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These Alluring Images Capture the Threats of Air Pollution Around the World

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Tuesday, July 16, 2024

In November 2016 the “Great Smog of Delhi” engulfed India’s capital and marked the city’s worst air quality event in 17 years. Fine particulate matter air pollution, or tiny particles measuring less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter—30 times thinner than a human hair—reached levels over 16 times the safe limit. The particles are small enough to be breathed deeply into lungs but not exhaled, so they can instead deposit and accumulate inside the body. Heavy smog was visible throughout the city, and hospital admissions of people with respiratory diseases spiked. Schools were closed, traffic was restricted, and construction and agricultural burning were halted. About a month later, a team of environmental scientists and an artist arrived in Delhi to collaborate on an air pollution monitoring project. At that time the city was still experiencing an extremely poor air quality event—experts said just walking around the city at that time was equivalent to smoking over two packs of cigarettes a day—yet the smog was no longer as visible. Although the city was still deep in an air quality event, it had disappeared from the news cycle, says artist Robin Price, who was in Delhi at the time. The collaboration​​ between Price and environmental scientist Francis Pope of the University of Birmingham in England aimed to make the invisible threat of air pollution visible. They used digital “light painting,” a photography technique that captures moving light sources as “brushstrokes,” to illustrate where air pollutants were most concentrated. The project focused on three places that face different air pollution challenges: India, Ethiopia and the United Kingdom. To create a light painting, Price set up a camera to capture a long-exposure photograph of an area, and then walked in front of the camera holding a low-cost air pollution sensor with LED lights. The sensor detected fine particulate matter air pollution, also known as PM2.5, and the LED lights flashed more where concentrations of PM2.5 were higher. The camera captured the light flashes as dots of light painting. The higher the PM2.5 concentration in an area, the more dots of light appear in the photograph. The project, called “Air of the Anthropocene,” has held photo exhibitions in Los Angeles; Belfast, Northern Ireland; and Birmingham, England, and has sparked global discussions about air pollution. POLLUTION PAINTING ON THE ROOF OF MEXICO CITY'S SEDEMA SUPERSITE MONITORING STATION Pope and Price chose the locations for the photographs to represent day-to-day life: in playgrounds, kitchens and city streets. Air quality tends to be measured on a broad regional level and based on monitors at tops of buildings, but data at the local and street level can be useful, too, says Patrick Kinney, an environmental health researcher at Boston University. Local data about where pollution is coming from can help people avoid exposure to it, or it can lead them to avoid being a source themselves, says Kinney. “Low-cost sensors, which have been a relatively recent technology that became available for air pollution use, have been particularly transformational,” says Pallavi Pant, head of global health at the nonprofit Health Effects Institute (HEI). Individuals can own these sensors, and so too can cities that can’t afford larger air pollution monitoring networks. The municipalities can use the data they gather to enact air pollution policies and monitor progress. And in regions where literacy might not be widespread, images like the photos from this project can convey air pollution data in a more accessible way, says Price. Light painting from a playground in less urban Palampur, India, shows much lower air pollution density compared with Delhi. Robin Price “I can sit here and talk about numbers and data every day, I will lose people very quickly,” says Pant. “Something more interactive, more visual, but still bringing data and science at its core, is a very useful and interesting approach.” The photos illustrate diverse air pollution issues among the three countries. In Wales, pollutant concentrations are high near the Port Talbot steelworks, which is the city’s main employer but also a major health hazard. Two playgrounds in India, one in urban Delhi and one in rural Palampur, show vastly different PM2.5 concentrations: The Delhi playground has about 12 times more PM2.5 pollution than the Palampur playground. Inside a kitchen with a wood stove in Ethiopia, PM2.5 concentrations are about 20 times greater than outside the home. Light painting shows air pollution near the steelworks in Port Talbot, Wales. The steelworks is the city’s main industry and source of particulate matter pollution. Robin Price Air pollution is one of the world’s leading threats to human health, with polluted air causing about seven million premature deaths worldwide every year. New research from the HEI finds air pollution-related health problems have become the second leading risk factor for death worldwide, ranking below high blood pressure but now ranking above tobacco and poor diet. Children under five years old are especially vulnerable to developing asthma and lung diseases due to poor air quality, according to the new HEI report. In 2021, air pollution exposure was linked to over 700,000 deaths of children under 5, the second-biggest risk factor for death worldwide for this age group after malnutrition. An estimated 500,000 of these deaths were linked to indoor air pollution from cooking with polluting fuels. PM2.5 is the air pollutant most responsible for health issues. The tiny particles come from natural and anthropogenic sources, but the primary source of harmful levels of PM2.5 pollution is burning fossil fuels and biomass: for transportation, industry and in homes. Air pollution is worse inside a wood-burning kitchen in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, than outside the home. Robin Price Over 90 percent of global air pollution deaths reported in the new HEI study are linked to PM2.5 air pollution. The particles are small enough to enter the lungs and bloodstream, increasing the risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. “[PM2.5] can be used as a very accurate predictor,” says Pant. “If you’re exposed to PM2.5, you’re going to experience health effects.” Most countries focus on fighting air pollution by reducing emissions at the source, through vehicle or industrial regulation, for example, and through transitioning away from more polluting technologies. In India and Latin America, a major cause of PM2.5 pollution has been burning agricultural residue for cooking. So policy makers are focusing on creating alternatives: promoting agricultural waste recycling programs, for example, or promoting cooking with less polluting fuels. Pant says we are seeing progress. Regions that face the highest levels of air pollution like Africa and Asia are now monitoring air quality more closely and implementing stricter air pollution policies. Since 2000, the air pollution-related death rate of children under 5 has dropped 53 percent, which the HEI report attributes mostly to improved access to clean fuel for cooking, improvements to health care and nutrition, and better awareness of the harmful effects of indoor air pollution. POLLUTION PAINTING PRESENTATION FOR MAKING ART AT THE END OF THE WORLD BOM ART & TECH SUMMIT Pope and Price are now trying to design their air pollution light-painting technique to be even more accessible, making the process open source to share with citizen scientists around the world who can create air quality light paintings themselves. Pope and Price are also working on an augmented reality approach to light painting using a phone app. “With the availability of local information and local data, there has been greater public conversation around air pollution,” says Pant. Pant also says understanding local-level air pollution is a powerful tool to change people’s attitudes, and to “create the environment where air pollution action and mitigation efforts are demanded, and well-received when they are implemented.” Get the latest Science stories in your inbox.

