Musings from a Chilean who lived in Sweden and now apparently lives in Middle Earth.
Chemical Engineer turned atmospheric scientist, turned aerosol scientist turned ... father.
a few years now, there are a number of projects around consumer level (as opposed to research grade) air quality sensors. (Air Quality Egg, Speck, Dustduino, Air Beam and my own PACMAN). The goal of most of these projects has been to empower the general public about air quality and bring the problem closer to home so that people don't see themselves as passive receptors in this but relevant actors who can have an impact through their individual actions.
The success of these initiatives has been varied with some developing a relatively large community (AQEgg), others with more institutional support (SPECK, Air Beam) and some with not so great results yet (TZOA). However, all of them eventually face the data quality monster and things can get very ugly very quickly if not taken seriously!
Air pollution is one of those things, like weather and climate, that because it affects everyone we all have an opinion about it. This makes it an ideal area for "citizen" and "traditional" scientists to collaborate and work towards improving our lives. However, air pollution is not easy (I've been at it for 15 years and I still can't claim to get it) and clarity on the concepts used is key to maintain the communication and collaboration.
One of those concepts that is very easy to get confused about is particulate matter (PM).
Every now and then people get "creative" with their solutions about air pollution. Back in Santiago (Chile) I saw a number of ideas being floated, with various levels of "seriousness" and I always thought that the responses from the authorities and the researchers were either dismissive or incomplete, keeping the door open for these ideas to come back and not clarifying what the good things were about those ideas and what the problems were so they were again received with the same responses.
One of those ideas was the use of what basically amounted to large outdoor air purifiers (scrubbers or filters). The first time I heard about that was back in the 1990's when the air pollution in Santiago started to be taken more seriously by the population (after other much more urgent issues were addressed as practical) and hence the elected were pushed to try and solve the problem.
It took me a few weeks to watch it completely (life affords little spare time nowadays) and I am very impressed by the clarity of the message and the thoroughness of the investigation. It does have some hints of "how great is China's response to air pollution" and it does focus more on the emitting activities rather than the drivers for those processes (economic growth measured as increased industrial output) but overall it is an excellent summary of the air pollution problem not only for China but other places as well (don't look away NZ!). In fact I think that many air quality management institutions should look at this piece and learn how to communicate some of the complexities of this issue.
Take this statement:
"Fine Particles impact the respiratory system, exacerbate inflammation of the respiratory tract and affect the entire cardiovascular system. Small particles correlate with a higher chance of heart failure due to reduced cardiac blood supply"
That's quite standard language for the so called "public messages" from air quality managers everywhere but as Chai Jing says "I don't understand any of that jargon" so she and some scientists made an animation to explain what's the current understanding of the effect of fine particles on people's health (see between 09:57 and 12:30 of the video).
That's just one example.
To me the most important message is that air pollution is not the goal of any human activity. Nobody does something with the explicit objective to degrade air quality ... it just happens. It's the unintended consequence of burning stuff to warm ourselves, to cook our food and to cause little explosions in our engines to make us go faster from here to there.
Air pollution is not an air pollution problem, it is an energy supply problem, a transport management problem, an urban design problem ... ultimately, it is a human problem that needs answers from all aspects of human activities.
