#particulate pollutants

[fuckyeahfluiddynamics]

Paris 2024: Clearing the Air

A quartet of mushroom-shaped structures tower nearly 6 meters above the Olympic Village. Known as Aerophiltres, these devices filter particulates out of the air to provide cleaner air for the Village, despite its proximity to major roadways.  (Image credit: SOLIDEO/C. Badet; via DirectIndustry) Catch our past and ongoing Olympic coverage here. Read the full article

[mindblowingscience]

A study led by researchers from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) revealed that fine particulate matter from 1980 to 2020 was associated with approximately 135 million premature deaths globally. The findings were published in April in the peer-reviewed journal Environment International. In the study, premature deaths refer to fatalities that occur earlier than expected based on average life expectancy, resulting from preventable or treatable causes such as diseases or environmental factors. The study found that the impact of pollution from fine particulate matter was worsened by climate variability phenomena such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, the Indian Ocean Dipole, and the North Atlantic Oscillation, and led to a 14 percent rise in premature deaths.

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[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

Nestled beside traffic-choked New York Avenue NE, the historically Black Ivy City neighborhood in Washington, D.C., was built in the late 19th century as a community for African American laborers who soon found themselves living amid industrial sites and a racetrack. 

Today, the neighborhood, like so many in D.C., is partially gentrified but can’t completely escape the environmental inequities of its past or the suffocating exhaust from traffic of present rush hours. 

“A lot of us are experiencing issues with breathing,” said Sebrena Rhodes, an Advisory Neighborhood Commission member and organizer with the nonprofit Empower DC. “Everybody is experiencing the exact same thing.”  

Ivy City is an archetypal “environmental justice” community in which residents have for years been disproportionately harmed by pollution, as a growing body of research makes clear. 

A study published last month in the journal Nature Medicine by Assistant Professor Pascal Geldsetzer and other researchers and collaborators at the Stanford University School of Medicine found that Black Americans have had the highest proportion of deaths from fine particulate matter air pollution, known as PM2.5, when compared to all other racial or demographic subgroups from 1990 to 2016. 

Fine particulate matter includes particles produced primarily through vehicle fuel emissions and other burning of oil, coal and wood that are less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, small enough to lodge deeply in the lungs, affect other vital organs and even enter the bloodstream. 

PM2.5, about one-thirtieth the diameter of a human hair, causes a range of harmful health effects, from aggravating asthma and other respiratory illnesses to increasing the risk of death from lung cancer, heart disease, dementia and stroke. 

“It’s very well recognized that PM2.5 is the biggest environmental killer globally,” said Tarik Benmarhnia, associate professor at the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the study’s senior author. 

Researchers found that Black Americans had the highest PM2.5-attributable mortality in 96.6 percent of U.S. counties and faced a “double jeopardy,” being more exposed to PM2.5 pollution and more susceptible to its adverse health effects due to poverty, existing medical conditions, more hazardous jobs and lack of access to housing and health care. 

“Exposures to air pollutants, broadly, are not shared equally. They fall disproportionately on racial minorities throughout the U.S.,” said Marshall Burke, an associate professor at Stanford’s Doerr School of Sustainability and a co-author of the study. 

[farmerstrend]

The Macadamia Shell Controversy in Kenya

The Macadamia Shell Association of Kenya has raised concerns about the potential importation of raw macadamia nuts from other countries. The association argues that this move could negatively impact local industries that rely on macadamia shells as a fuel source. According to the association, macadamia shells are a crucial byproduct of the macadamia processing industry in Kenya. These shells are…

[kp777]

Wood pellets production boomed to feed EU demand. But it's come at a cost for Blacks in the South - ABC News

[reasonsforhope]

"With “green corridors” that mimic the natural forest, the Colombian city is driving down temperatures — and could become five degrees cooler over the next few decades.

In the face of a rapidly heating planet, the City of Eternal Spring — nicknamed so thanks to its year-round temperate climate — has found a way to keep its cool.

Previously, Medellín had undergone years of rapid urban expansion, which led to a severe urban heat island effect — raising temperatures in the city to significantly higher than in the surrounding suburban and rural areas. Roads and other concrete infrastructure absorb and maintain the sun’s heat for much longer than green infrastructure.

“Medellín grew at the expense of green spaces and vegetation,” says Pilar Vargas, a forest engineer working for City Hall. “We built and built and built. There wasn’t a lot of thought about the impact on the climate. It became obvious that had to change.”

Efforts began in 2016 under Medellín’s then mayor, Federico Gutiérrez (who, after completing one term in 2019, was re-elected at the end of 2023). The city launched a new approach to its urban development — one that focused on people and plants.