Researchers combined long-exposure photography with pollution sensor data to create representations of pollution in India, the United Kingdom and Ethiopia

In November 2016 the “Great Smog of Delhi” engulfed India’s capital and marked the city’s worst air quality event in 17 years. Fine particulate matter air pollution, or tiny particles measuring less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter—30 times thinner than a human hair—reached levels over 16 times the safe limit. The particles are small enough to be breathed deeply into lungs but not exhaled, so they can instead deposit and accumulate inside the body. Heavy smog was visible throughout the city, and hospital admissions of people with respiratory diseases spiked. Schools were closed, traffic was restricted, and construction and agricultural burning were halted.

About a month later, a team of environmental scientists and an artist arrived in Delhi to collaborate on an air pollution monitoring project. At that time the city was still experiencing an extremely poor air quality event—experts said just walking around the city at that time was equivalent to smoking over two packs of cigarettes a day—yet the smog was no longer as visible. Although the city was still deep in an air quality event, it had disappeared from the news cycle, says artist Robin Price, who was in Delhi at the time.

The collaboration​​ between Price and environmental scientist Francis Pope of the University of Birmingham in England aimed to make the invisible threat of air pollution visible. They used digital “light painting,” a photography technique that captures moving light sources as “brushstrokes,” to illustrate where air pollutants were most concentrated. The project focused on three places that face different air pollution challenges: India, Ethiopia and the United Kingdom.

