What effects do aircraft emissions/air pollution have on peoples health?
The effect of aircraft on pollution is very small, since aircraft are vastly outnumbered by other sources of pollution. And, as Pancakes has pointed out, one volcano completely eclipses all of aviation in terms of pollution. The Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland has been ejecting up to 500 tons of material per second at times, and it’s not a big volcano. Five hundred tons per second is the equivalent of about 20,000 airplanes, so a single volcano has been pumping more junk into the air than all the aircraft in the world combined. In fact, a large volcano can out-pollute just about all human activities.
