Purpose: The purpose of this lesson is to help students gain an understanding of how degraded air quality compromises human health and destroys the environment.

Overview: It is easy to take air for granted because air is all around us and provides the backdrop for everything we do. In this lesson students will learn about the impact of air quality and responsible environmental activism.

Objectives: Students will be able to describe how air supports life, and how human actions are degrading air quality. Students will be able to provide examples of people who are working to improve air quality in their communities and describe the ethical principles that guide them in their activities. They will learn how the principle of duty is relevant to determining ethical responsibility to protect air quality.

Key Concepts:
• Air is a life giving medium that surrounds
and supports all life on Earth.
• Human actions are threatening the atmosphere, and issues such as toxic air pollution, climate change, the ozone hole,
and acid rain are affecting the quality of
human
and nonhuman life.
• People are taking actions to improve air quality by pressing the government to limit industrial waste and working with community groups to regulate the quality of their local environment.
• When exploring issues of environmental ethics, the ethical principles of utility and duty are often in conflict.

Video Segments:



M.C. Mehta, India, 1996
M.C. Mehta, a public interest lawyer, recognized how air pollution was destroying the Taj Mahal—one of India’s cultural and architectural treasures. Mehta started a movement not only to protect this great wonder, but also to attack his country’s monumental problems of air pollution. Hundreds of polluting factories have either been closed down or have installed pollution control devises thanks to Mehta’s tireless work. He has also taken on water pollution and habitat destruction cases, and is one of the most successful environmental lawyers in the world.
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Margie Eugene-Richard, United States, 2004
For residents of a tiny Louisiana town sandwiched between a chemical plant and an oil refinery, breathing the air could be deadly. After watching neighbors and family members contract rare diseases, and witnessing explosions at the plant that poured millions of pounds of toxic chemicals into the air, Margie Eugene-Richard became an activist dedicated to cleaning up her neighborhood and holding the polluting companies responsible for their actions. For minority groups who bear a disproportional amount of the social costs of environmental problems, Richard is an environmental justice hero.
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Terri Swearingen, United States, 1997
When Terri Swearingen found out that a toxic waste incinerator was being planned for her community, she was very concerned. Although company officials claimed that the only thing that would come out of the smokestacks would be puffs of water vapor, she feared that this facility would pose a health threat to the neighboring homes, the closest being only 300 feet from the plant, and an elementary school that was only 1000 feet away. Swearingen organized local citizens, led protests, exposed the illegal permits that allowed the plant to be built, and successfully pressured the federal government to make stricter regulations on waste incinerators.
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