To create a light painting, Price set up a camera to capture a long-exposure photograph of an area, and then walked in front of the camera holding a low-cost air pollution sensor with LED lights. The sensor detected fine particulate matter air pollution, also known as PM2.5, and the LED lights flashed more where concentrations of PM2.5 were higher. The camera captured the light flashes as dots of light painting. The higher the PM2.5 concentration in an area, the more dots of light appear in the photograph. The project, called “Air of the Anthropocene,” has held photo exhibitions in Los Angeles; Belfast, Northern Ireland; and Birmingham, England, and has sparked global discussions about air pollution.

POLLUTION PAINTING ON THE ROOF OF MEXICO CITY'S SEDEMA SUPERSITE MONITORING STATION

Pope and Price chose the locations for the photographs to represent day-to-day life: in playgrounds, kitchens and city streets. Air quality tends to be measured on a broad regional level and based on monitors at tops of buildings, but data at the local and street level can be useful, too, says Patrick Kinney, an environmental health researcher at Boston University. Local data about where pollution is coming from can help people avoid exposure to it, or it can lead them to avoid being a source themselves, says Kinney.

“Low-cost sensors, which have been a relatively recent technology that became available for air pollution use, have been particularly transformational,” says Pallavi Pant, head of global health at the nonprofit Health Effects Institute (HEI). Individuals can own these sensors, and so too can cities that can’t afford larger air pollution monitoring networks. The municipalities can use the data they gather to enact air pollution policies and monitor progress.

And in regions where literacy might not be widespread, images like the photos from this project can convey air pollution data in a more accessible way, says Price.

Air Pollution Light Painting at Playground
Light painting from a playground in less urban Palampur, India, shows much lower air pollution density compared with Delhi. Robin Price

“I can sit here and talk about numbers and data every day, I will lose people very quickly,” says Pant. “Something more interactive, more visual, but still bringing data and science at its core, is a very useful and interesting approach.”

The photos illustrate diverse air pollution issues among the three countries. In Wales, pollutant concentrations are high near the Port Talbot steelworks, which is the city’s main employer but also a major health hazard. Two playgrounds in India, one in urban Delhi and one in rural Palampur, show vastly different PM2.5 concentrations: The Delhi playground has about 12 times more PM2.5 pollution than the Palampur playground. Inside a kitchen with a wood stove in Ethiopia, PM2.5 concentrations are about 20 times greater than outside the home.

Air Pollution Light Painting Near Steelworks
Light painting shows air pollution near the steelworks in Port Talbot, Wales. The steelworks is the city’s main industry and source of particulate matter pollution. Robin Price

Air pollution is one of the world’s leading threats to human health, with polluted air causing about seven million premature deaths worldwide every year. New research from the HEI finds air pollution-related health problems have become the second leading risk factor for death worldwide, ranking below high blood pressure but now ranking above tobacco and poor diet.

Children under five years old are especially vulnerable to developing asthma and lung diseases due to poor air quality, according to the new HEI report. In 2021, air pollution exposure was linked to over 700,000 deaths of children under 5, the second-biggest risk factor for death worldwide for this age group after malnutrition. An estimated 500,000 of these deaths were linked to indoor air pollution from cooking with polluting fuels.

PM2.5 is the air pollutant most responsible for health issues. The tiny particles come from natural and anthropogenic sources, but the primary source of harmful levels of PM2.5 pollution is burning fossil fuels and biomass: for transportation, industry and in homes.

Air Pollution Light Painting in Home
Air pollution is worse inside a wood-burning kitchen in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, than outside the home. Robin Price

Over 90 percent of global air pollution deaths reported in the new HEI study are linked to PM2.5 air pollution. The particles are small enough to enter the lungs and bloodstream, increasing the risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

“[PM2.5] can be used as a very accurate predictor,” says Pant. “If you’re exposed to PM2.5, you’re going to experience health effects.”

Most countries focus on fighting air pollution by reducing emissions at the source, through vehicle or industrial regulation, for example, and through transitioning away from more polluting technologies. In India and Latin America, a major cause of PM2.5 pollution has been burning agricultural residue for cooking. So policy makers are focusing on creating alternatives: promoting agricultural waste recycling programs, for example, or promoting cooking with less polluting fuels.