The $16.3 million initiative led to the creation of 30 Green Corridors along the city’s roads and waterways, improving or producing more than 70 hectares of green space, which includes 20 kilometers of shaded routes with cycle lanes and pedestrian paths.

These plant and tree-filled spaces — which connect all sorts of green areas such as the curb strips, squares, parks, vertical gardens, sidewalks, and even some of the seven hills that surround the city — produce fresh, cooling air in the face of urban heat. The corridors are also designed to mimic a natural forest with levels of low, medium and high plants, including native and tropical plants, bamboo grasses and palm trees.

Heat-trapping infrastructure like metro stations and bridges has also been greened as part of the project and government buildings have been adorned with green roofs and vertical gardens to beat the heat. The first of those was installed at Medellín’s City Hall, where nearly 100,000 plants and 12 species span the 1,810 square meter surface.

“It’s like urban acupuncture,” says Paula Zapata, advisor for Medellín at C40 Cities, a global network of about 100 of the world’s leading mayors. “The city is making these small interventions that together act to make a big impact.”

At the launch of the project, 120,000 individual plants and 12,500 trees were added to roads and parks across the city. By 2021, the figure had reached 2.5 million plants and 880,000 trees. Each has been carefully chosen to maximize their impact.

“The technical team thought a lot about the species used. They selected endemic ones that have a functional use,” explains Zapata.

The 72 species of plants and trees selected provide food for wildlife, help biodiversity to spread and fight air pollution. A study, for example, identified Mangifera indica as the best among six plant species found in Medellín at absorbing PM2.5 pollution — particulate matter that can cause asthma, bronchitis and heart disease — and surviving in polluted areas due to its “biochemical and biological mechanisms.”

And the urban planting continues to this day.

The groundwork is carried out by 150 citizen-gardeners like Pineda, who come from disadvantaged and minority backgrounds, with the support of 15 specialized forest engineers. Pineda is now the leader of a team of seven other gardeners who attend to corridors all across the city, shifting depending on the current priorities...

“I’m completely in favor of the corridors,” says [Victoria Perez, another citizen-gardener], who grew up in a poor suburb in the city of 2.5 million people. “It really improves the quality of life here.”

Wilmar Jesus, a 48-year-old Afro-Colombian farmer on his first day of the job, is pleased about the project’s possibilities for his own future. “I want to learn more and become better,” he says. “This gives me the opportunity to advance myself.”

The project’s wider impacts are like a breath of fresh air. Medellín’s temperatures fell by 2°C in the first three years of the program, and officials expect a further decrease of 4 to 5C over the next few decades, even taking into account climate change. In turn, City Hall says this will minimize the need for energy-intensive air conditioning...

In addition, the project has had a significant impact on air pollution. Between 2016 and 2019, the level of PM2.5 fell significantly, and in turn the city’s morbidity rate from acute respiratory infections decreased from 159.8 to 95.3 per 1,000 people [Note: That means the city's rate of people getting sick with lung/throat/respiratory infections.]

There’s also been a 34.6 percent rise in cycling in the city, likely due to the new bike paths built for the project, and biodiversity studies show that wildlife is coming back — one sample of five Green Corridors identified 30 different species of butterfly.

Other cities are already taking note. Bogotá and Barranquilla have adopted similar plans, among other Colombian cities, and last year São Paulo, Brazil, the largest city in South America, began expanding its corridors after launching them in 2022.

“For sure, Green Corridors could work in many other places,” says Zapata."

-via Reasons to Be Cheerful, March 4, 2024

[beachmere303]

Chiang Mai's air quality and pollution remain at its worst despite efforts.

[harmeet-saggi]

The Surprising Link Between Air Pollution And Stroke Risk In Young Adults

Is the air we breathe silently affecting our health, particularly for the younger generation? Can something as ubiquitous as air pollution really be linked to strokes in young adults? In this blog, we will explore the surprising connection between air pollution and the increased risk of stroke in the youth. We'll delve into the effects of air pollution, its major causes, particulate matter, indoor air pollution, and even the potential for online consultations to address this growing concern. Join us on this enlightening journey as we unravel the hidden dangers of environmental pollution and its impact on our health.

[meteorologistaustenlonek]

Via NWS Morristown: North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality has issued a Code Red Health Advisory for the southwest North Carolina area… IN EFFECT UNTIL MIDNIGHT EST FRIDAY NIGHT including Cherokee County NC in the #WDEFNews12 viewing area.

