Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Scientists Relate Urban Population to Air Pollution

Scientists are now noticing that the population of large cities has a major effect on the amount of air pollution with a catch, there are widely varying amounts of pollution depending on the region of the city. Though some cities are able to to function with less emissions the sheer amount of people still adds up. Though more research is required it is worthy to note the regional difference causing different amounts of emission. “Energy usage patterns and per capita emissions differ greatly between India and Europe," Lamsal said. "Despite large populations, Indian cities seem cleaner in terms of NO2 pollution than the study's other regions." This could be caused by many different things though. It's hard to fix something like this easily because sadly people translate to air pollution. When they burn fossil fuels the NO2 is the response. It's only dangerous if breathed in high quantities but within such a tight area as most cities are it can be a real problem which is why the amount of NO2 is used as a proxy for urban air quality. The only way to lower it is to stop burning fossil fuels but our dependence on oil and coal are just to great to stop all together. Personally I believe that cities are constantly trying to fight all types of pollution but like every other city program it is hard to get funding like that. I believe that if people work together than a lot of the pollution problems we have today can be stopped but like it was said by Professor Barnhardt in The Day The Earth Stood Still “But it's only on the brink that people find the will to change.”

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