Pant says we are seeing progress. Regions that face the highest levels of air pollution like Africa and Asia are now monitoring air quality more closely and implementing stricter air pollution policies. Since 2000, the air pollution-related death rate of children under 5 has dropped 53 percent, which the HEI report attributes mostly to improved access to clean fuel for cooking, improvements to health care and nutrition, and better awareness of the harmful effects of indoor air pollution.

POLLUTION PAINTING PRESENTATION FOR MAKING ART AT THE END OF THE WORLD BOM ART & TECH SUMMIT

Pope and Price are now trying to design their air pollution light-painting technique to be even more accessible, making the process open source to share with citizen scientists around the world who can create air quality light paintings themselves. Pope and Price are also working on an augmented reality approach to light painting using a phone app.

“With the availability of local information and local data, there has been greater public conversation around air pollution,” says Pant.

Pant also says understanding local-level air pollution is a powerful tool to change people’s attitudes, and to “create the environment where air pollution action and mitigation efforts are demanded, and well-received when they are implemented.”

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Countries are meeting in South Korea this week to hash out the final details of a global treaty aimed at eliminating plastic pollution — here's what experts say it needs to include

Plastic waste in IndonesiaPA Images / Alamy The world currently produces more than 50 million tonnes of “mismanaged” plastic waste each year, and some researchers project this flood of plastic pollution will double by mid-century – but they also say that, if countries can agree to adopt four key policies during global plastic treaty negotiations this week, we could slash that number by 90 per cent. Plastic pollution ends up clogging ecosystems on land and at sea. “This has an impact on every level of the food chain, from phytoplankton cells to humans,” says Sarah-Jeanne Royer at the University of California, San Diego. Plastics are also responsible for about 5 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. That’s why most of the world’s countries are meeting in Busan, South Korea this week to hammer out the final details of a global treaty aimed at ending plastic pollution. In 2022, 175 countries already agreed to adopt the legally binding treaty and have spent the past two years debating exactly what it should require, with particular disagreements over setting limits on the production of new plastic. To bring more clarity to the debate, Douglas McCauley at the University of California, Santa Barbara and his colleagues used an artificial intelligence model trained on economic data to test how the policies under consideration would affect global plastic pollution. “I wasn’t convinced that [eliminating plastic pollution] was actually possible,” says McCauley. “But it turns out you can get pretty darn close.” According to their projections, under current conditions, plastic pollution is set to roughly double to between 100 and 139 million tonnes by 2050. But a combination of four policies, all of which are still on the table in the current treaty draft, were enough to reduce this by more than 90 per cent. The most impactful of these was a mandate that plastic products contain at least 40 per cent recycled material. That rule alone cut plastic pollution in half by mid-century. This effect is so significant because it cuts demand for newly made or “virgin” plastic while also spurring demand for recycled materials, says McCauley. “Suddenly there’s a giant global market for recycling.” But recycling on its own wasn’t sufficient. “If your target is to end plastic pollution, you need to do things across the entire lifecycle,” he says. Deeper cuts required limiting production of virgin plastics to 2020 levels. This production cap cut plastic pollution by around 60 million tonnes per year by the middle of the century, according to the model. This change also had the greatest impact on greenhouse gas emissions from plastic production, as extracting fossil fuels and turning them into virgin plastics involves emissions-intensive processes. A third policy, spending $50 billion on waste management, reduced pollution by nearly the same amount as the production cap – especially if these funds were spent in low-income countries with poor infrastructure, which are also the most inundated by plastic pollution. “When you start talking about global finance, [the amount of money needed] is not that big,” says McCauley. “Building a sanitary landfill is not like building a port.” Plastic waste is increasing, and though some is recycled or destroyed, a large portion is “mismanaged” and piles up as plastic pollutionA. Samuel Pottinger et al. Finally, a small tax on plastic packaging cut pollution by tens of millions of tonnes. The researchers based this estimate on case studies of how people reduced their plastic use in response to similar taxes, such as a 5 cent fee on single-use plastic bags in Washington DC. Money raised by such a tax could also be used to pay for other changes, like building out waste management infrastructure or improving recycling systems. Royer, who was not involved with the study, says she thinks those policies would all help. Reducing the use of single-use plastic such as grocery bags or plastic forks via a tax or a ban could also make a difference, she says. “If we look at plastic pollution in general, 40 per cent of the plastic being produced is single-use items.” However, she points out local rules alone will never solve the problem. For instance, California banned some single-use plastic bags a decade ago and this year banned all such bags. But most of the plastic pollution that washes up on its beaches originates outside the state: California’s plastic waste generally drifts across the Pacific from Asia or is flotsam left by the fishing industry. “There’s no border,” says Royer. That’s where a global treaty comes in. 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Nations Meet To End Plastic Pollution With A Global Treaty. Here’s What To Know.

