Category:Air Pollution: Difference between revisions

Air Quality ~90% of the 🌎’s population breathing polluted air

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November 2024

Smog Chokes India and Pakistan

New Delhi and the surrounding metropolitan area, home to about 55 million people, had the world’s worst air pollution on Monday, according to IQAir, a Swiss company that measures air quality. The reading on its index rose to over 1,600.

Anything above 301 on that index is considered hazardous, potentially leading to severe eye and throat irritation and serious heart and lung conditions. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency essentially considers anything beyond 500 to be off the charts.

“All of North India has been plunged into a medical emergency,” Atishi Marlena, the chief minister of Delhi, said on Monday, adding that many cities were “reeling under severe levels of pollution.”

Air Pollution Kills 10 Million People a Year. Why Do We Accept That as Normal?

Via NY Times / 8 July 2022

• https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/opinion/environment/air-pollution-deaths-climate-change.html

Via London Review of Books / 2 December 2021

• https://lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n23/david-wallace-wells/ten-million-a-year

TW Thread / 'Ten Million a Year: David Wallace-Wells on polluted air'

• https://twitter.com/dwallacewells/status/1464251501757480983

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Fossil Fuel Air Pollution Linked To 1 In 5 Deaths Worldwide, New Harvard Study Finds

Eight, Nine, Ten Million

Findings of this research will likely amplify calls to rapidly transition off of oil, gas and coal for reasons beyond curbing climate change

Air pollution from burning fossil fuels caused 1 in 5 deaths worldwide in 2018, killing more than 8 million+ people, according to Harvard University research published (Feb. 2021) in the 'Environmental Research Journal'.

The finding, based on new models that use atmospheric chemistry, significantly increased the previous estimates for deaths linked to tiny particles of burned carbon that lodge in soft lung tissue and cause respiratory diseases, trigger asthma attacks, and cloud cities with smog.

A recent prior estimate from the world’s largest and most comprehensive study of global deaths, known as the 'Global Burden of Disease Study', reported the total lives lost to outdoor airborne particulate matter ― which includes not only fossil fuel pollution, but also dust, wildfire smoke and burning crop fields ― at 4.2 million per year.

The new Harvard research shows nearly double that total from fossil fuel pollution alone, with the highest concentrations of fossil fuel-related deaths in regions with some of the most populous cities, where combustion-engine automobiles, fuel-heated buildings and sprawling power plants abound. Those regions include eastern North America, Europe and Southeast Asia...

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Indoor air pollution can be deadly for babies

• https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/21/polluted-air-killing-half-a-million-babies-a-year-across-globe

Air pollution particles in young brains linked to Alzheimer's damage

The Guardian / October 6, 2020

Global implications as 90% of people breathe dirty air

• https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/06/air-pollution-particles-in-young-brains-linked-to-alzheimers-damage

• https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/may/17/air-pollution-may-be-damaging-every-organ-and-cell-in-the-body-finds-global-review

Tiny air pollution particles have been revealed in the brain stems of young people and are intimately associated with molecular damage linked to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease

Nanoparticles... linked to neurodegenerative diseases... more studies needed to study neuropathology of the brain stem

Neurotoxicants... 'metal rich nanoparticles... matched the shape and chemical composition of particles produced by traffic, through combustion and braking friction'

See the Scientific Study at Environmental Research

Volume 191, December 2020

• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0013935120310367

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The 'Greatest Risk'

• https://www.france24.com/en/20200728-air-pollution-greatest-risk-to-global-life-expectancy

"Clean air is a matter of life and death"

• https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-09-14/smog-a-memo-from-las-past-and-maybe-our-future

Coronavirus and Impacts on Air Pollution Levels

One City, One Among Many, COVID-19 Measures and Monitors

• https://www.inquirer.com/science/climate/air-quality-coronavirus-pollution-levels-decrease-philadelphia-20200417.html

Coronavirus impact on air quality in China, Feb 2020

• https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146362/airborne-nitrogen-dioxide-plummets-over-china

Millions of deaths every year due to Air Pollution

• http://www9.who.int/airpollution/en/

Demonstrating the poisonous air of five major cities...

