Are Pandemics Good for the Global Air Pollution Problem?
Author: Michael K. Johnson
Long-Term Effects of the COVID-19 Lockdown on Global Air Quality
COVID-19 has provided researchers a golden opportunity to study just how large an impact we as humans can have on our air quality.
How much pollution is due to human activities, and are there positive impacts on air quality due to the lockdowns of 2020?
The simple answer is: most of the pollution of our air is caused by human activity. Yes there are and will always be fires, volcanic eruptions, and other natural causes of air pollution but as Sciencing.com so succinctly put it:
"The burning of fossil fuels such as coal and gasoline is the single largest source of air pollutants. Fossil fuels continue to be in wide use for heating, to operate transportation vehicles, in generating electricity, and in manufacturing and other industrial processes. Burning these fuels causes smog, acid rain and greenhouse gas emissions.
Burning fuels also increases some heavy metal contaminants and the amount of soot in the air. Power plants and factories emit much of the sulfuric air pollutants. In all, industrialized nations – particularly the United States and the Soviet Union – are responsible for most of the world’s air pollutants."
Once humans slow or stop the burning of fossil fuels the air improves and we saw the proof of that, albeit temporarily, during the lockdowns of 2020. So much so in fact, that the Global Carbon Project recently announced their finding of a 7% drop in global carbon dioxide emissions, the biggest drop in history! (Le Quere et al., 2020)
Would electric cars or other "green" measures really make that much of a difference?
YES! The EPA states: "Electricity from renewable resources such as solar, geothermal, and wind generally does not contribute to climate change or local air pollution since no fuels are combusted. "
That means the more we can use these renewable energies the cleaner our air will be. The Department of Energy acknowledges that all vehicle have a substantial life cycle emissions - include all emissions related to fuel and vehicle production, processing, distribution, use, and recycling/disposal. Electric vehicles generally produce fewer life cycle emissions than conventional vehicles. The biggest driver of pollution from electric vehicles is sourcing electricity from coal burning plants, which can be replaced by wind and solar quiet easily in a country as large as the United States. In fact, globally speaking, the world has made great strides in switching to renewables and the United States could be a leader but has instead consistently lagged behind the rest of the developed world.
Air pollution kills an estimated seven million people worldwide every year.
9 out of 10 people breathe air that surpasses the safety limits for levels of pollutants as outlined by the World Health Organization.
https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution#tab=tab_1NOZ? PM2.5? To learn more about what these and the other major polluters are, where they come from, and how they harm us,
check out this companion student page on Pollution
Was it Enough?
Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) has found pollution levels are rapidly rebounding across all of Europe's capitals. Those with the highest pollution levels before COVID-19 are seeing the quickest rebound.
Although all the cities' levels are lower than normal, this shows that temporary lockdown reductions in air pollution are not likely to have major long-term impacts on global air quality.
Source: Myllyvirta, L. (2020, June 24). BRIEFING: Air pollution returns to European capitals: Paris faces largest rebound. Retrieved November 16, 2020, from https://energyandcleanair.org/pollution-returns-to-european-capitals/
Long-Term Solutions
Now we can see that human actions can have QUICK and POWERFUL effects on air quality!
The next step is long-term policy creation that can quickly decrease global use of fossil fuels
Many places are already working on such policies:
Barcelona, Spain, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and others have been experimenting with "Super-Blocks"
California's announcement this year to phase out gasoline-powered cars & drastically reduce demand for fossil fuel by 2035
Major cities around the world, including Paris, France and Detroit, Michigan are moving toward a 15/20 minute city model
Literature Review by Michael K Johnson Nov 2020
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