Climate Change – Pollution

  1. Air pollution

JUST Capital measures and ranks companies on the issues Americans care about. “In our polling, 80 percent of Americans agreed that air quality was an important factor to consider in evaluating environmental impact, with 79 percent aligning on human health as another key measure of those impact.”

Two of the planet’s main environmental problems, climate change and air pollution, are linked.

To begin with, though, it‘s important to distinguish clearly between them to understand the links they have, in what way they differ, and the solutions they might share. First, climate change is the global variation of the climate of the Earth due to natural causes and also human actions. It has many consequences with global impact, mainly due to changes in climate patterns, the rising sea level and more extreme meteorological phenomena. Climate change is not only an environmental phenomenon, its negative impacts have social and economic consequences, too.

For its part, air pollution is the presence, in the air, of substances or particles that imply danger, damage or disturbance for humans, flora or fauna. The main sources of atmospheric contamination are tropospheric ozone gases (O3), sulfur oxides (SO2 and SO3), nitrogen oxides (NO and NO2), benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) and particulate matter (PM). These gases result mainly from emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels (including emissions generated by transport), industrial processes, burning of forests, aerosol use, and radiation.

New research reveals that 800,000 people die prematurely from air pollution in Europe each year. A previous study also confirms that dirty air kills 8.8 million people per year globally.

Scientists used three sets of data to reach their conclusions: population density and age, exposure to air pollution and the health impacts of foul air. While the lungs are the initial body part to suffer, once pollutants get in the bloodstream they can lead to strokes and heart disease. These latter consequences account for twice as many air pollution deaths as respiratory diseases. Scientists estimated that air pollution lops off an average of two plus years of life for these 800,000 Europeans. The rate of deaths linked to air pollution is especially high in Europe due to dense population.

Visualizing Air Pollution

“JUST Capital has utilized the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions data and the EPA’s National Inventory Emissions data, looking primarily at PM2.5 (Particulate Matter 2.5) and CO2 (Carbon Dioxide).

“Most people are familiar with CO2 as the largest and most common contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and therefore, climate change. Particulate matter 2.5 (also called particle pollution) are fine inhalable particles with diameters that are generally 2.5 micrometers and smaller. For comparison, the average human hair is about 70 micrometers in diameter – making it 30 times larger than the largest fine particle. While lesser known than CO2, PM2.5 is composed of microscopic solids or liquid droplets so small that they can enter deep into the lungs and even the bloodstream, causing serious health problems. PM2.5 are also the main cause of reduced visibility (haze) in parts of the United States.

“First, we looked at all large U.S. companies with stationary sources of pollution (e.g. facilities with smokestacks), and mapped them to showcase state-level reductions over time. It is important to note that all the data herein represents only stationary facilities, and does not incorporate the effects of emissions from transportation – like trucks, planes, or ships – or commercial and residential buildings. Facility-level sources of PM2.5 comprise about 20% of all U.S. emissions and facility-level sources of CO2 contribute a little more than 50% of all U.S. emissions.

“Next, we limited the scope to only look at the large, publicly-traded corporations that JUST Capital analyzes and ranks – at the facility level, providing an interactive tool that enables anyone to explore which companies have been leading the way in reducing air pollution emissions between 2011 and 2014. Nearly 9,000 facilities from 279 companies are represented.

“Overall, the data shows that both PM2.5 and CO2 emissions have decreased over this timeframe – suggesting that companies across America, supported by state and national regulations, are taking responsibility and working to minimize both air pollutants.

However, in Virginia, PMI2.5 has increased:

Here is a detailed map :

Visualizing Air Pollution

What can be done ?

Carbon Tax

A carbon tax is a tax levied on the carbon content of fuels and, like carbon emissions trading, is a form of carbon pricing. As of 2018 at least 27 countries and subnational units have implemented carbon taxes. Economists generally argue that carbon taxes are the most efficient and effective way to curb climate change, with the least adverse effects on the economy. Carbon taxes offer a potentially cost-effective means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The simplest approach, administratively, is to levy the tax “upstream,” where the fewest entities would be subject to it (for instance, suppliers of coal, natural gas processing facilities, and oil refineries). Alternatively, the tax could be levied “midstream” (electric utilities) or downstream (energy-using industries, households, or vehicles).

Under a carbon tax, the government sets a price that emitters must pay for each ton of greenhouse gas emissions they emit. Businesses and consumers will take steps, such as switching fuels or adopting new technologies, to reduce their emissions to avoid paying the tax.