Experience #pollutionpods -- the air we breathe

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ5wUROqOpU

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7nMME-3aC8

The Time is Now, Time to Raise Awareness of the Need for Air Quality and Health!

• https://twitter.com/UNFCCC/status/1179050570704969728

Talking of Toxic Air Pollution!

'This is your brain on air pollution'

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The Great Challenge: Air Pollution Impacts on Health from Childhood to Old Age

Report: Toxic air will shorten children's lives by 20 months

Global air pollution crisis is taking its greatest toll on children in South Asia

93 percent of the world’s children breathe polluted air each day

Nearly 2 billion children – about 93 percent of the world’s children under the age of 15 – breathe toxic, putrid air that’s so polluted it puts their health and well-being at serious risk, according to a new report by the World Health Organization.

Many of the children die: The United Nations' World Health Organization (WHO) estimates 600,000 children died in 2016 from lower respiratory infections caused by dirty air.

“Polluted air is poisoning millions of children and ruining their lives,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO. “This is inexcusable. Every child should be able to breathe clean air so they can grow and fulfill their full potential.”

Air pollution can affect children's cognitive ability and can also trigger asthma as well as cancer. Children who have been exposed to high levels of air pollution may be at greater risk for chronic illnesses such as cardiovascular disease later in life...

• https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/29-10-2018-more-than-90-of-the-world%E2%80%99s-children-breathe-toxic-air-every-day

Children's Health and Air Pollution Report

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Off-the-chart air pollution in Delhi

Devastating, debilitating, deadly

Delhi Disaster

• https://www.airvisual.com/air-quality-map?lat=28.6683&lng=77.1167&zoomLevel=10

The Delhi air quality index, or AQI, reached as high as 858 at some areas in New Delhi at 6.30 a.m. on Monday after breaching 1,000 over the weekend, according to website AirVisual, which monitors air pollution around the world. Readings above 300 are considered hazardous and anything below 50 is the safe level.

The level of carcinogenic pollutants, which increases risk of stroke, heart disease and lung cancer, in New Delhi’s air was almost six times the reading in Beijing, where air quality has seen a considerable improvement over the past years.

“A child born yesterday in Delhi would have smoked 40-50 cigarettes on the first day of his or her life,” said Arvind Kumar, a lung surgeon at the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in Delhi and founder of the Lung Care Foundation. “A silent damage is occurring inside our body.”

India, home to 10 cities with the world’s worst air quality, has been struggling to contain this annual catastrophe that killed an estimated 1.24 million citizens in 2017...

• https://twitter.com/samrelph/status/1190899141708136450

• https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/delhi-pollution-lack-of-planning-allows-dust-stubble-burning-to-choke-capital-1615048-2019-11-02

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/indias-losing-battle-against-pollution-delhi-air-quality-reaches-toxic-levels-again/2019/11/04/0901f378-fecc-11e9-8341-cc3dce52e7de_story.html

• https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-04/air-pollution-in-new-delhi-spikes-as-deadly-smog-envelops-city

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Harnessing Real Time Data to Combat Air Pollution

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Air_Quality

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Tracking Ozone-Smog in U.S. Cities

• https://stacker.com/stories/3674/54-american-cities-dangerous-ozone-conditions

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Detecting pollution of shipping lanes and individual ships from space

For the first time ever, scientists using data from @CopernicusEU #Sentinel5P were able to detect nitrogen dioxide plumes from individual ships from space.

• https://twitter.com/ESA_EO/status/1325743246346252293

• https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Copernicus/Sentinel-5P/Detecting_pollution_from_individual_ships_from_space

A past study estimated that shipping emissions are globally responsible for around 400 000 premature deaths from lung cancer and cardiovascular disease, and 14 million childhood asthma cases each year.

For this reason, during the past decade, efforts to develop international shipping emission regulations have been underway. Since January 2020, the maximum sulphur dioxide content of ship fuels was globally reduced to 0.5% (down from 3.5%) in an effort to reduce air pollution and to protect health and the environment. It is expected that the nitrogen dioxide emissions from shipping will also become restricted during the coming years.

