Powell, T. B. (2022, April 26). What happened to acid rain? How the environmental movement won — and could again. CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/acid-rain-environment-earth-day/

 

Research that has been conducted over the past 30 years has shown how many harmful gasses have been steadily decreasing. It shows that since 1990 gasses such as carbon monoxide in the air have decreased by 74%, nitrogen dioxide by 57% and sulfur dioxide by 89%. Another study was done by scientists where they compared the PH levels from 1963 to today where the PH level was 4.0 – 4.2 and now it is 5.2. It goes on to reveal that the reason for the growth of acidic rain is due to the emissions from many large power plants and factories ending up in large bodies of water. Tracing it back to around the 1950s when the increase could be seen. However, researchers show that things are starting to look up as many new policies are put into place to limit emissions and lead to less acidic rain. Dr. Michael Rennie, a freshwater ecology professor at Lakehead University in Canada, claims “It took more than 20 years, but we’re starting to see biological recovery in a lot of these systems. We’re starting to see chemical recovery. So it’ll happen.” Explaining that even though it took a while, we are starting to get on the right track to healing our planet back to where it is sustainable for all of us. 

 

This article demonstrates how over time we have seen the effects our pollution has on the environment through things such as acid rain. It connected the rise in large emission-producing factories to the uptick in acidic rainfalls starting in the mid-1950s. Now I find this article both interesting and hopeful. Interesting in the fact that I wasn’t too aware of what damage acidic rain had on the environment as a whole. Also what is interesting is that scientists can pinpoint it back to the 1950s as when the uptick began and how it changed over this large period of time. This also makes me hopeful due to the many policies it mentions that are or will be in place that should really help to improve our emissions.