This is not to say that only other species are affected by habitat loss. We humans depend on the entire ecology to survive. Natural habitats provide our food, create the air we breathe, and purify the water we drink. They supply all the materials we need to survive and are part of the great cycle of life. This is why habitat loss and deterioration are massive threats that endanger plants and animals.
- Deforestation
  The Amazon has lost around 17% of its forest in the last 50 years. Remote areas with valuable mahogany also felt the encroachment, which occurred during the discovery of oil and gold. Deforestation has become rampant due to forest conversion for cattle ranching, which is a major concern since these forests are home to a large part of the world’s biodiversity.
Heat and Drought Stress
Air Pollution
Overexploitation
War and Armed Conflict
Invasive Alien Species

Loss of Biodiversity Timeline

January 1, 1960
WWF raised over $5.6 million to support 356 conservation-related projects worldwide.
April 13, 1962
The Charles Darwin Research Station was established. The station played a crucial role in raising awareness of unique species preservation.
January 1, 1969
The National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, was one of the first laws that established the protection of our environment.
April 22, 1970
The first Earth Day
January 1, 1973
The Endangered Species Act was passed.
January 1, 1975
The first conservation campaign was launched based on an entire biome instead of an individual habitat.
January 1, 1980
The World Conservation Strategy was published
September 29, 1992
The Energy Policy Act was passed to increase clean energy use in the United States.
March 11, 1998
The creation of the Living Planet Report. A science-based analysis of biodiversity health and our ecological footprint.
January 1, 2002
An effort made to save the Amazon. Brazil, along with other partners, and WWF launched a 10-year initiative to preserve 12% of the Brazilian Amazon.
January 1, 2010
The largest environmental activism was created to show support for climate change. This is widely known as the Earth Hour.
February 18, 2012
Hudson River estuary restoration was launched.

What this means

We have discussed the major threats to biodiversity. Let’s discuss what happens next.

On Human Health
- Human development has been possible through nature. But, our relentless demand for resources is accelerating the extinction of our world’s ecosystem.
- Dwindling Fish Stocks
  Our primary source of protein comes from fish. Industrialized fishing has been an alarming concern for years, causing mass extinctions of marine life.
- If this continues, the ocean will no longer be able to produce fish. Reproduction will come to a halt, and our source of protein will cease to exist.
- Threat of Extinction
  The danger of extinction not only applies to the different organisms on our planet. With 7.5 billion people on Earth, we are adding 227,000 more each day. Our wildlife is taking a massive toll on our ever-growing population, and it’s impossible to miss. Most biologists agree that we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction event. This is not because of war and chemical warfare but due to overpopulation. Our population growth is causing overconsumption of resources. This needs to be addressed before it becomes too late. Otherwise, our natural resources will no longer have the ability to produce. The hunt for food will become our most pressing problem.
On The Environment

Why It’s Important

Awareness of biodiversity loss is paramount. Its loss will create catastrophic effects on humans and nature. It’s as immense a threat to us as climate change.

In the past 50 years, the deterioration of nature has been driven by the different causes we have mentioned earlier.

Biodiversity encompasses more than just the animals we can see. It includes bacteria, tiny genes, and entire ecosystems like the Amazon rainforest. This creates a figure of 2.16 million identified species worldwide (WAF). But the true figure is estimated to be 10 million or 2 billion species. This is because we haven’t explored 95% of the ocean, where other species are still unknown. This makes it harder for our scientists and biologists to provide actual data.

You may ask, why is it so important? Organisms interact with each other. The decline of a single species can and will trigger a loss in the broader ecosystem. You may have seen news about the threat of extinction to our bees. Without pollinating bees, basic processes such as breathing will become harder.

A recent report found that unless we take action, a quarter of our plant and animal species face extinction within decades.

The Relationship Of Business to Biodiversity Loss

Companies and brands are linked with biodiversity more than we care to think.

Why Should Businesses Care

Companies and businesses rely heavily on renewable resources. Biodiversity loss should be considered as a huge business risk.

