Acid Rain Legislature

Currently, acid rain has vast impacts on tombstone degradation and the solutions are relatively temporary. Certain coatings and materials will better resist the chemical destruction that the rain brings but scientists are still working on reversing the slow but steady pH changes of the rain. Limiting pollutant release is at best slowing the drop in pH of the rain but a true solution that will fully reverse acid rain has yet to be determined. 

The US congress intervened  through the Clean Air Act of 1970. Sulfate and nitrate precipitation in rain fell by 40% by 2000. Some nations such as Russia and China are still experiencing significant impacts. The governments of these countries have yet to impose stringent anti-pollution regulations that the US and some other countries have pushed for and it is evident in their rain. These countries are facing extreme consequences that are as profound as causing landslides and have amounted to civilian deaths

(5).

The landslide was due to the acid rain eroding the underlying limestone and shale bedrock, eventually causing the rock to shift. The regulation of pollution worldwide is largely political and it is an issue that is being dealt with internationally through climate change summits and international conferencing. Lawmakers are trying to come to a compromise with developing countries to preserve the environment and decrease the damaging impacts of acid rain worldwide.

Acid rain has a profound impact on the environment and is an extremely broad topic. Its impacts on the world is huge and a good conduit for observing its effects are the “permanent” markings we put in the ground to remember lost loved ones.  As an artifact of permanence, a symbol of the innervation of humans into nature, tombstone are being worn away by the ones who put them there in the first place.

Acid rain is just a part of the bigger issue of how humans have altered Earth in a negative way for the other creatures that inhabit it. Lawmakers and world leaders ultimately must take steps to turn advice from scientists into law but the world has a long way to go to slow down the rapid change of the Earth’s climate.