Acid Rain?

[Oilpatch197]

I've noticed that over the past 7-10 years I have not heard anything about Acid Rain from pollutants, is the problem solved? Usually when a acid rain comes it makes the news, is it safe to make Snow Ice cream now?

[uncle Will in In.]

Snow icecream is still risky as the milk and sugar are probably polluted now.

[Beeman]

The first snow should never be used for snow ice cream. I would say the best would be the 2nd or 3rd if they came right after another. Acid isn't the problem with snow as much as solid pollutants and radioactivity.
Next time it rains either use litmus paper or dump a little baking soda in a puddle. This will show you if there is acid in the rain.

[jerneeon]

Dump baking soda in a puddle? How does it tell you there is acid in the rain?

[insanity]

Originally Posted by jerneeon

Dump baking soda in a puddle? How does it tell you there is acid in the rain?

It would boil and fizz if there were enough acid in it.
I use a solution of a spoon full of baking soda to a half gallon of water to pore over corroded car batteries.It will fizz like crazy as it neutralizes the acid.
Just make sure if you do this you caps are tight closed and you wash the it off with water.If any gets in the battery it kills it.

I remember years ago as a kid seeing melted holly umbrellas and other stuff on display at a museum.But thats the only time i have ever heard of acid rain.
Id have thought the problem would have gotten worse not better.Maybe the clean air act fixed it? Or it just isn't acidic enough to show by eating up every thing.

You no ive seen soda and beer cans come out of springs,that looked like new even though they where tossed in there more than 30yrs.No rust at all.Yet they would rust completely apart if left out in the open for less than 2yrs..Wonder if the acid in the rain water is what causes stuff to rust? Because apparently it is water doing it.

[kathy H]

I dont know about acid rain but just read were city kids get asthma alot more now and alot end up with impared lung function when they grow up.

[Cabin Fever]

OMG! How can you be worried about consuming the acidity in acid rain when the pH of Coke is 2.5!!

[Paul O]

Acid rain never left. It’s a constant thing. This is a particular sore spot for me because of my location (Maine). Our industrialized friends a bit to the west benefit from outdated, coal fired generators but we get the downwind problems like acid rain, Mercury etc.

The emphasis now seems to be Mercury pollution. Mercury pollution comes with the acid rain. Also there’s a fair amount of radioactive fallout from the coal-fired generators. There are minor trace elements in coal that are radioactive. When you burn megatons of it, the radioactive fallout adds up.

In Maine, most of the east and the Canadian Maritimes acid rain and its accompanying Mercury is a daily concern. We can’t eat the fish in our streams and ponds because of it.

As I said, it’s a real sore spot for me.

Paul O

[Christiaan]

Acid rain never left, it is the victim of our corporate media and short attention span citizenry. Under the current administration it has actually gotten worse due to pandering to corporations and to hell with people and the environment. The acid kills trees, the heavy metals and radioactive particles cause disease and deformities in throughout the environment with the heaviest dosages settling in at the top of the food chain. (That's us). Thank God that it doesn't crimp corporate profits.

[diane greene]

Environmental problems have been dismissed by the current administration for the love of corporate profits. Their new energy proposals will only make it easier for polluters to pollute. The other culprit is the general apathy of the public who don't seem to care what we do to the Creator's beautiful earth. Here is a current overview of acid rain from studyworld.com:
_______________________
Acid rain is a cancer eating into the face of Eastern Canada and the North Eastern United States. In Canada, the main sulphuric acid sources are non-ferrous smelters and
power generation. On both sides of the border, cars and trucks are the main sources for nitric acid(about 40% of the total), while power generating plants and industrial commercial and residential fuel combustion together contribute most of the rest. In the air, the sulphur
dioxide and nitrogen oxides can be transformed into sulphuric acid and nitric acid, and air current can send them thousands of kilometres from the source.When the acids
fall to the earth in any form it will have large impact on the growth or the preservation of certain wildlife.

Areas in Ontario mainly southern regions that are near the Great Lakes, such substances as limestone or other known antacids can neutralize acids entering the body of water
thereby protecting it. However, large areas of Ontario that are near the Pre-Cambrian Shield, with quartzite or granite based geology and little top soil, there is not enough
buffering capacity to neutralize even small amounts of acid falling on the soil and the lakes. Therefore over time, the basic environment shifts from an alkaline to a acidic one.
This is why many lakes in the Muskoka, Haliburton, Algonquin, Parry Sound and Manitoulin districts could lose their fisheries if sulphur emissions are not reduced substantially.

