An email in my inbox today proclaimed, “it’s September and we’re heading into pollution season in many regions.” I was taken aback. Does pollution have a season? Of course, there is seasonal variability to certain pollutants, but, unfortunately, pollution lives with us in and outside our homes in every season. There is the invisible pollution: […]
Life After Warming: Why Al Gore Thinks There’s Still Hope for the Planet
By David Wallace-Wells It would probably have been tempting, talking to Al Gore at any point over the 18 years — after 9/11, in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, in the depths of the financial crisis, as Obama failed to pass climate legislation and pushed the Clean Power Plan instead — to wonder […]
NCA 4: Air Quality
Unless offset by additional emissions reductions of ozone precursor emissions, there is high confidence that climate change will increase ozone levels over most of the United States, particularly over already polluted areas, thereby worsening the detrimental health and environmental effects due to ozone. The climate penalty results from changes in local weather conditions, including temperature […]
A Brief History of Air Quality Management in Canada
“Smoke” has impacted human health for centuries. People realized that they should avoid breathing the plumes of effluent from fires and industrial facilities, and that “smog” could be dangerous. However, it wasn’t until rather recently that it was understood that air quality is a global issue, with some pollutants travelling thousands of kilometers. Air quality […]
Breathe Deeply, then read this! In some places you need to chew the air before swallowing.
92% of the world’s population exposed to unsafe levels of air pollution Published September 27, 2016, the World Health Organization shows results of a new WHO air quality model which confirms that 92% of the world’s population lives in places where air quality levels exceed WHO limits. Some 3 million deaths a year are linked […]