For this round of research we were focusing on the impacts that our topic had. Either negative or positive impacts. My topic was air pollution. I chose to research the impacts of air pollution on people. Mainly POC and how air pollution affects them more and why. As well as the impact of air pollution on our animals/wildlife, and the impact of air pollution on our environment. Air pollution has devastating effects on all of these things and I will be talking about some of them in this post.
Air pollution is a major problem going on in our world right now. There are so many things causing air pollution and those things cause so many other concerns. Around 9 out of 10 people breathe unhealthy air daily. This is 90 percent of people in the whole world (1). These problems include multiple health problems for people and animals. These problems also cause an estimated 9 million premature deaths each year (1).
When we think of air pollution we think of how it affects our environment. I think people often forget that air pollution also affects humans. Air pollution has been shown to have major impacts on health concerns as well as some other problems. Air pollution is mainly known to cause respiratory diseases such as emphysema, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (4). Particulate matter, which is a type of air pollution, can get into lungs and cause heart attacks, strokes, asthma, bronchitis, lung disease, as well as cancer (1). And while yes, these problems and air pollution can affect everyone. POC are way more affected by air pollution. White people breathe 17 percent less air pollution than they cause, meanwhile Black and Hispanic individuals suffer 56 percent and 63 percent, more exposure to pollution than they cause. This puts POC at a greater risk of the health problems that can be caused by air pollution (4). People of color suffered 9 percent higher rates of COVID-19 deaths than white people, due to pre-existing conditions which have been shown to be caused by air pollution (4). All of this air pollution in predominantly coloured areas is greater because of their close proximity to local port, freight, rail and industry (4).
Those were all impacts of air pollution that affect people. Air pollution affects the availability and quality of the food supply for humans and animals (2). Air pollution is also affecting our animals. Because of air pollution, animals are losing their habitats (2) as well as their own species. Air pollution is not only killing our planet but also killing our animals. While air pollution is everywhere, it can be greater in certain areas. Animals’ vulnerability to air pollution depends on how they breathe, using lungs or gills or another form of gas exchange (2). While most of the impacts that I researched were negative, there were some positive ones. Over the past four decades, regulations designed to reduce ground-level ozone levels have prevented the loss of perhaps 1.5 billion birds (4).
While air pollution is mainly thought to be an outdoor thing, indoor air pollution is also a thing. Exposure to smoke from cooking fires (indoor air pollution) causes upwards of 3.8 million deaths a year (3). It also has many other negative impacts. Indoor air pollution can have short and long term effects. Short term effects on humans include pneumonia or bronchitis. It can also include irritation to the nose, throat, eyes, or skin. Air pollution can also cause headaches, dizziness, and nausea (3). Long term effects of air pollution on humans include heart disease, lung cancer, and respiratory diseases. It can also cause long-term damage to people’s nerves, brain, kidneys, liver, and other organs (3). There are certain people/places that are at a greater risk for health concerns with air pollution. Children, the elderly, people with existing diseases, and minority and low-income communities are more at risk (1). Indoor air pollution is caused by things like, burning wood and other burning substances.
Sources;
(1) https://www.edf.org/health/health-impacts-air-pollution
(3) https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/air-pollution/
(4)https://web.s.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=7&sid=84c55ee9-984e-48b2-a983-99a1263c2ad6%40redis&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=152911849&db=rch
Hi Gabrielle,
Wow, I know air pollution is growing more severe as the years pass by, but I didn’t know it was this bad! I was quite surprised to read that 9/10 people are breathing in unhealthy air daily.
I learned a lot about air pollution’s effects on humans, the environment, and animals. I also learned that it’s not only an outdoor issue, but also indoor. I thought your post was very well rounded and covered pretty much all my questions while I was reading it. I liked that you split your information in to paragraphs, which made it easy to read. One suggestion is that smaller paragraphs may be even easier for readers, as for some of the longer ones I had to pay extra close attention to make sure I didn’t get lost in the lines.
Overall, I benefited a lot from this blog loved how informational it was. Good luck on your future posts!
and loved how information it was*
Hello Gabrielle,
Nice post, and keep up the great work. I have always been worrying about Global warming and climate change, most people take it too lightly and think its all a joke, but Global warming isn’t getting any better anytime soon as we heard on the Social media, we are trying to make it better, but we have to do a better job than we are doing now or we are going to slowly lose our planet.