Taxes on greenhouse gases come in two broad forms: an emissions tax, which is based on the quantity an entity produces; and a tax on goods or services that are generally greenhouse gas-intensive, such as a carbon tax on gasoline. 

One of the challenges of a carbon tax is forecasting the resulting level of emissions reduction from a specific tax rate

Carbon tax proposals have been introduced in Congress for several years without success, but supporters hope that the need for new revenues to pay for tax reform or infrastructure will make it more politically appealing.

2 One of forms of pollution is plastics pollution

They contribute to air pollution

Since its invention in the 1950s, over 9 billion tons of plastic have been produced.

  • Ninety-one percent of all plastics are not recycled, meaning almost all plastic ever produced is piled up in our landfills and oceans
  • Americans use 100 billion plastic bags every year. If you tie all these bags together, they reach around the Earth 773 times.
  • By 2050, there will be more pounds of plastic in the ocean than fish.

Plastics are a problem mostly due to their un-biodegradable nature, the materials used for plastic production (hydrocarbon molecules—derived from the refining of oil and natural gas), and the challenges behind properly discarding the

1.  un-biodegradable nature

Plastic never fully degrades, over time it breaks into smaller and smaller pieces. Eventually it becomes small enough to enter the bloodstream of marine organisms. Since the organisms cannot ever digest or process the plastic, it remains present until the organism is eaten. This passes all the plastic on to its predator, which is usually fish. If that fish is caught, then the plastics will be passed on to whichever human consumes it.

When plastics break down due to exposure to water, sun or other elements they can break into tiny pieces -so tiny, most of them cannot be seen with the naked eye. These small plastic fragments are now everywhere. When you drink water, eat fish or other seafood, or when you add salt to your meals, chances are you can also be ingesting tiny pieces of plastic. Those particles -called microplastics- are a contaminant which is now present in the oceans, water ways, the soil and even in the food that we eat. Once plastic enters the bloodstream of an organism it will never be processed out. The plastic, and the toxins it has absorbed will bioaccumulate as they travel up the food chain to a top predator, often a human..  The entire cycle and movement of microplastics in the environment is not yet known, but research is currently underway to investigate this issue further, as reported by NOAA. 

2. Materials

Plastic pollution is now recognized as a hazard to public health and the human body. Chemicals leached from some plastics used in food/beverage storage are harmful to human health. Correlations have been shown between levels of some of these chemicals, and an increased risk of problems such as chromosomal and reproductive system abnormalities, impaired brain and neurological functions, cancer, cardiovascular system damage, adult-onset diabetes, early puberty, obesity and resistance to chemotherapy

3. Discarding 

Decades of poor waste management policies that saw and continue to see plastic waste being dumped directly into the ocean have led to an international pollution crisis that threatens each of the world’s oceans 

Scientists predict that if nothing changes in our plastic consumption habits, by 2050 there will be more plastic in the oceans than there are fish (by weight) 

Many marine organisms can’t distinguish common plastic items from food. Animals who eat plastic often starve because they can’t digest the plastic and it fills their stomachs, preventing them from eating real food 

4. Source for pollution in atmosphere

Plastic is a petroleum product. It is created from petroleum just like refined gasoline. The EPA estimates that production of plastic products account for an estimated 8% of global oil production. The drilling of oil and processing into plastic releases harmful gas emissions into the environment including carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, ozone, benzene, and methane (a greenhouse gas that causes a greater warming effect than carbon dioxide) according to the Plastic Pollution Coalition. The EPA estimated that five ounces of carbon dioxide are emitted for every ounce of Polyethylene Terephthalate produced (also known as PET is the plastic most commonly used to make water bottles).

 What can you do

Here are 10 ways to reduce your consumption:

1 Take a reusable coffee cup with you.

2 No to plastic straws.

3 Cut down on plastic carrier bags – bring your own canvas bag! You can buy reusable mesh bags that replace the plastic bags you use for bulk produce at the grocery store

4 Use dishes, glasses, and metal silverware instead of their plastic counterparts.

5 Choose cardboard and paper over plastic.

6 Say no to single-use plastic bottles! Stop buying bottled water. Carry a reusable bottle to limit the number of throwaway bottles, a major source of pollution.

7 Select products that are designed for multiple uses and making sure nothing gets thrown away before its usefulness is spent

8 Take a little extra time while doing your shopping and select products without plastic packaging.

9 When you go clothes shopping, avoid fabrics with plastic microfibers such as nylon and polyester

10. Consider trying washable reusable cloth diapers instead of disposable ones