Sixty-six countries plus the European Union are kicking off a final round of negotiations to address an ever-worsening global problem.

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Toxic Air Pollution in India and Pakistan Is “a National Disaster”

This story was originally published by Voxx.com and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. India and Pakistan are losing ground to a common deadly enemy. Vast clouds of dense, toxic smog have once again shrouded metropolises in South Asia. Air pollution regularly spikes in November in the subcontinent, but this year’s dirty air has […]

This story was originally published by Voxx.com and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. India and Pakistan are losing ground to a common deadly enemy. Vast clouds of dense, toxic smog have once again shrouded metropolises in South Asia. Air pollution regularly spikes in November in the subcontinent, but this year’s dirty air has still been breathtaking in its scale and severity. The gray, smoky pollution is even visible to satellites, and it’s fueling a public health crisis. Last week, officials in the Punjab province in Pakistan imposed lockdowns on the cities of Multan, population 2.1 million, and Lahore, population 13.7 million, after reaching record-high pollution levels. “Smog is currently a national disaster,” senior Punjab provincial minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said during a press conference last week. Schools shut down, restaurants closed, construction halted, highways sat empty, and medical staff were recalled to hospitals and clinics. Across the border in India, the 33 million residents of Delhi this week are breathing air pollution that’s 50 times higher than the safe limit outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO). The choking haze caused 15 aircraft to divert to nearby airports and caused hundreds of delays. Students and workers were told to stay home. Global health authorities say air pollution has reduced the average life expectancy by 2.3 years, and contributes to almost 7 million deaths annually. Despite all the disruption, air pollution continues to spike year after year after year. Why? The dirty air arises from a confluence of human and natural factors. Construction, cooking fires, brick kilns, vehicles, and burning leftovers from crop harvests are all feeding into the toxic clouds. The Himalaya and Hindu Kush mountains to the north of lower-lying areas like Lahore and Delhi hold the smog in place. In the winter, the region experiences thermal inversions, where a layer of warm air pushes down on cool winter air, holding the pollution closer to the ground. As populations grow in South Asia, so will the need for food, energy, housing, and transportation. Without a course correction, that will mean even more pollution. Yet history shows that air pollution is a solvable problem. Cities like Los Angeles and Beijing that were once notorious for dirty air have managed to clean it up. The process took years, drawing on economic development and new technologies. But it also required good governance and incentives to cut pollution, something local officials in India and Pakistan have already demonstrated can clear the air. The task now is to scale it up to higher levels of government. There’s no shortage of science showing how terrible air pollution is for you. It aggravates asthma, worsens heart disease, triggers inflammation, and increases infection risk. It hampers brain development in children and can contribute to dementia in adults. On average, air pollution has reduced life expectancies around the world by 2.3 years, more than tobacco. It contributes to almost 7 million deaths per year, according to WHO, about one in nine deaths annually. It sucks trillions of dollars out of the global economy. The toll is especially acute in South Asia. Air pollution drains 3.9 years of life in Pakistan. In India, it steals 5.3 years. For workers who spend their days outdoors—delivery drivers, construction crews, farm laborers—the damage is even higher. Many residents report constant fevers, coughs, and headaches. Despite the well-known dangers and the mounting threat, it remains a persistent problem. Part of the challenge of improving air quality is that air pollution isn’t just one thing; it’s a combination of hazardous chemicals and particles that arise in teeming metropolises in developing countries. One of the most popular metrics around the world for tracking pollution is the Air Quality Index, developed by the US Environmental Protection Agency. The index is not a measurement of any one pollutant, but rather the risk from a combination of pollutants based on US air quality standards. The main villains are ground-level ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and particles. The particles are subcategorized into those smaller than 10 microns (PM10) and smaller than 2.5 microns (PM2.5). (Earlier this year, the EPA modified the way it calculates the AQI, so numbers from this year are not an apples-to-apples comparison to levels from previous years.) The tiny particles are pernicious because they penetrate deep into the lungs and trigger breathing problems. “I think the most surprising, interesting, and scary thing, honestly, is seeing the levels of pollution in areas that haven’t been monitored before.” An AQI below 50 is considered safe to breathe. Above 200, the air is considered a health threat for everyone. At 300, it’s an emergency. In Delhi, the AQI this last week reached 1,185. Lahore reached 1,900 this month. If a person breathes this air for over 24 hours, the exposure is roughly equivalent to smoking 90 cigarettes in a day. However, air pollution poses a threat long before it’s visible. “Your eye is not a good detector of air pollution in general,” said Christi Chester Schroeder, the air quality science manager at IQAir, a company that builds air quality monitoring