Someone fortunate enough to be living in Montana might view all the concern about air pollution as a mystery. Yet when you live downtown and you can practically touch the air, never mind see it, and to breathe deeply is usually a challenge, things are a little different. Nowhere in the world is free from air pollution; if a place doesn't make its own, it simply wafts in naturally, since there are no pollution border controls.

The air is filled with things that are bad for people, including carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrates, lead, ozone, secondhand tobacco smoke and particulate matter. Particulate matter emanates from many sources, such as power generation, vehicle emissions, many forms of industrial pollution, together with many others. Plus anything else that fouls the air, actually, such as volcanoes, pollen's, forest fires, mold and a lot more. These particles are varied with regard to size, their origin and their composition, although one of the worst is vehicle emissions. The worsening air pollution conditions are because of the busy streets, especially in the biggest cities around the world.

Carbon monoxide gas is a major part of air pollution, but it's not easy to detect, being without having color or odor. It's traceable directly to the combustion process in vehicles that run on gasoline, and also the smoking of cigarette's. It is harmful to the body, since it decreases the level of oxygen, and high enough levels are fatal. Respiratory ailments have been caused by carbon monoxide, even being taken in by the body in small amounts over a long period of time. Typically the inhaling of carbon monoxide is definitely the reason for much of the world's ill health. Many studies that have been performed into the damaging effects of pollution show how bad cars and factories are in this regard.

It is apparent from the studies that from one city to another the pollutants found to be present and their effects are very different. Pollutants from traffic were found to be responsible for a higher mortality rate, in an eight year study involving five thousand adults. People who live in close proximity to a busy road are more inclined to die from a cardiovascular disease, such as a heart attack. The level of air pollution from the most polluted cities in the States will certainly cause the life expectancy of people living there to be shortened by between two and three years. The conclusion of researchers is that a cardiovascular event, resulting in death, will happen to people even if they only have short-term exposure to particle pollution at elevated levels.

Areas with higher concentrations of particle pollution experience greater numbers of hospital admissions due to pulmonary and cardiovascular problems. In areas where particle pollution is quite high, life expectancy will be shorter by a number of years. Unless circumstances change, all these facts point to a somewhat unhealthy future for people in America. There must be a more suitable way to control the amount of pollution from vehicles, or the future will be even worse than the present.