Acid Rain Was Once a Huge Environmental Scare but Here’s Why You Rarely Hear About It Now

When humans hurt nature, Earth weeps. Its screeching wails rise towards the sky and rain down teardrops, not of blood or salt, but acid. Dubbed “acid rain,” this rain is a witch’s brew that has leached the planet’s soils dry and barren, that has flattened the forests into eerily lifeless landmasses, and that has annihilated the population of fish and little monsters that guarded the wild ocean waters. Historically, acid rain has mangled buildings, watercourses, wildlife, and forests. But these poison-tinted showers don’t make an appearance as often as they did in the past. What has changed? Earth.com reflects in a video.

A witch's brew in disguise 

The business of concocting this deathly acid rain is overseen by humans, powered by their desire to source electric energy and ride in stylish cars. Once the energy has been churned for usage inside the sinister cauldron of their power plants, the factories spew billowing swirls of smoke that spread into the atmosphere and cling to the moisture-laced clouds floating there.

A rain of blood would be unmistakably visible due to its bright crimson color. But acid rain is so deceptive as to fool humans into believing that it is normal, unpolluted rain. The raindrops are colorless and clear, leaving no evidence for the aesthetics to decipher. It is only in the aftermath that the true identity of this acid-oozing rain materializes in the form of tree diebacks, suffocating animals, vanishing fish, and dwindling soil fertility. In the past, this hellish cocktail has unleashed massive destruction on the environment.

Acid rains in history

The BBC discussed the case of a lake in Sudbury, Ontario. Sitting near the nickel and copper smelters of the town, the lake’s waters were found to be unnaturally clear when a crew of scientists dipped their mugs inside and could see everything to 50 feet at the bottom. The sight was surreal, but also creepy. The unexceptional clarity of the water was due to the lack of supportive algae. The fish and organisms thriving inside the lake had also died due to acidic rains.

Another case unrolled in the 1970s when acid rain clutched in its seething grip Germany’s Black Forest and New York’s Adirondack Mountains. As the German Marshall Fund of the United States describes, there were bare black tree stumps for miles and miles as far as the eye could see. Evergreens had died, and the soils were leached of nutrients and fertility. In the mountains, fish disappeared from the lagoons.

Unforgiving chemistry

While the sight of acid rain falling from the sky and coming in contact with the Earth seems quite normal, the main drama unfolds in the upper atmosphere. Two culprit compounds, named sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, seep into the atmosphere after being spewed by the power plants, coal plants, and fossil fuel factories down below. Sometimes, the same emissions are released by volcanoes, wildfires, and vehicles like cars. As the two compounds enter the atmospheric realm, they start bonding with water and oxygen molecules hanging there and eventually transform into sulphuric acid and nitric acid, respectively. Mr. DeMaio explains in a video that this rain has a pH level between 4 to 6, as compared to a pH of 2 found in lemons. 

Cap and trade system

In 1963, scientists studying Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest tested some rainfall samples and found that they were nearly 100 times more acidic than usual. They could foresee the threat that this rain would bring to the area’s ecosystem. So they started isolating the cause of the acid rain, per TED-Ed. After a decade of struggles and hurdles, the scientists convinced the government to set a limit on the total emissions a power plant could release in a given time, something they dubbed the “Cap and trade system.”

Many companies switched to low-sulphur coal and natural gas, while others started involving acid-neutralizing bugs. Others began deploying scrubbers, a.k.a. flue-gas desulphurization systems designed to soak up sulphur dioxide from power plants. Thanks to this system, the emissions have dropped by more than 90% since 1990.

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