Month: March 2022

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Seen from Space: Huge Methane Leaks.

The article talks about the European satellite which saw areas in Russia, USA, and parts of Asia that could help fight climate change due to its emissions of methane. The European satellite saw methane leaks in these 3 areas, and by these finds, we have the ability to reverse these areas that are emitting such methane levels. By reducing what is about 9 million tons of greenhouse gasses each year in these areas, we are able to take a step in the right direction and remove these natural gasses that are contributing to global warming. 

I am happy about the discovery of these high methane emitters as there is now a solid source to the high producers of natural gasses and think that someone must be held responsible and actions must be taken. I am however curious as to what actions can be taken to reverse these methane leaks, because the article mainly talks about how to prevent these methane emitters from happening in the future, but there is not much talk about what can be done to reverse the damages, Overall, I am grateful for these discoveries despite the lack of effort being done to reverse the natural gas damage because at the end of the day, we are able to prevent this from happening in the future, and have the technology to discover other high emitting natural gas sites.

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Shaken by Fracking Quakes, Texas Is Forced to Act

This article focuses on the earthquakes in texas, and how the increase use of oil is driving earthquakes and rumbling home walls. To be technical, fracking i not causing the tremors, but rather the waste in the water wells are causing enough damage that there had to be new rules set to manage the disposed water. The way these earthquakes are occurring is when the water that is being drilled into the ground fills up empty space, but the empty space might happen to be a fault line, and if a fault line is triggered, so is an earthquake.

As someone who lives in california, I am extremely fortunate to not have to experience severe earthquakes due to fracking especially because of how harmful california can be with earthquakes. I also think that the waste water from fracking is already harmful enough, but with recent news about how it causes earthquakes makes alternative energy sources extremely useful. Specifically, I think we need to invest into solar and wind energy as these are renewable energy sources and effectively provide energy without the cause of natural disasters.

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Krauss, Clifford. “Why Are Oil Prices so High and Will They Stay That Way?

The article talks about the increase of price for oil, any why they are going up along with if they will remain at high prices. Specifically; The main reasons for high oil prices are a high demand along with inflation which to our economy, makes gas prices about a dollar higher than last years. If the united states makes a deal to fix a nuclear agreement with Iran, there is hope to lower the cost of oil because the deal with Iran involves an increase production of oil.

As of right now, I am not too phased because aaia cannot drive, and the oil price increase does not affect me greatly, but I fear that the high oil prices can ruin our economy and drive inflation levels even higher if no action is taken. I also believe that this increase of oil prices will become a pressing issue that many more people will begin to fight for, and I don’t think we should focus on methods to increase the production of oil, but rather explore new alternative energy sources that can be as effective, and economically & environmentally friendly.

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Living near Fracking Sites Raises Risk of Premature Death for Elderly

This study researches how people, specifically the elderly are dangerously affected by living near areas where fracking occurs. Due to the harmful pollution that fracking emmits, people who live near fracking drills have a higher chance of dying early, and elderly people who live near fracking sites have higher chance of death. The article talks about how it was the “first major study into the link between premature death in older people” which is shocking due to the amount of time fracking has been used, and how many lives have been affected without them even knowing

My opinion on the article is that we need to find alternative ways of energy. While this article focuses on how fracking is harmful to those who live near the areas, on a larger scale of when the pollution reaches a threat level of everyone, this can be extremely dangerous to everyone. This article proves that the pollution from fracking is enough to lower lifespans, which alone should be enough to be treated seriously, and actions should be taken to reduce the amount of fracking. Lastly, the harms that fracking causes not only on our environment, but on the people who live near fracking facilities should not longer have to be an question of wether or not fracking is worth the risk because of the clear signs that fracking is harmful to us. 

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U.S. Oil Producers Ramp up Fracking in Sign of Stronger Output Gains

The article focuses on the demand of oil, and how there is a natural increase of fracking due to this. Specifically, how there has been an increase of people working by about 5%, and how the demand for oil has caused the price to increase to over 80$! 

I think that there needs to be an alternative source of energy besides fracking because the increase of oil causing for an increase of price hurts both our economy and our environment. Many people are not aware of the hidden factors behind the overuse of oil such as the water usage/water pollution, the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, and soil pollution. Additionally, the increase demand causes the price to increase which mainly affects us when it comes to the gas prices, which are already nearing an all time high in the US. When it comes to possible solutions, we are already working towards alternate sources of energy such as solar, nuclear, wind, etc, and even have electric cars to stop the necessity of gas cars. These alternate sources of energy is a start towards a decrease in fracking, but begs the question of wether or not there is anything more that we can do.

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Spatial analysis of COVID-19 and traffic-related air pollution in Los Angeles

Lipsitt, Jonah. (2021, March 22). “Spatial analysis of COVID-19 and traffic-related air pollution in Los Angeles.” PMC – NCBI. Retrieved February 7, 2022, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7983457/

As Covid-19 has rattled our world in the past couple of years, many have begun to link some aspects of these numbers to the growing air pollution in these major cities. One being Los Angeles, which contains some of the most condensed and populated areas, especially within the gasoline vehicles and what they are emitting into our air. In California, 62% of nitrogen oxide emissions come from our vehicles. This pollution in our air, couples with the Covid-19 virus, has been studied and shown to increase mortality rates within those who have the virus. These findings were consistent throughout the studies and a direct correlation could be made between NO2 and Covid-19 case-fatality.

