PSA: Clear the Air by Changing our Attitude 2020
Policy analysis by Yuhao Wei.
Overview
At every click of a second, millions of tons of waste gases are thrown to the atmosphere, with the rapid growth of industries across the globe. We have intensified damage to ourselves through the air we breathe, and the food we eat; just because we remain mum and fail to condemn the visible evil. We need to change our attitude, and call for a better earth. This presentation aims to create awareness on the need to raise our voices through writing and action to condemn environmental damage caused by industrial gas emissions.
Reading Room
Want to learn more? Here are books from our collection related to this topic.
Air Pollution: management strategies, environmental impact and health risks
This book provides new research on the management strategies, environmental impacts and health risks of air pollution. Chapter One analyses historical air pollution data via linear regression and the time-series technique. Chapter Two provides a spatial analysis of air pollution from road transport within urban areas and its relation to health risks. Chapter Three presents the findings on the effects of short- and long-term exposure to air pollution on death rates in Belgrade, Serbia, based on a 6-year regular pollutant monitoring and the corresponding administrative records on mortality. Chapter Four discusses how bioaerosols impact the environment, and provides methods for reducing health risks. Chapter Five reviews a case study on heavy metals air pollution of mines in the Bregalnica River Basin.
Clearing the Air
**SHORTLISTED FOR THE ROYAL SOCIETY INSIGHT INVESTMENT SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 2019** 'Read this book and join the effort to terminate air pollution.' Arnold Schwarzenegger Air pollution has become the world's greatest environmental health risk, and science is only beginning to reveal its wide-ranging effects. Globally, 19,000 people die each day from air pollution, killing more than HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and car accidents combined. What happened to the air we breathe? Sustainability journalist Tim Smedley has travelled the world to try and find the answer, visiting cities at the forefront of the fight against air pollution, including Delhi, Beijing, London and Paris. With insights from the scientists and politicians leading the battle against it, and people whose lives have been affected by it, Clearing the Air tells the full story of air pollution for the first time- what it is, which pollutants are harmful, where they come from and o most importantly o what we can do about them. Air pollution is a problem that can be solved. The stories uncovered on this journey show us how. Clearing the Air is essential reading for anyone who cares about the air they breathe. And this much becomes clear- in the fight against air pollution, we all have a part to play. The fightback has begun. 'Compulsory reading' Chris Boardman
Choked
Nothing is as elemental, as essential to human life, as the air we breathe. Yet around the world, in rich countries and poor ones, it is quietly poisoning us. Air pollution prematurely kills seven million people every year, including more than one hundred thousand Americans. It is strongly linked to strokes, heart attacks, many kinds of cancer, dementia, and premature birth, among other ailments. In Choked, Beth Gardiner travels the world to tell the story of this modern-day plague, taking readers from the halls of power in Washington and the diesel-fogged London streets she walks with her daughter to Poland's coal heartland and India's gasping capital. In a gripping narrative that's alive with powerful voices and personalities, she exposes the political decisions and economic forces that have kept so many of us breathing dirty air. This is a moving, up-close look at the human toll, where we meet the scientists who have transformed our understanding of pollution's effects on the body and the ordinary people fighting for a cleaner future. In the United States, air is far cleaner than it once was. But progress has failed to keep up with the science, which tells us that even today's lower pollution levels are doing real damage. And as the Trump administration rips up the regulations that have brought us where we are, decades of gains are now at risk. Elsewhere, the problem is far worse, and choking nations like China are scrambling to replicate the achievements of an American agency--the EPA--that until recently was the envy of the world. Clean air feels like a birthright. But it can disappear in a puff of smoke if the rules that protect it are unraveled. At home and around the world, it's never been more important to understand how progress happened and what dangers might still be in store. Choked shows us that we hold the power to build a cleaner, healthier future: one in which breathing, life's most basic function, no longer carries a hidden danger.
