McCormick, Erin. (December 15, 2021). How much air pollution do you live with? It may depend on your skin color. Retrieved January 27, 2022, from How much air pollution do you live with? It may depend on your skin color | Environment | The Guardian
The amount of pollution people are exposed to could be related to the color of one’s skin. When testing the levels of air pollution in various locations, it became clear that areas where people of color resided had more airborne pollutants. This disparity becomes even more apparent when one looks at urban areas; areas primarily made up of black and brown communities have significantly worse air quality and higher levels of pollutants in the air. While efforts have been made to improve air quality, there are still unequal levels of air pollution.
This article is related to environmental science and environmental justice because it focuses on air pollution; specifically how it disproportionately affects communities made up of people of color. Areas where a lot of people of color live have significantly worse air quality than areas where their white counterparts live do. I wasn’t entirely surprised hearing this since I had heard about this disparity before, but I was still upset to hear about it. Whether it’s purposeful or not, it is entirely unjust that frequently discriminated against communities have such poor air quality. That poor air quality can have lasting effects, causing health issues such as lung diseases. This article made me realize just how disproportionately people of color are being affected by the air quality; while many places have poor air quality, it is clear that black and brown communities are being forced to take the brunt of it.
I like how you said that it doesn’t matter if it’s intentional or not that minorities are more exposed. The reality is that they are. Any ideas of how to rectify the situation? Often times it’s because for whatever reason, people have been allowed to move into cheaper areas on the east side of town, where at least in the US the wind is blowing that way. Seems like either we reduce the pollution the best we can or incentivize people to move away (ie. East Palo Alto, Bayview/Hunters Point in San Francisco) or a combination of both. What do you think? (Fortunately for the US, the air quality has for the most part improved overall). Nice job with this post.
I feel that reducing the pollution would be the best possible route, since not everyone living in those areas would have the financial ability to move. A way that we could reduce the pollution could be to get filters for nearby factories, so as to filter most of the pollutants out before they’re released into the atmosphere.