Environmentalism has, in recent years, grown indisputably in terms of both popularity and awareness. Yet despite ubiquitous calls for environmental-friendliness and even widespread activism pushing for increased legislation, exhaust emissions persist to be one of humanity’s most obstinate problems today. And with each car on average producing more than 2.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year and an estimated population of 1.2 billion motor vehicles in the year 2030, it’s no wonder why traffic fumes are often considered the biggest environmental perpetrator of them all.
The implications on humanity are severe and not limited to long-term effects. The Beijing 2008 Olympics in China have, if anything, brought to light how the issues of pollution are startlingly real and often manifest to uncontrollable proportions before authorities are can gather the necessary resources or political will. Consider also the instances of London, Los Angeles, or California – all of which are well known cities that in recent years have received strong media criticism over poor pollution records. Inevitably, we are increasingly living in a world where smog and haze are becoming the most prevalent aspects of society.
Even then, aesthetical issues may actually be the least of our worries. Perhaps one of the more alarming problems, or at least to individuals, would be health-related complications. Traffic emissions, for example, are now known to dramatically increase the potential risk of a fatal blood clot known as DVT, or deep vein thrombosis. Asthma, respiratory complications, and even heart or lung disease are also some of the more commonly known health effects of long-term air pollution that are associated with exhaust emissions.
These numerous issues, however, are comparatively inconsequential when contrasted against the controversy surrounding climate change. Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth sparked worldwide debate when he pointed out, among other things, how carbon dioxide emissions may eventually lead to widespread flooding, droughts and even steady increases in global temperature should current trends persist.
The problems of pollution, exacerbated by exhaust emissions, hence seem to promise a depressing and bleak future ahead and cause little wonder to why some even go as far as to condemn the motor vehicle to be mankind’s worst invention. Environmental degradation has since ceased to be a domestic affair, but has instead part of an exclusive group of global challenges that Kofi Annan famously coined as problems without passports.
Thankfully, the notion of pollution being uncontrollable is merely a myth, though it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy if too widely accepted. Hydrogen-powered cars, where water undergoes electrolysis to produce a mix of hydrogen and oxygen, are merely some of the more relevant examples of alternative technologies becoming increasingly developed today. “Going-green” is quickly ceasing to be an idealistic concept but a pragmatic one with rising fuel costs and the realization that oil wells will eventually run dry. The odds are surely stacked against us, but if history is any indicator, mankind’s ingenuity may eventually triumph yet again.
The consequences of exhaust emissions are real, damaging, and drastic. And supposing we truly recognize that, now might just be our last chance to make that clarion call for change.