A Code Red Air Quality Alert for Particulate matter means ground level Particulate matter concentrations within the region may approach or exceed unhealthy standards. Everyone may begin to experience health effects. Active children and adults, and people with a respiratory disease such as Asthma, avoid prolonged outdoor exertion. Everyone else, especially children, limit prolonged outdoor exertion.

[stone-cold-groove]

Mmm... factory fresh.

[evilvillain123456789]

Hey man, don't even worry about me and the newly formed membrane of skin covering my unnaturally huge, permanently open mouth that prevents me from speaking in anything other than muffled, vibratey grunts. It's not a bad deal at all- I recently found out that I can use it to filter various particulate matter from the air, and that it's all actually quite delicious, and nutricious. And, well, I'm always hungry nowadays, and those particles arent worth much .....So I'm just gonna sit myself down right here under the breezeway and never move from this spot in order to concerve calories. And maybe once I'm at a surplus I can use the growth of my body to anchor myself in, incase the wind picks up too much for me to handle. And maybe others like me will congregate here and as our flesh begins to touch, it won't seperate, and we'll gradually form a grand structure, one akin to coral, here in the remains of the city. And at the same time, other structures will form too, in other places, rising like skyscrapers dotting the horizon over the course of decades, centuries, thousands of years, eventually leaning in, touching eachother for the structural support and aerodynamicysm, melding, growing, reproducing. Until at last the air is completely free of all germs, pollutants, aeroplankton, all that good stuff, bringing on the long process of our colonies starving one by one, starting from the top where the air is thinnest, down to the bottom where our numbers are greatest, eventually rotting, the rest of us calcifying, leaving fresh materials for the newest batch of mobile life on earth, but by the time the luckiest of this new life gains sapience, the strong wind will have already eroded at our bones, spreading it all amongst the now rich soil, leaving not even a legend of what had happed before.

[rjzimmerman]

One of the World’s Biggest Health Risks Is a Philanthropic Blind Spot. (New York Times)

Excerpt from this New York Times Op-Ed:

The Air Quality Life Index at the University of Chicago, which measures the impact of air pollution on life expectancy, shows that people living in the most polluted places on Earth breathe air that has six times as much pollution as the air breathed by people in the least polluted places — and those in the most polluted places are seeing their lives cut short by more than two years because of it. An estimated 8.1 million people globally died in 2021 from the health impacts of breathing dirty air, according to a 2024 report by Health Effects Institute and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Private philanthropy could do much to turn the corner on this problem in some of the most polluted parts of the planet. But just an average $41.3 million in known philanthropic funds are devoted to air pollution each year, according to a recent report by the Clean Air Fund, a philanthropic group based in London. That is less than 1 percent of the more than $5 billion spent annually by one major funder, the Global Fund, to combat malaria, H.I.V./AIDS and tuberculosis.

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This is especially disconcerting because particulate matter in air pollution has become the world’s largest contributor to the global disease burden — a metric quantifying premature death and sickness — and one of the greatest threats to life expectancy, outstripping the impacts of malaria, H.I.V./AIDS and transportation injuries combined. Polluted air does not just cut off a few years at the end of a long life. It is the second highest risk of death for children 5 and under.

Europe, the United States and Canada are barely affected by the health impacts of air pollution when compared with the rest of the world. But they receive roughly 60 percent of the philanthropic funds devoted to combating it. Africa is home to five of the top 10 most polluted countries. From 2015 through 2022, the entire continent received an average of $238,000 per year in philanthropic grants aimed at reducing air pollution.

Data — or, more precisely, a lack of data — is the most immediate problem. The paucity of data makes it difficult to stir public opinion, develop policy or measure progress. It also makes it hard to attract funding. But when air quality data is available, pollution declines. And when air quality improves, decades of research make clear that people live longer, healthier lives. Yet, 39 percent of the world’s countries aren’t producing air quality data for their citizens. Those countries are also some of the most polluted.

A recent study showed that when American embassies installed air pollution monitors at some of their locations and began sharing the real-time air quality data publicly, pollution declined and led to decreases in premature mortality, suggesting that local governments and perhaps residents took steps to reduce pollution once they learned of it.

[feminist-space]

The CDC says to protect your lungs from ash and dust and other pollutant particulates in the air, you should wear long sleeved shirts.

[rodspurethoughts]

4 Simple Ways to Keep Allergy Season at Bay

(Family Features) With warmer outdoor temperatures, many homeowners suffer through longer allergy seasons. In fact, allergy days have increased by 20 days, according to a study conducted by the National Academy of Sciences. Being aware of air quality indexes and limiting time outdoors can lessen exposure to airborne pollutants, but indoor air quality is also a concern. In a report from the U.S.…