Monitoring ships to comply with these regulations is still an unresolved issue. The open ocean covers vast areas, with limited or no capacity to perform local checks. This is where satellites, such as the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite, come in...

Claus Zehner, ESA’s Sentinel-5P Mission Manager, commented, “We think that these new results demonstrate exciting possibilities for the monitoring of ship emissions in support of environmental regulation from space. Future planned satellite missions with improved spatial resolution, for example the Copernicus Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide Monitoring satellites, should allow for the better characterisation of nitrogen dioxide ship emission plumes and, possibly, detection of smaller ship plumes.”

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The State of Global Air

• https://www.stateofglobalair.org/

• https://www.stateofglobalair.org/air

• https://www.stateofglobalair.org/health

Country-by-Country (interactive metrics) -- https://www.stateofglobalair.org/data/#/air/plot

Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation -- https://www.healthdata.org/gbd

Over 7 Billion People Face Unsafe Air

Health Effects Institute -- https://www.healtheffects.org/

April 2018 / Air Pollution Global Health

Health Effects Institute has issued State of Global Air 2018 — the first update of the annual report and interactive website launched in 2017 with the aim of providing “one-stop shopping” for the latest trends in air quality and its impact on human health around the world.

For the first time, the 2018 report and website include worldwide estimates of exposure and health burdens from burning of solid fuels inside people’s homes. In 2016, a total of 2.5 billion people — one in three global citizens — were exposed to household air pollution from the use of solid fuels (for example, wood, charcoal, coal dung, or other biomass) for cooking and heating. Most live in low- and middle-income countries in Asia and Africa, and face a double burden: exposure to both indoor and outdoor air pollution...

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A GreenPolicy360 Proposal:

City Air Quality Study via Google Map App

A Proposed Crowdsourced Project

Google Earth Outreach and the Environmental Defense Fund Launch a Science and Technology Initiative to Measure City Air

GreenPolicy360: Let's take this pilot project in Oakland and network with citizen science as a worldwide green best practice

Mapping Our Air -- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Mapping_Our_Air.png

Is Smog Getting Worse?

Air Pollution *Will* Make You Sick

A Year of Smog in 5 charts

More than 95% of world's population breathe dangerous air, major study finds

The war against air pollution has begun – and it will be fought in cities

Global List of Most Polluted Cities

Air Pollution, Unborn, Babies and Health Catastrophe

Air pollution More harmful to Children in Cars

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China, Energy & Air Pollution

Air Pollution Across the World

Beijing's Air Pollution

March 2017

China Premier Pledges: ‘We Will Make Our Skies Blue Again’

ASSOCIATED PRESS

BEIJING — Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has pledged to make the country's skies blue again and "work faster" to address pollution caused by coal burning.

His words to delegates at the opening of the National People's Congress highlight how reducing smog has become a priority for the leadership because of public discontent.

Related: Millions in China Learn to Live With Smog 'Airpocalypse'

In a report to China's ceremonial legislature, Li said that "people are desperately hoping for" faster progress in improving air quality.

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Global Updates

• https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/17/air-pollution-kills-more-people-in-the-uk-than-in-sweden-us-and-mexico

People in the UK are 64 times as likely to die of air pollution as those in Sweden and twice as likely as those in the US, figures from the World Health Organisation reveal.

"It is deeply tragic that around 3 million lives are cut short worldwide because the air we breathe is dirty and polluted. In the UK, air pollution is a public health crisis hitting our most vulnerable the hardest – our children, people with a lung condition and the elderly."

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One Day's Toxic Air News Pulled from the Headlines

• https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21716672-pollution-shortens-londoners-lives-between-nine-and-16-months-plan-clean-up-britains

• https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-air-pollution-levels-soar-as-mayor-issues-exercise-warning-a3464436.html

• https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/european-smog-27-times-more-toxic-chinese-air-pollution-china-quality-a7572051.html

• https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170210084550.htm

• https://e360.yale.edu/features/origins-of-north-indias-air-pollution

• https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-air-pollution-alzheimers-20170131-story.html

• https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/news/20170210/air-pollution-may-raise-risk-of-type-2-diabetes#1

• https://qz.com/905656/air-pollution-is-increasing-in-africa-along-with-rapid-urbanization/

• https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170202122751.htm

Decades ago Mexico City's air pollution was so poor, birds would fall out of the sky -- dead. Locals said living there was like smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, according to one report. In response, Mexico City took several steps to try to improve air quality including restricting driving one or two days during the weekdays. The program has had negligible results.