Fundamentals of Air Pollution
Fundamentals of Air Pollution is an important and widely used textbook in the environmental science and engineering community. This thoroughly revised fifth edition of Fundamentals of Air Pollution has been updated throughout and remains the most complete text available, offering a stronger systems perspective and more coverage of international issues relating to air pollution. Sections on pollution control have been reorganized and updated to demonstrate the move from regulation and control approaches to green and sustainable engineering approaches. The fifth edition maintains a strong interdisciplinary approach to the study of air pollution, covering such topics as chemistry, physics, meteorology, engineering, toxicology, policy, and regulation. New material includes near-road air pollution, new risk assessment approaches, indoor air quality, the impact of biofuels and fuel additives, mercury emissions, forecasting techniques, and the most recent results from the National Air Toxics Assessment.
Clean Air Handbook
Revised to include several recent and important Clean Air Act developments, including the Clear Skies Initiative, this completely updated Handbook provides you with a broad overview of all the complex regulatory requirements of the Act and its amendments. In addition to offering an introduction to the history and structure of the Clean Air Act, the most complex piece of environmental legislation ever enacted, the Handbook examines the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) efforts to implement the Act. Those efforts include EPA's initiatives to impose emission reduction requirements through new air quality standards adopted in 1997 and made more stringent in 2006 and EPA's rules and guidance implementing the Title I nonattainment program and ongoing federal efforts to address interstate pollution issues. The Handbook also includes summaries of EPA's rules for state-administered Title V operating permit programs and the key rules promulgated by EPA to implement the Title IV acid rain program.
Protecting Clean Air
Having clean air to breathe is an often overlooked necessity, yet humans pollute the air through growing demand for energy and consumables. This book presents and overview of air quality, emission sources, criteria pollutants, greenhouse gases, control programs, and the impact of pollution on the atmosphere and global systems. Expertise in many fields is needed to protect air quality--politics, environmental engineering, law, planning, meteorology, health sciences, data management, and more. The book will guide readers through strategies and measures to prevent air pollution and better understand challenges that emission sources pose to society and ecosystems.
Climate Change, Air Pollution and Global Challenges
There are significant pressures from climate change and air pollution that forests currently face. This book aims to increase understanding of the state and potential of forest ecosystems to mitigate and adapt to climate change in a polluted environment. It reconciles process-oriented research, long-term monitoring and applied modeling through comprehensive forest ecosystem research. Furthermore, it introduces "forest super sites for research" for integrating soil, plant and atmospheric sciences and monitoring. It also provides mechanistic and policy-oriented modeling with scientifically sound risk indications regarding atmospheric changes and ecosystem services. Identifies current knowledge gaps and emerging research needs Highlights novel methodologies and integrated research concepts Assesses ecological meaning of investigations and prioritizing research need
Health of People, Health of Planet and Our Responsibility
This open access book not only describes the challenges of climate disruption, but also presents solutions. The challenges described include air pollution, climate change, extreme weather, and related health impacts that range from heat stress, vector-borne diseases, food and water insecurity and chronic diseases to malnutrition and mental well-being. The influence of humans on climate change has been established through extensive published evidence and reports. However, the connections between climate change, the health of the planet and the impact on human health have not received the same level of attention. Therefore, the global focus on the public health impacts of climate change is a relatively recent area of interest. This focus is timely since scientists have concluded that changes in climate have led to new weather extremes such as floods, storms, heat waves, droughts and fires, in turn leading to more than 600,000 deaths and the displacement of nearly 4 billion people in the last 20 years. Previous work on the health impacts of climate change was limited mostly to epidemiologic approaches and outcomes and focused less on multidisciplinary, multi-faceted collaborations between physical scientists, public health researchers and policy makers. Further, there was little attention paid to faith-based and ethical approaches to the problem. The solutions and actions we explore in this book engage diverse sectors of civil society, faith leadership, and political leadership, all oriented by ethics, advocacy, and policy with a special focus on poor and vulnerable populations. The book highlights areas we think will resonate broadly with the public, faith leaders, researchers and students across disciplines including the humanities, and policy makers.