instruments and collects pollution data. “The pollutant that you have to be really careful about in terms of not being able to see it but experiencing it is ozone. Ozone levels can be extremely high on sunny days.” IQAir has a network of air quality sensors across South Asia, including regions like Lahore and Delhi. The company tracks pollution in real time using its own sensors as well as monitors bought by schools, businesses, and ordinary people. Their professional-grade air monitors can cost more than $20,000 but they also sell consumer air quality trackers that cost $300. Both sources help paint a picture of pollution. Many schools and businesses across South Asia have installed their own pollution monitors. The US maintains its own air quality instruments at its consulates and embassies in India and Pakistan as well. Schroeder noted, however, that IQAir’s instruments are geared toward monitoring particles like PM2.5 and don’t easily allow a user to make inferences about concentrations of other pollutants like sulfur oxides and where they’re coming from. “When you’re looking at places that have a really big mixture of sources—like you have a mixture of transportation and fires and climate inversion conditions—then it gets to be much murkier and you can’t really sort of pull it apart that way,” Schroeder said. Air quality monitors in India and Pakistan show that air pollution can vary over short distances—between neighborhoods or even street by street—and that it can change rapidly through the day. Nearby bus terminals, power plants, or cooking fires contribute a lot to local pollution, but without tracking systems in the vicinity, it can be hard to realize how bad the situation has become. “I think the most surprising, interesting, and scary thing, honestly, is seeing the levels of pollution in areas that haven’t been monitored before,” Schroeder said. Another complication is that people also experience pollution far away from where it’s produced. “This automatically creates a big governance challenge because the administrator who is responsible for providing you clean air in your jurisdiction is not actually the administrator who is governing over the polluting action,” said Saad Gulzar, an assistant professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University. Take crop stubble burning, which accounts for up to 60 percent of the air pollution in the region this time of year. In late fall, farmers in northern India and Pakistan harvest rice and plant wheat. With little time between the reaping and sowing, the fastest and cheapest way for many farmers to clear their fields of leftover stems, leaves, and roots is to burn it. The resulting smoke then wafts from rural areas into urban centers. Motivating officials to act at local, regional, and national levels is a key step in reducing air pollution. The challenge is that farmers and urbanites are different political constituencies, and it’s hard to demand concessions from the former to benefit the latter. It has led to bitter political fights in both countries and between them. Farmers also point out that the reason they have so little time between crops is because of water conservation laws: To cope with groundwater depletion, officials in India imposed regulations to limit rice planting until after monsoon rains arrive in the early summer to top up reservoirs. Delaying planting means delaying harvest, hence the rush to clear their fields. Both India and Pakistan have even gone as far as to arrest farmers who burn crop stubble, but there are millions of farmers spread out over a vast area, stretching enforcement thin. However, local efforts to control smoke from crop burning have proven effective when local officials are motivated to act. Gulzar co-authored a study published in October in the journal Nature, looking at air pollution and its impacts across India and Pakistan. Examining satellite data and health records over the past decade, the paper found that who is in charge of a jurisdiction plays a key role in air pollution—and could also be the key to solving it. When a district is likely to experience pollution from a fire within its own boundaries, bureaucrats and local officials take more aggressive action to mitigate it, whether that’s paying farmers not to burn stubble, providing them with tools to clear fields without fires, or threatening them with fines and arrest. That led fires within a district to drop by 14.5 percent and future burning to decline by 13 percent. These air pollution reductions led to measurable drops in childhood mortality. On the other hand, if the wind is poised to push pollution from crop burning over an adjacent district, fires increase by 15 percent. The results show that simply motivating officials to act at local, regional, and national levels is a key step in reducing air pollution and that progress can begin right away. But further air quality improvements will require a transition toward cleaner energy. Besides crop burning, the other major source of air pollution across India and Pakistan is fossil fuel combustion, whether that’s coal in furnaces, gas in factories, or diesel in trucks. These fuels also contribute to climate change, which is already contributing to devastating heat waves and flooding from torrential monsoons in the region. Both countries have made major investments in renewable energy, but they are also poised to burn more coal to feed their growing economies. At the COP29 climate change conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, India was asking wealthier nations to contribute more money to finance clean energy within its borders and to share technologies that will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance air quality. Solving the air pollution crisis in India and Pakistan will take years, and it’s likely to get worse before it gets better. But there are lifesaving measures both countries can take now.

