An environmental issue that contributes to the need for “island civilization” is air pollution. I believe air pollution is big problem today because it is leading to health problems. Air pollution can come from a lot of things, cigarette smoke and exposure to chemicals, gases, coal, forest fires, volcanic eruptions, natural radioactivity, and pollen. Air pollutants can be man-made or natural, either way they are harming the earth. A lot of studies have shown that air pollution is a major factor in causing lung cancer, decrease in lung functioning, and morality. Being exposed to these chemicals and gases are very dangerous and harmful and it is something that would be changed if we were to adopt the idea of “island civilization”.  In the article “An Association Between Air Pollution and Morality in Six U.S. Cities”, researchers studied six random cities and sampled people in the area and looked at the deaths between the years of 1979 to 1989 in these towns. The researchers took participants and recent deaths and recorded the age, sex, smoking history, medical history, and occupational exposure of everyone. The researchers also monitored the air quality in the cities and the surrounding cities. From this experiment, they concluded that air pollution does contribute to mortality and health problems. Many people are dealing with lung problems that are exposed to these harmful and poisonous chemicals and gases. Obviously, these chemicals and gases are not good for anybody’s health, so in order to eliminate exposure to these dangerous chemicals, we need to start carpooling, drive green vehicles, use energy conserving gas, recycle. Although we cannot change natural air pollutants, we can change how much exposure of man-made pollutants are released everyday. By starting to change the way we live, we dramatically change the air quality for the better.

Source: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199312093292401#t=article