This article is very intriguing to me because I have recently seen the terrible population condensity that Los Angeles is currently experiencing within their city and highways. It is unbelievable how many people are there, and even worse, how many of them are using their gasoline cars to try and maneuver throughout the city. This will obviously do serious damage to the air surrounding them due to the massive amounts of NO2 each car is releasing. The Covid-19 relation is super interesting because oftentimes, Covid-19 causes shortness of breath and trouble breathing; that on top of breathing low quality air can definitely cause issues for those who contracted the virus in the city of Los Angeles. This is just an example, where our own pollution is actually starting to affect our air directly, to the point of raising mortality rates in those who are sick.

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A Narrative Review of Occupational Air Pollution and Respiratory Health in Farmworkers

Clarke, Kayan. (2021, April 13). “A Narrative Review of Occupational Air Pollution and Respiratory Health in Farmworkers.” Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute. Retrieved February 6, 2022, from https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/8/4097

 

Oftentimes, those working in the farms and agricultural areas are those of an ethnic minority with little access to sufficient health care. This is vital for them, as they work in areas with poor air quality and high air pollution from agricultural dust exposure. This has been directly linked to many respiratory illnesses that cause issues for a large majority of farmworkers. After doing several studies, they measured a number of air pollutants, from pollutants from dust to volatile organic compounds, and even bacteria and inhalable microorganisms were all found within the air of many agricultural areas where these individuals work. 

I believe that these farmland workers who are exposed to such pollutants should be granted free health care for their hard labor. If not this, I believe that we should not be growing these certain crops that are releasing such large amounts of pollution into our atmosphere. Many of these farmland workers have direct contact with these crops and are surrounded by this poor air at all hours while they work. This goes back to our biosequestration letters and how we must value our agricultural damages just as much as every other factor of climate change. It is not a  surprise that these workers are experiencing major illnesses and health problems surrounding their respiratory system.

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Human-Health Impacts of Controlling Secondary Air Pollution Precursors

 

Pye, O. T. Havala. (2022, January 10). “Human-Health Impacts of Controlling Secondary Air Pollution Precursors.” Anthropogenic Impacts, ACS Publications. Retrieved February 15, 2022, from https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.estlett.1c00798

 

The ongoing exposure of the toxic air pollutants, specifically, particulate matter (PM 2.5) and ozone (O3), are causing noticeable health issues for humans across the world. However, these pollutants are secondary in nature which means they are something that is originally produced by us but end up harming us in the air. These pollutants can also create more toxins like nitrous oxides and sulfur oxides. On top of these, VOCs also play a big role in these damages; By reducing these anthropogenic VOC emissions, we would be reducing twice as much air pollution damages within human health compared to the sulfur and nitrous oxides produced by O3 and PM2.5. This shows that we must be attacking the emissions of VOCs much more than we are currently.

This is astonishing because VOCs have not been talked about within these articles that I have been looking at. It seems to be the natural consensus that the ozone and particulate matter are the main pollutants that are mostly ibeings talking about. After doing more research on the VOCs, they are increasingly more damaging when in the air because they feed off of other pollutants that are also in the air. The fact that reading VOCs instead is twice as effective for our human health and the air’s health makes me think that it must be extremely difficult to do so, or else we would already be on it. 

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Short-term air pollution exposure and COVID-19 infection in the United States

Xu, Lei. (2022, January 1). “Short-term air pollution exposure and COVID-19 infection in the United States.” Environmental Pollution, ScienceDirect. Retrieved February 14, 2022, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749121019515

 

In this article, they created a nationwide study of air pollution to analyze the correlation of short-term air pollution and the Covid-19 virus cases. Within a four month span, they found 554 counties with PM2.5 and 670 counties for ozone (O3) out of 806 counties studied. With this, the short term exposure of PM2.5 and O3 and the relationship with Covid-19 cases was studied. They found that with every 10 μg/m3 increase in mean pollution concentration, the number of daily Covid-19 cases increased by 9.41% for PM2.5 and 2.42% for O3. This means that the exposure to these pollutants, especially PM2.5 will increase the spread of the Covid-19 virus worldwide.

This is very concerning for the sake of our future and humanity in general. While our air pollution is nowhere near coming to an end, we are merely making our living environments on this planet worse and worse. On top of that, as new viruses and Covid-19 variants come out, the pollutants and emissions within our air help these viruses spread even quicker. We are essentially fueling these viruses to become stronger and stronger, which in the end, hurts us as humans. This also makes me wonder about PM2.5 because we have not gone over that pollutant as much, since it is so obviously harmful. 

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Long-Term Association of Air Pollution and Hospital Admissions Among Medicare Participants Using a Doubly Robust Additive Model

Yazdi, Mahdieh. (2022, February 22). “Long-Term Association of Air Pollution and Hospital Admissions Among Medicare Participants Using a Doubly Robust Additive Model.” Circulation, Vol. 143, No.16. Retrieved February 5, 2022, from https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.120.050252

 

In this study, they examined the long-term exposure of particulate matter with the tropospheric ozone and NO2 within our air to hospital admissions where they studied the correlation to respiratory issues like strokes, atrial flutters, and pneumonia. They found that long-term exposure to fine particulate matter had a direct correlation to an increase in risk of strokes. They also found that the NO2 within our air also had the same direct correlation with strokes and the number of people being admitted into our hospitals for strokes. From this, we can conclude that long-term exposure to these air pollutants causes a significant risk to cardiovascular and respiratory health, especially amongst the elderly. 

This study and the results that come with it are not surprising at all. While searching for these articles, there seems to be a common trend among our damages of polluting the air to our health and growing health conditions across the country. This should be a serious worry for many because we do not know how long the pollutant-infested air has been causing damage to us. Imagine a child being born into the world in 2022; they would essentially be breathing in this poor air for the whole entire duration of their lives. I will not be surprised if the next generations see a decline in respiratory and cardiovascular health.