Environmental Problems: A Determining Factor of Future Politics

Abstract

Three major topics are dealt with in this paper: the climate problem; the acidifiers introduced into the ecosystem; and the health-risks which industrial societies suffer due to increasing emissions into the atmosphere, rivers and soil. There is some relationship between these, since carbonburning also creates SO₂, NO_x as well as CO₂. Release of chloro-fluor-hydrocarbons into the atmosphere destroys stratospehric ozone; these gases in particular seem to be responsible for the Antarctic ozone-hole, which might reduce the global ozone inventory further, so that skin-cancer increase may become a real threat. As these other gases are also relevant to the greenhouse-effect, their increasing concentration in the atmosphere links their emissions also to the climate threat.