Mexico City Air Pollution
see a city where the children color the sky either brown or gray. People are wearing surgical masks to protect their lungs from toxins. This description reminds me of Mexico City, one of the most polluted cities in the world. Transportation and industry are the leading causes of pollution in the city. The pollution is compounded by geographical factors.
First, the leading cause of the pollution is transportation due to three million, five hundred and twenty thousand citizens privately owning vehicles, out of an extraordinarily high population of twenty two million. Further, due to the high altitude, the air is thinner, which causes gasoline to burn less efficiently.
The second leading cause of Mexico City’s pollution is industry because of the significant number of factories releasing sulfur dioxide, other chemicals, and primary pollutants into the air. Primary pollutants are released directly from a chemical process and may produce secondary pollutants. Secondary pollutants are primary pollutants that either interact or go through a chemical reaction.
The geography of Mexico City’s location is a major contributor to air pollution. Mexico City is surrounded by the Sierra Madres Mountains, which prevents the polluted air from escaping, causing a substantial greenhouse effect.
The effects of Mexico City’s pollution include poor visibility, headaches, obesity and other health problems, and standard of living. Many of these effects are shared by the citizens of the U.S, for example, obesity. In the U.S obesity is often a choice. This is not the case in Mexico City. People are advised not to go outside or anywhere for that matter. They don’t want to risk their lives just to go outside, so they eat a large amount of “junk” food. Some other health problems include emphysema (em-fuh-see-muh), a lung disease that reduces the ability to exhale, and bronchitis (bronk-ki-tis), an inflammation of the bronchial tubes that bring in air into the lungs. Breathing in...
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