Environment & Ecology GK Questions with Answers – Page 33

A catalytic converter holds platinum, palladium and rhodium on a honeycomb support, which oxidise carbon monoxide and unburnt hydrocarbons to carbon dioxide and water and reduce the oxides of nitrogen to nitrogen.

An electrostatic precipitator gives the dust and ash particles in the flue gas an electric charge as they pass an electrode, and then collects them on plates carrying the opposite charge; the plates are shaken so that the collected ash falls into a hopper.

This Act is the specific law on air pollution. It empowers the Central and State Pollution Control Boards to lay down emission standards for industry and for vehicles, to declare air pollution control areas and to require consent before a polluting plant is set up or operated.

The National Air Quality Index has six bands: 0 to 50 is Good, 51 to 100 Satisfactory, 101 to 200 Moderate, 201 to 300 Poor, 301 to 400 Very Poor and 401 to 500 Severe.

The Montreal Protocol, adopted in 1987 under the Vienna Convention, commits its parties to phasing out chlorofluorocarbons, halons and other chemicals that destroy stratospheric ozone, and it is regarded as the most successful environmental treaty for that reason.

Particulate matter is graded by the diameter of the particles measured in micrometres, so PM10 means particles of ten micrometres or less and PM2.5 means particles of 2.5 micrometres or less, which is about thirty times finer than a human hair.

Sulphur dioxide from industry and traffic around Agra is oxidised in the air and comes down as sulphuric acid, which attacks the calcium carbonate of marble.

Sulphur dioxide, released when coal and oil containing sulphur are burnt, is oxidised in the atmosphere to sulphur trioxide, which dissolves in water droplets to give sulphuric acid.

Carbon monoxide binds to the haemoglobin of the blood roughly two hundred times more readily than oxygen does, and the carboxyhaemoglobin so formed cannot carry oxygen.

Photochemical smog, also called Los Angeles smog, forms in warm, dry, sunny weather when oxides of nitrogen from vehicle exhaust and unburnt hydrocarbons react under ultraviolet light.

A secondary pollutant is never emitted from a source; it is manufactured in the atmosphere itself when primary pollutants react with one another or with sunlight.

Set up in 1981 and based at Dehradun, it assesses the country's forest and tree cover from satellite data and brings out the India State of Forest Report once every two years, giving the cover state by state and by density class.

The Montreal Protocol was adopted under the Vienna Convention of 1985 and sets a timetable for phasing out chlorofluorocarbons, halons and similar chemicals.

The convention was signed in 1971 at Ramsar, a town in Iran, and is the oldest of the modern global conservation treaties.

It added Article 48A to the directive principles, asking the state to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard forests and wildlife, and Article 51A, clause g, to the fundamental duties, laying the same obligation on every citizen.

The Authority was set up under the Biological Diversity Act of 2002 and is based at Chennai in Tamil Nadu.

The Board was created by that Act to advise the central government, to lay down standards for effluents and to coordinate the work of the State Pollution Control Boards, which were set up by the same law in the states.

The National Green Tribunal Act was passed in 2010 and the tribunal began work in the same year, to provide quick and specialised disposal of cases on environmental protection and forest conservation.

The Act was passed in the wake of the Bhopal gas tragedy and gives the central government a general power to take any measure it considers necessary to protect and improve the quality of the environment.

The National Clean Air Programme was launched by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in January 2019 as a national framework to cut particulate pollution in cities that do not meet the national ambient air quality standards.