The correct option is
A Both assertion and reason are true and reason is the correct explanation for the assertion
Any undesirable change in the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of the air around us is considered to be air pollution.
Pollutants are the agents which bring about these undesirable changes and are mostly released into the environment due to human activities.
Air pollutants can be gaseous (SO
2, NO
2, CO, etc) or particulate (dust, soot, etc) in nature.
A graph of concentrations of particulate matter (of 10 micrometres or less) in the air plotted against the past few years shows that the level of particulate pollutants in air has increased progressively in the past 33 years. Thus, it can rightly be said that air pollution has dramatically increased in the past 30 years.
Fig: Graph showing increase in the concentration of particulate matter in air in the past 33 years
Enormous growth in the size of the human population in the last hundred years has resulted in growing demand for commodities such as food, water, electricity, automobiles etc.
With a rapidly growing population and increased urbanisation, humans have manipulated and polluted the environment to fulfil their needs.
Exhausts from factories, automobiles, thermal power plants, dust from mining industries, burning of coal or wood for cooking, etc are some of the anthropogenic sources of air pollutants that are released into the air due to human activities.
Thus, both assertion and reason are true and reason is the correct explanation for the assertion.