1y ago

Virtually everyone in Europe lives in polluted areas with levels of fine particulate matter above the World Health Organization’s recommended limit

www.europeandatajournalism.eu No clean air in sight: Europe's worst-affected cities - European Data Journalism Network - EDJNet

With the EU voting on new air quality rules, satellite data shows 98% of people face pollution above limits recommended by the World Health Organization.

"With the current levels of air pollution, many people [are getting] sick. We know that lowering air pollution levels reduces these numbers,” said Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, director of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal).

14 comments

Belgium here, PM2.5 levels are pretty much costantly above 20μg/L during the summer. 50% more if you live in a city like Leuven.
I wonder what levels of PM10 vs 2.5 or more NO2 or so will cause worse effects?
- Wow, I always thought Barcelona (where I live) was much worse, turns out it's just a bit worse ... clocking in at 17μg right now ... sometimes up to 40, esp. in the Summer.
  
  Yeah particularly Flanders in Belgium gets absolutely wrecked by the massive meat industry and pollution of the Netherlands and the amount of diesel cars still in use. Our air quality levels are about the same as NL while going south to wallonia or France increases air quality drastically (drops to 5μg/L)

Can we not post the same topic every three days?
https://lemmy.world/post/4718410
- I'm sorry. I don't intend to double-post, but I don't follow all the instances.
  
  It's the same community.

Southeast Asia is very impacted as well. I live in Digos City which doesn't have any weather stations, but our neighbor Davao City's sensors say 10μg/m³ which is two times over WHO's guideline value. And we're a pretty quiet city, I wonder what things will end up being once urbanization swoops us down.

!fuckcars@lemmy.world !

People should just use air filters, IKEA sells a cheap one that works well, and stop cooking on gas. Not much else the average citizen can do except voting for parties with a green agenda.
- Do not use wood fires and coal bbqs and avoid cars.
  
  That only works if everyone does it ... I don't use wood fires or coal BBQs and don't own a car, but all my neighbors do :(
- They only work with the windows closed, unfortunately ... which, depending where you live, means you'd also need AC, which might spike up your electricity bill, etc ...
- And just stay inside the whole day? I mean I do work from home so it could mostly work for me but this is not reasonable overall.
  
  Most people spend a large portion of time at their homes. It makes sense to improve your indoor air quality regardless of how much time you spent out.

14 comments