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The Statistics, the Health Impacts, the Damages of Lives -- and What Are the Solutions?

• https://www.who.int/phe/health_topics/outdoorair/databases/cities/en/

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution

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What Can Be Done

Making Progress: Models of Environmental Initiatives that Have Made a Difference

GreenPolicy360 siterunner: Los Angeles, the 'worst in the world' in air quality in the 1950s. Now LA and California are 'out in front' of clean air and environmental initiatives, providing models of what can be done nationally and internationally.

California political leaders Jerry Brown and George Brown, out in front with a first-generation legislative regulation of air pollution

Governor Jerry Brown

George E. Brown Jr

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/California_out_in_front_in_a_Green_future

From the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development

• https://www.igsd.org/california-governor-signs-worlds-toughest-super-pollutant-law/

California / AB 1493, Pavley. Vehicular emissions: greenhouse gases

...a model of green legislative best practices

...the "Pavley Law"', first legislation in the world to regulate greenhouse gas emissions of passenger vehicles... these visionary California environmental protection laws/regulations became model air quality / air pollution legislation and were ultimately adopted by the United States as the national standard.

ARB 1

ARB 2

Jerry Brown (2015): "California has this history that really derives from the experience of smog in the Los Angeles Basin, and the response to that over many administrations has led to where we are today. As a matter of fact the standards that were established under the so-called Pavley Law, 'the first legislation in the world to regulate greenhouse gas emissions of passenger vehicles, were ultimately adopted by the United States as the national standard'".

Air Resources Board - Model Regulations / 'Green Best Practices'

ARB - Background

"Today Los Angeles has ten times as many cars as it did in the 50s, and the air is 95 percent cleaner. That’s a pretty dramatic move, one that countries like China and India are taking notice of."

"So we’ve had that history. As far as people’s attitudes I would say that there is a strong preference for favoring policies that nurture the environment as oppose to those that disrupt them."

"But if you dig deeper into the use of things or creature comforts, I don’t think we’ve attained the level of enlightenment that Pope Francis is calling for."

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Regulation of Air Pollution Needed Around the World

• https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/dec/02/where-world-most-polluted-city-air-pollution

• https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health-news/10-of-worlds-20-most-polluted-cities-in-India-List-inside/articleshow/52249911.cms

• https://www.cnn.com/2014/05/08/world/asia/india-pollution-who/index.html

• https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/06/which-is-the-worlds-most-polluted-city/

A Lung Specialist Explains

• https://www.britannica.com/science/air-pollution

• https://www.lung.org/images/ala-logo-head.png

Most Polluted Air in Cities of the World

• https://www.stateoftheair.org/2015/city-rankings/most-polluted-cities.html

• https://www.stateoftheair.org/2014/city-rankings/most-polluted-cities.html

Breathing Poison

• https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32352722 - Breathing Poison

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Smog, ground-level ozone, causes a host of respiratory consequences, ranging from coughing, wheezing and throat irritation, to asthma, increased risk of infection, and permanent damage to lung tissue.

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Via the Guardian, 2016 / “We have a public health emergency in many countries from pollution. It’s dramatic, one of the biggest problems we are facing globally, with horrible future costs to society,” said Maria Neira, head of public health at the World Health Organization. “Air pollution leads to chronic diseases which require hospital space. Before, we knew that pollution was responsible for diseases like pneumonia and asthma. Now we know that it leads to bloodstream, heart and cardiovascular diseases, too – even dementia. We are storing up problems. These are chronic diseases that require hospital beds. The cost will be enormous.”

• The toxic haze blanketing cities could be clearly seen last week from the international space station.

• Poor air quality is killing millions and threatening to overwhelm health services across the globe.

• With nearly 1.4 million deaths a year, China has the most air pollution fatalities, followed by India with 645,000 and Pakistan with 110,000.

