Pollution Solutions for Cities

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On a Clear Day You Can See….

What can you see on a clear day? Mountains, lakes, the ocean, blue skies, puffy clouds – or air pollution, industrial complexes, agricultural dust, office buildings?

Did you know there is an International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies? The reason there is an international day of clean air for blue skies is precisely because every day is not international day of clean air and blue skies.

A long time ago, no one would have considered devoting a day to clean air or blue skies because people were not really familiar enough with dirty air or purple brown yellow skies to make clean air seem like something worth celebrating.

Not that people had never encountered dirty air. Volcanoes spew stuff into the atmosphere that not only obscures blue skies but can be rapidly lethal, and that’s been going on for all of humanity’s history. And of course gray skies are so common in some parts of the world that any day that is not gray is an excuse to go racing outdoors with your shirt off and give yourself a sunburn (I’m looking at the English here specifically).

But the sad fact is that since the industrial era began blue skies and clean air cannot be taken for granted.

In fact, there was a 5 day smog event in London in late 1952 that killed at least 4,000 and maybe 3 times that many. It sent over 100K to the hospital.

But the smog in London had been killing people long before that. As early as the mid-1800s, London was trying to do something about its notoriously creepy, smelly, dense, persistent ‘pea soup’ fog. The coal soot in the fog could be so thick that it fell to the ground like snow, with visibility so poor that even the wealthy had to rely on street urchins to navigate them through the dark streets, day or night.

The exploitation of fossil fuels undoubtedly seemed like the greatest thing ever to the people who prospered from their use – but fossil fuels in the air are anything but great.

But you knew that already, right? If you can see, you can probably see the effect that air pollution has on making clean air and blue skies not so clean and less blue. You can see it, but do you notice it?

Maybe not. But there are things cities and governments can do to try to reduce air pollution and some are doing them. We know that efforts can be successful – because 4,000 people are not dying from London smog over the course of a week anymore. Improvements can and have been made. Most air pollution is a human-made problem and it can be solved by humans.

Here’s a look at a few things cities are doing or can do to mitigate air pollution:

• New York City converts food scraps to energy, thereby preventing organic waste from producing methane waste that would otherwise get into the air.
• Increase local monitoring of air pollution levels. For example, Seoul, Korea gets all fancy with 5G-enabled autonomous robots [that] scan industrial complexes to monitor air quality.
• Cities and other jurisdictions can tighten emissions standards on trucks and other vehicles that produce a lot of pollution. California is famous (or notorious depending on your point of view) for its emissions standards that have greatly improved air quality in cities like Los Angeles.

Many of the most promising ways to make cities less polluted and more resident-friendly don’t conflict with the goal of economic growth. Indeed, the building sector is one area where cities can make, over time, an enormous difference in both their livability and their levels of pollution.

For example, at the design level, cities can use the local permitting process to compel/encourage sustainability in the projects they approve.

If a city can require parking spaces, it can certainly require other things like:

• Using natural light where possible. People in ‘green’ buildings with access to things like natural sources of light tend to be happier.
• Using solar panels and/or other natural sources of heating and cooling.
• Reduction in electricity use along with requiring renewable sources of electricity be used.

By the way, office buildings using pollution-reducing design can be quite stunning. Click on this link to look at some incredible examples of sustainable architecture around the world.

Cities Need ‘Green’ Construction

• Cities can mandate/encourage the use of materials like pollution-absorbing bricks in commercial and residential projects and use these materials in government-funded infrastructure projects.
  • Another example of a potential sustainable building material is stone. Stone, being a naturally occurring substance, doesn’t need to be manufactured, a fact that reduces its environmental footprint from the get-go. It’s a very-low waste material, in addition to being aesthetically attractive in many settings.
  • Cork is another naturally-occurring material that can be used in construction – and using cork in various applications does not require killing the tree that produces the cork! It is currently used in Europe as an insulating material.
• Using 3-D printed concrete is another way to reduce the pollution footprint of construction by using a common material in a less wasteful way. 3-D printed concrete is ‘printed’ to order, reducing not only waste and manufacturing costs, but the costs of transport (which are considerable).
• Monitor and regulate construction sites to mitigate and reduce construction-related pollution. Construction is a significant source of air pollution because it produces a lot of dust as well equipment emissions. Simple practices such as using water to prevent fine dust particles from reaching the air can make a difference in air quality in a city.

Embracing a new vision of cleaner less polluted cities can help the cities willing to do this not just by saving them from the costs of pollution but by reaping the economic benefits of investment in new technologies and practices. The transition to a cleaner future can create, in the short term at least, good-paying jobs that reduce the inequalities leading to urest around the world.

Indeed, according to the EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency):

Since 2000, PM2.5 concentrations in the outdoor air have decreased by 42% while the U.S. Gross Domestic Product increased by 52% during that time.

We know these kinds of interventions (and many others not mentioned here) can and do work to reduce air pollution, make cities more livable, and prevent the serious health effects and inconveniences of high pollution levels.

We know that people are interested in clean air–the EPA received 700,000 written comments before its latest revisions to the PM2.5 standards. 700,00.

We also know that manufacturers and certain business interests will whine and cry every time even slight adjustments are made to regulations regarding pollution (or just about anything else). And we also know that in spite of decades and decades of whining and crying, pollution regulations have done far less to undercut manufacturing in the US than the types of economic restructuring initiated under the administration of Ronald Reagan.

Cleaner environments will benefit manufacturers, just like they benefit everyone else.

So just say yes to cleaner cities – and the next time you see someone (anyone) whine about efforts to reduce air pollution and make cities cleaner: just GET PRETTY FED UP.

Tags: air pollution, pollution, renewable energy, sustainability