Pollution
Climate
Chemicals

What to Know About the Plastic Pollution Treaty Talks in South Korea

A last round of negotiations on a legally binding treaty to address the global scourge of plastic pollution has opened in Busan, South Korea

Nations are deciding what actions they'll take National delegations still have a lot to hammer out before there is a treaty. Most contentious is whether there will be a limit on the amount of plastic that companies are allowed to produce. Led by Norway and Rwanda, 66 countries plus the European Union say they want to address the total plastic on Earth by controlling plastic design, production, consumption and what happens at the end of its life. Some plastic-producing and oil and gas countries, including Saudi Arabia, vigorously oppose such limits. Global plastics production is set to reach 736 million tons by 2040, up 70% from 2020, without policy changes, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Negotiators must also decide whether the treaty will reduce or eliminate single-use plastics. They'll have to resolve whether to end the use of hazardous chemicals in plastics and whether these steps will be mandated or merely encouraged.Their common objective is to protect human health and the environment.There are some things many countries agree on. They want provisions in a treaty to promote the redesign of plastic products so they can be recycled and reused. They want to invest to better manage plastic waste. They want to increase recycling rates and help waste pickers transition to safer jobs. There is agreement that there needs to be a mechanism to help countries pay for anything required of them. Environmental groups and Indigenous leaders want a holistic approach Graham Forbes, who is leading a Greenpeace delegation in Busan, said his group could support an agreement that puts sensible guardrails in place to reduce the amount of plastic produced, eliminates toxic chemicals and protects people from the uncontrolled use of plastics. That's achievable, but will take political leadership and courage not seen yet in earlier negotiations, he added.Frankie Orona, executive director of the Texas-based Society of Native Nations, said they demand a treaty that tackles the root causes of the crisis rather than just managing plastic waste.“We must seize this moment and leave a legacy we can be proud of, with a non-toxic sustainable future for all children and our children's children," he said. The plastics industry wants to focus on redesign, recycling and reuse Industry leaders want an agreement that prevents plastic pollution by redesigning plastics to be reused, recycled and remade into new products. They say this will keep the materials in circulation and out of the environment. Company executives said they'll support a treaty that recognizes plastics' benefits to society, while ending pollution.“I would hate to miss this opportunity because we get fixated on issues that divide us rather than unite us in this purpose of ultimately addressing the issue of plastic pollution," said Steve Prusak, president and CEO of Chevron Phillips Chemical Company. "It’s a really critical time. We’re really hopeful that what we get out of the meetings will lead to practical, implementable policies and harmonization across the globe.” The U.N. wants negotiators to reach an agreement in Busan U.N. Environment Programme Executive Director Inger Andersen said the treaty talks are a historic opportunity to land an agreement and course-correct, something “entirely within our reach.” “We can sit and wait and negotiate and negotiate and negotiate. But meanwhile our oceans are chockablock with plastic,” she said.The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

Pollution
Chemicals
Crisis

Biden proposes to restrict pollution from new gas plants

The Biden administration has proposed a rule that it says will reduce pollution stemming from new gas-fired power plants and other industrial facilities. The proposal would require these plants to cut their emissions of pollutants known as nitrogen oxides, which can lead to smog formation and contribute to asthma in people with long-term exposure. The agency said that the...