The average mean of pH rainfall in Ontario's Muskoka-Haliburton lake country ranges between 3.95 and 4.38 about 40 times more acidic than normal rainfall, while
storms in Pennsilvania have rainfall pH at 2.8 it almost has the same rating for vinegar.

Already 140 Ontario lakes are completely dead or dying. An additional 48 000 are sensitive and vulnerable to acid rain due to the surrounding concentrated acidic soils.

Canada does not have as many people, power plants or automobiles as the United States, and yet acid rain there has become so severe that Canadian government officials
called it the most pressing environmental issue facing the nation. But it is important to bear in mind that acid rain is only one segment, of the widespread pollution of the
atmosphere facing the world. Each year the global atmosphere is on the receiving end of 20 billion tons of carbon dioxide, 130 million tons of suffer dioxide, 97 million tons of hydrocarbons, 53 million tons of nitrogen oxides, more than three million tons of arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, nickel, zinc and other toxic metals, and a host of synthetic organic compounds ranging from polychlorinated biphenyls(PCBs) to toxaphene and other
pesticides, a number of which may be capable of causing cancer, birth defects, or genetic imbalances.

Interactions of pollutants can cause problems. In addition to contributing to acid rain, nitrogen oxides can react with hydrocarbons to produce ozone, a major air pollutant
responsible in the United States for annual losses of $2 billion to 4.5 billion worth of wheat, corn, soyabeans, and peanuts. A wide range of interactions can occur many unknown with toxic metals.

In Canada, Ontario alone has lost the fish in an estimated 4000 lakes and provincial authorities calculate that Ontario stands to lose the fish in 48 500 more lakes within
the next twenty years if acid rain continues at the present rate.Ontario is not alone, on Nova Scotia's Eastern most shores, almost every river flowing to the Atlantic Ocean is
poisoned with acid. Further threatening a $2 million a year fishing industry.

Acid rain is killing more than lakes. It can scar the leaves of hardwood forest, wither ferns and lichens, accelerate the death of coniferous needles, sterilize seeds, and weaken the forests to a state that is vulnerable to disease infestation and decay. In the soil the acid
neutralizes chemicals vital for growth, strips others from the soil and carries them to the lakes and literally retards the respiration of the soil. The rate of forest growth in the White Mountains of New Hampshire has declined 18% between 1956 and 1965, time of increasingly intense
acidic rainfall.

Acid rain no longer falls exclusively on the lakes, forest, and thin soils of the Northeast it now covers half the continent.

There is evidence that the rain is destroying the productivity of the once rich soils themselves, like an overdose of chemical fertilizer or a gigantic drenching of vinegar. The damage of such overdosing may not be repairable or reversible. On some croplands, tomatoes grow
to only half their full weight, and the leaves of radishes wither. Naturally it rains on cities too, eating away stone monuments and concrete structures, and corroding the pipes
which channel the water away to the lakes and the cycle is repeated. Paints and automobile paints have its life reduce due to the pollution in the atmosphere speeding up the
corrosion process. In some communities the drinking water is laced with toxic metals freed from metal pipes by the acidity. As if urban skies were not already grey enough,
typical visibility has declined from 10 to 4 miles, along the Eastern seaboard, as acid rain turns into smogs. Also, now there are indicators that the components of acid rain
are a health risk, linked to human respiratory disease.

[southerngurl]

Hey, maybe we can all grow blueberries...

and have blueberry snowcream!

[Oilpatch197]

So do the Baking soda test and if it doesn't fizzle, I can make my Snow Icecream!

I ate snow Ice cream as a kid, is our world too dirty? I think not, in fact I would think it would be cleaner(remember the 70's)

[john#4]

Oilpatch,

The situation is not better, it is worse. You don’t hear about because it is being keep quite. The Gov. would louse too much money to bail out companies and rebuild them to burn a cleaner fuel. In other words, all for money and screw everything else. Not only us but also people in other countries.
This could will be another death toll.
John#4

[sisterpine]

this strikes me as kind of funny. of course i live in a place with pretty clean air and i have been making snow ice cream for the past 30 years with no problems! i have heard of acid rain ruining paint on cars and hurting statues but have never really seen/tasted/felt it myself?