Loss of biodiversity clearly indicates how our ecosystems are being degraded rapidly.

Companies can eliminate hidden risks with the help of technology. Eradicating illegal activities can also help biodiversity.

What can a business do about it

Being aware of biodiversity loss is the first step. Companies can take various steps to help curb the loss of biodiversity.

Reduce Carbon Footprint
- Reduced carbon footprint helps the environment greatly as it will lessen the damages.
Policy concerning Deforestation
Raise Awareness
Go Package Free
Protect Local Habitats

Focusing on Implementation

Now that we know what biodiversity loss is, we can focus on implementation.

You can start small by using zero-waste products and joining small organizations. It’s not too late, and we can still save our planet and all living organisms on it. A small but steady step takes a long way.

CHAPTER 3: AIR POLLUTION

Air is as vital as life. Like life, the air we breathe is a fragile component of the world’s survival. Without it, you and I will cease to exist. Below we tell a story of humankind’s fight against the pollution of the planet’s atmosphere.

Simply put, air pollution is the high concentration of pollutants in the atmosphere.

The air becomes polluted when the atmosphere collects excessive amounts of harmful gases—such massive quantities that they exceed Earth’s natural capacity to disperse them. Due to their high concentrations, the air is unable to dilute or absorb the chemicals.

Examples of the most common pollutants today are:

Particulate matter
Ozone
Nitrogen Dioxide
Carbon Monoxide, and
Sulfur Dioxide.

But there is nothing simple about the effects of these chemical compounds in our air.

These particles can severely threaten human, animal, and plant life. They also bring a slew of other issues that can catastrophically affect our ecosystem.

Causes

First, we need to determine the source of air pollution. Air pollutants are usually categorized into two types: primary and secondary pollutants.

Primary pollutants refer to compounds that sources emit directly into the atmosphere. These may be due to man-made actions or natural events. Secondary pollutants form when a primary pollutant interacts with other chemicals.

Natural phenomena include:

volcanic eruptions
forest fires
lightning strikes
wind erosion

pollen dispersal
organic compound evaporation
natural radioactivity

They release large concentrations of chemicals into the air. It’s a good thing these forces of nature, although uncontrollable, do not happen very often.

However, air pollution caused by human activities is much more prevalent today.

We discuss in detail the most widespread human activities that cause air pollution.

Combustion of Fossil Fuels

When we burn fossil fuels like coal, natural gas, and oil to produce energy, we release harmful gases into the air.

It is their natural behaviour to trap heat. So when these gases accumulate in Earth’s atmosphere, they absorb the sun’s rays. This causes temperatures on Earth’s surface to rise.

This creates a vicious cycle. Air pollution contributes to the worsening of another environmental issue: Climate Change. Climate change increases global temperatures, which in turn intensifies some types of air pollutants, like smog, for example, which only forms when the weather is warm.

Common industries in urban cities emit vast amounts of these harmful gases. They also release gaseous waste into the air daily as a result of their production process.

Using vehicles like cars, trains, and airplanes releases Carbon Monoxide. Since we rely on them daily, a considerable volume is emitted daily.

Agricultural Activities

Agriculture may connote the idea of green living, but it will surprise you to find out otherwise. The cultivation of vegetables and fruits produces a harmful by-product. Farmers often use fertilizers on their crops. This means that they dose acres of farmlands with chemicals. These chemicals, in turn, get emitted into the air.

Animal farms also contribute to air pollution through animal waste like urine and manure. In fact, animal waste produces a staggering number (estimated at 400) of gases.

Since farms keep masses of animals in one location, the gases they emit daily can increase alarmingly. This poses a danger to the local community and environment.

Household Supplies

Particulate matter is another cause of air pollution. These are microscopic-sized solid or liquid particles that get suspended in the air. Various processes like industrial, commercial, and residential combustion produce these materials.

Household cleaning supplies like cleansers and disinfectants contribute to indoor air pollution. The same goes for home improvement materials like waxes, paints, varnishes, and solvents.