What is acid rain? It’s basically rain that has a very low pH (2.8-1.7) than it should. The root cause of such acidity is industrial emissions ( sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides). Therefore as the rate of industry increased, more sulphur and nitrogen oxides where released into the atmosphere causing the rain to be more acidic.
One vital feature of the oxides is that they are very light so they can travel far distances and contaminate neighboring places. ‘From that we can conclude why it became a major world problem’.
Back then acid rain was a major issue. Acid rain wreaked havoc around the world; it rendered lakes inhospitable, killed forests and crops, corroded ancient known buildings in addition to causing health problems for some.
As a result of the political pressure, nations started to take real actions/set protocols about limiting the emissions of nitrogen and sulphur oxides, moreover they implemented cap and trade system for reducing emissions as well as signing agreements to reduce the emissions. Fortunately, the actions took worked and the amount of the oxides started to decrease.
On the other hand, nowadays as new countries are beginning to join the industry market the emissions are starting to increase again. Also, carbon dioxide is now found to be acidifying oceans and lakes!
Finally, reducing carbon dioxide emissions should now be the goal to prevent the events of acid rain.