Remember Acid Rain?
Back when I was a teenager, “acid rain” was a worrying phenomenon. The term referred to the problem of particulate matter released from factories (e.g. Sulphur etc) mixing with water-vapour in the air. As a result, the rain that fell was a bit more acidic. Acid rain then made the soil more acidic and impacted the organisms that lived in soil as well as the growth of plants. And from them the acidic content would flow up the food chain with damaging consequences at every step. Even worse, the (slightly) more acidic rivers would be a bit more corrosive and wear down rocks faster. In turn, those rocks would release more particulate matter into the water and air, accelerating the whole acid rain cycle further. Sounds scary, right? So why don’t we hear about acid rain anymore? This podcast explains. Remember this was a problem in the 1980’s. The biggest polluter back then was the US (China and India were inconsequential back then on most matters, including pollution). ...