|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Fri, 30th Oct 2020 9:30:00 |
|
NATURE IS NOT HEALING |
Dolphins did not return to cleaner canals in Venice, Italy this year. Nor was the critically endangered Malabar civet spotted on the streets of Kerala, India. And, contrary to one meme, there definitely were not dinosaurs in Times Square. Most of the memes that claimed “nature is healing” while COVID-19 shut down business around the world were misleading or just a joke to lighten up a heavy year. The reality is, even if it managed to keep people holed up for parts of the year, the pandemic is not leaving us with a healthier planet.
There were fewer plane trips and car trips this year, which means fewer tailpipe emissions. But that didn’t result in huge environmental gains. If anything, this year actually showed us how much further we have to go to clean up the giant mess we’ve made on our planet.
For starters, assessing air quality in 2020 is complicated. As early as January, it seemed as if skies had cleared over China — the first country to cope with the novel coronavirus and its economic fallout. Nitrogen dioxide levels over China plummeted dramatically in maps released by NASA and ESA. As the pandemic progressed, similar reports of cleaner skies emerged across the globe. In November, NASA figured out that the pandemic led to an almost 20 percent drop globally in nitrogen dioxide concentrations. Nitrogen dioxide is a toxic gas found in tailpipe emissions, so it makes sense that it dropped as people stayed home. But that’s only part of the picture when it comes to air quality.
As nitrogen dioxide pollution fell, another dangerous type of pollution seemed to stagnate and even rise in some places in the US. Particulate matter pollution — made up mostly of soot from burning fuels — didn’t seem to let up during the peak of pandemic-induced stay-at-home orders in April, a recent study found. That’s especially dangerous during the pandemic because of how much damage particulate pollution can do to people’s lungs and hearts — organs that COVID-19 impairs, too.
The pandemic may not have made a significant dent in pollution, but pollution certainly made the pandemic worse for some hard-hit communities. Living with air pollution — especially particulate matter — is linked to an increased risk of dying from COVID-19, research found this year. Black and Latino people, who are disproportionately burdened with air pollution in the US, also faced way higher hospitalization and death rates during the pandemic than white Americans.
Researchers have some ideas about why particulate pollution grew and nitrogen dioxide shrank in the US this year. It might be because more particulate matter comes from diesel-burning trucks, which delivered more packages than usual as people shopped from home, but they still need to test this hypothesis. “That is the mystery that we’re going to try to solve,” says Cristina Archer, lead author of the study and a professor at the University of Delaware’s College of Earth, Ocean and Environment.
Even if some pollution dropped temporarily, that doesn’t really do us much good moving forward, Archer cautions. “We’re going to go back eventually to normal life,” she says. Nitrogen dioxide levels already started roaring back toward the middle of the year in cities around the world as COVID-19 restrictions lightened up. “Reduction [in pollution] that is temporary, but is not actually intentional — I don’t think it helps much. What helps are strategies, and planning, and conscious efforts to reduce air pollution.”
Read original full article
|
| |
|
|
Back to Featured Articles
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Energy News
|
|
| |
| |
