An article in The Guardian today bemoans a report that urban air pollution today is as damaging to our health as Chernobyl radiation. Author Lee Hickman lists ten things you can do to counter the effects of air pollution that shortens life expectancy by about eight months.
- Watch where you walk—Avoid walking along busy streets and instead choose side streets and parks. Pollution levels fall by a factor of 10 simply by moving a short distance away from its main source: exhaust fumes. Also, don’t walk behind smokers.
- Use street smarts—There are ways to use the sidewalks and streets to minimize exposure, such as standing well back of the curb while waiting for lights to change. Distance counts when in close proximity to traffic. When crossing, cross quickly.
- Avoid pollution spikes—During high traffic congestion, pollution spikes, generally falling during the night. Seasons matter, as well, with the spring and autumn winds blowing fresh air and helping lowering pollution levels. Extreme hot and cold creates a build-up of pollutants. Walk in rain, which cleans the air.
- Wear a mask—Masks only make a difference if they fit tightly and are cleaned regularly. A dirty mask can make the air you breathe dirtier rather than cleaner. Balance the look-at-the-crazy-person stairs with the value of cleaner living in making a decision about wearing a mask in public.
- Be aware of dangers with pushchairs—According to recent studies, children have a much greater risk of respiratory problems due to their closer proximity to the street level. Their faster metabolism also increases exposure. The difference between their walking and riding may not be very big, but the position of the cart closer to the street while waiting for a pedestrian light does have consequence. Get in the habit of standing next to the pushcart, rather than behind it, while near the street.
- Beware of exercising in traffic—Runners and bikers inhale up to three times as much air pollution as walkers. Exercise in early morning or evening, when levels are lower, or someplace other than city streets (like parks or indoor tracks). Cyclists should make use of side-roads whenever possible.
- Sit high in the back of the bus—That choice seat with the nice view near the side exit turns out to also be the furthest away from the pollution. Bad news for drivers of the busses: the worst place is right behind the driver, where exposure can be up to 10% higher. It is a tossup whether it is better to take a bus or a subway, where the pollutants are trapped. There are apparently different kinds and weights of pollution, which may favor subway travel.
- Protect yourself indoors—Only 10% of our time is spent outdoors, but air pollution can be 2x to 5x higher indoors than outdoors. Less is known about the variety of chemical soups we make through our activities and the effect it has on us. Some of the most vulnerable indoor populations are elderly and children. Central heating, carpeting and airtight homes make indoor exposure worse, so ventilation is a good thing. Height doesn’t offer much help, either, since studies show pollution levels in the city remain constant up to heights of 700m. (For perspective, the world’s tallest building—Tapei 101—is 101 stories and some 508 meters tall.) Distancing yourself from roads as the crow flies is a better strategy than as the eagle rises. Of course, the further you are from roads, the more likely you are to own a car …
- Don’t drive—Chosing diesel fuel makes things better for global warming issues but increases ground-level pollutants. The best choice is not to drive at all.
- Get out of town—Since transportation in some form is practically unavoidable, it is better to spend your time out of the urban setting rather than living, working and sleeping in the more dangerous concentrations of pollutants in the city. In the UK, the ideal place is up in Scotland where the Atlantic winds blow strong.
The big question is whether behavior changes—especially in our reliance upon oil-based transportation—will allow the planet to find an older, cleaner equilibrium … or have our actions irrevocably damaged our environment. Maybe we can also hope for an evolutionary change that renders the pollutants less damaging.
3 replies on “#11. Hold Your Breath”
In my CHI teams research on school bus pollution, we found several reports that claim being anywhere on a bus is worse than the outside. Buses tend to trap exhaust in the cabin providing a higher level of pollutants than the outside air.
… which, of course, is the problem with lists like this. We tend to address problems with isolated solutions (we design the same way, generally) rather than for the dynamics of a system.
Here, the author concentrates on one problem—air pollution—and suggests individual courses of action without consideration of how they interact with other kinds of problems or even each other.
If you have to get somewhere, walk. If it’s too far to walk, take a bus instead of a car. If you have to ride a bus, sit high and away from the driver. All of this conditional advice is helpful on some level, but it neglects things like, if you walk on 10th street where there are no sidewalks, crazy driver’s may hit you.
Really we should all just stay home and live in virtual worlds, which just happen to consume more energy per day than most South American countries.