The Biden administration has proposed a rule that it says will reduce pollution stemming from new gas-fired power plants and other industrial facilities. The proposal would require these plants to cut their emissions of pollutants known as nitrogen oxides, which can lead to smog formation and contribute to asthma in people with long-term exposure.  The agency said that the regulation would reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by as many as  198 tons in 2027 and 2,659 tons in 2032.  However, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule is not expected to become final before inauguration day, meaning it would be up to the Trump administration to decide whether to move ahead with it.  The incoming Trump administration has indicated that it hopes to reduce regulations on both the economy as a whole and the power sector in particular. Nevertheless, environmental advocates, who praised the Biden action, said they would push the incoming Trump administration to keep it.  “The Biden-Harris administration’s proposed rule is an important and long-overdue step towards limiting dangerous smog and soot-forming pollution,” said Matthew Davis, vice president of federal policy at the League of Conservation Voters, in a written statement.  “We will continue to press the EPA to improve on these important clean air safeguards and will hold the future Trump administration accountable to the court-ordered deadline to finalize a protective rule in November 2025,” he added.  A 2023 legal agreement between the EPA and environmental groups who sued the agency says the EPA has to either tighten the standards or issue a formal decision not to do so no later than November 12, 2025. 

Pollution
Conservation

Suggested Viewing

Waterbackpack PAUL

The world is a paradise but more and more natural and manmade disasters happen. A German professor and his students invent a tiny but ingenious bag to clean polluted water after environmental catastrophes without chemicals and electricity to save people's life.

Water
Pollution
Solutions

LEAVES

An academic woman in Texas becomes concerned when a massive red oak in her backyard seems to be ailing, though she isn’t sure why it bothers her so much. At the same time, in her small cottage, her attention to her work is distracted by news reports she sees and hears. They tell in graphic terms of the out-of-control forest fires up and down the West Coast. Her attention is further pulled in the direction of other stories about the worsening conditions of the world’s rainforests which she discovers are disappearing at the astounding rate of 200,000 acres a day. Suddenly such stories are all she seems to hear and see on the radio or television or on her computer. But when she hears/sees a science report about how trees actually communicate with each other, she begins to realize there may be a connection between her tree and what she is learning from the news. She begins to recall a strong connection she herself has with that tree and allows that connection to regrow…..

Pollution
Forests
Inspirational

Again, Together - The Cumulative Impact of Environmental Racism in Houston

"Again, Together" is a film created in partnership with Ronald L. Jones, bringing stories from communities across Houston that have been impacted by environmental racism — namely redlining, segregation, underinvestment, exposure to pollution, gentrification, inequitable disaster recovery resources and freeway development.

Social Justice
Pollution
Health

Kingdom of Waste

Our garbage accumulates and gives life to a plastic monster. We wish his reign to be short. It is probably time to think over how we produce and consume to pollute less.

Waste
Pollution
Family

A River Reborn

As the Little Conemaugh River winds through the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania, it forms the backbone of a region with a legacy of industrial might. And like a scribe, the river carries the weight of that history - mile after mile devoid of life, poisoned by toxic pollution from countless abandoned coal mines. Generations of residents and neighbors have turned their back on the river, believing the damage to be irreversible and scolding their children for playing in its orange waters. But a decade-long effort from a coalition of local groups has begun to reveal a different future for the Little Conemaugh and for other rivers in Pennsylvania and beyond that were written off as a casualty of the coal industry. A River Reborn tells the story of the rebirth of the Little Conemaugh, and what it says about our ability to fix what might have been lost forever.

Water
Pollution
Documentary

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