ATMOSPHERE

Priorities:

Ambient air quality decline

Greenhouse emissions

Ambient air quality is degraded by:

• Smoke, primarily from burning in the agricultural and forestry sectors, and domestic woodheaters, but also from bushfires and controlled burning.
  pollution comes from motor vehicles and industry.
  

Industry sources contributing to poor air quality include:

• Coal, diesel and wood burning, e.g. sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides
• Fuel storage, e.g. vapour emissions
• Air-borne wood dust from woodchip stockpiles
• Dust from quarry operations
• Forestry regeneration, agricultural and fuel reduction burns
• Chemical spray drift in agricultural areas and urban areas nearby
• Odour and other gaseous emissions from waste refuse sites
• Odours associated with noxious activities, e.g. meat processing, tanning
• Fumes associated with underground mining
• Particles discharged by mines and mills.

The enhanced greenhouse effect is caused by increases in greenhouse gases by human activity. While a range of greenhouse gases contributes to global warming, the principal contributors are carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have risen throughout the past 200 years, due mainly to burning fossil fuels, clearing vegetation and loss of carbon from soils. The main human sources of methane are farming of cattle and sheep, landfills and fossil fuel exploration and extraction. Cattle farming is a significant source of nitrous oxide.