• The latest scientific research, published in the journal Nature, suggests that air pollution now kills more people a year than malaria and HIV combined, and in many countries accounts for roughly 10 times more deaths than road accidents.

• According to the WHO, air quality is deteriorating around the world to the point where only one in eight people live in cities that meet recommended air pollution levels.

• "We are only just learning about the scale of the toxicity of coal and diesel... This is a deep, deep problem."

Video of 'Smog' in Delhi, the world's most polluted air

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEbNsn91XV0

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Air pollution: a dark cloud of filth poisons the world’s cities

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See also: Citizen Science

https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Citizen_Science

What you can do about air pollution

Many new citizen-led initiatives are using science, sensors and the Internet to track, and deal with, levels of air pollution...

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/atmotube-the-portable-air-pollution-monitor-environment#/

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Wearable Devices / 'Digibody'

With Wearable Devices That Monitor Air Quality, Scientists Can Crowdsource Pollution Maps

Emerging technology means anyone with a smartphone can become a mobile environmental monitoring station

TZOA

• https://www.mytzoa.com/#homepage

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• https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/741031201/airbeam-share-and-improve-your-air

• https://mylapka.com/pem/

• https://www.joinclarity.io

• https://www.citi-sense.eu

• https://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/abs/10.1021/es505362x

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References:

Air Pollution G. Tyler Miller’s Living in the Environment - http://slideplayer.com/slide/5994183/

Air Visibility Monitoring (Android app) - http://robotics.usc.edu/~mobilesensing/Projects/AirVisibilityMonitoring

Citizen Science Alliance - http://www.citizensciencealliance.org/

Clean Technica - https://cleantechnica.com/2012/03/09/care-about-your-heart-lungs-you-should-care-about-carbon-emissions-driving-costs-more-than-gas-prices-show/

Climate Change and Citizen Science - http://www.slideshare.net/CitizenScienceCentral/citizen-science-and-climate-change-west

Cyber Citizens - http://up.secondwavemedia.com/innovationnews/smartphone100913.aspx

Eight Apps that Turn Citizens into Scientists - http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/8-apps-that-turn-citizens-into-scientists/

Environmental Health Perspectives / Ischemic Heart Disease Mortality and Air Pollution - http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/wp-content/uploads/advpub/2015/12/ehp.1509777.acco.pdf

Green Car Congress - http://www.greencarcongress.com/2012/03/us-study-of-miners-links-heavy-exposure-to-diesel-exhaust-to-increased-risk-of-lung-cancer-death-res.html

Mobile Apps for Citizen Science (via Smithsonian) - http://www.ssec.si.edu/blog/mobile-apps-for-citizen-science

NASA Earth Exchange (NEX platform for scientific collaboration, knowledge sharing and research for the Earth science community) - https://nex.nasa.gov/nex/

National Science Foundation (US/"Citizen Science") - http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/science_nation/citizenscience.jsp

NOAA - http://www.climate.gov/teaching/resources/climate-change-and-citizen-science

Open Scientist - http://www.openscientist.org/p/citizen-science-for-your-phone.html

Open University Lab - http://www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/open-science/

Project Noah (National Geographic) - http://www.projectnoah.org/

Scientific American - http://www.scientificamerican.com/citizen-science/

Sensr, Citizen Science app (Carnegie Mellon) - http://www.sensr.org/

You can be a scientist too (EPA) - http://www.epa.gov/climatestudents/scientists/citizen-science.html

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Pledge for Planetary Health

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Pledge_for_Planetary_Health_via_The_Lancet

Environmental Conservation & Medicine -- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_medicine

Conservation medicine is an emerging, interdisciplinary field that studies the relationship between human and animal health, and environmental conditions. Also known as ecological medicine, environmental medicine, or medical geology

Conservation medicine teams may involve physicians and veterinarians working alongside researchers and clinicians from diverse disciplines, including microbiologists, pathologists, landscape analysts, marine biologists, toxicologists, epidemiologists, climate biologists, anthropologists, economists, and political scientists.

Conservation Medicine / Human Health Impact of Ecosystem Alteration / National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.

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