Pollution Free Cities

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Less Car Use – only in Britain you say?

On the Move - Making sense of car and train travel trends in Britain(148 page pdf, Scott Le Vine and Peter Jones, Royal Automobile Club (RAC) Foundation for Motoring Ltd, Dec. 3, 2012)

Also discussed here: Making sense of car & train travel trends in Britain(Royal Automobile Club (RAC) Foundation for Motoring Ltd, Dec. 3, 2012)

And here: Oops! What is happening to the American Dream? Are cars on the way out?(World Streets, Dec. 4, 2012)

And here: Peak car or bleak car? The future is up for grabs(Campaign for Better Transport, Dec. 3, 2012)

And here: Traffic forecasts and pensions(Campaign for Better Transport, Apr. 17, 2012)

Today we review a report assessing the state and causes of car use by car users in Britain, noting that there, as in many other countries, there seems to have been a peak in mileage driven per year. Some of the reasons suggested are the rise in fuel costs as oil becomes more expensive and harder to produce, greater use of trains for commuting (at least in and around London where this is a viable option) and less use of company cars again because of higher fuel costs – along with cultural trends such less desire for car ownership by the younger population and a preference for online shopping over driving to the mall. An important exception seems to be older men and women whose car use has increased, signaling a different motivation. These are important conclusions as they suggest ways to accentuate the shift away from polluting vehicles in other countries which have serious roadside pollution and health issues.

Key Quotes: “developed countries around the world are seeing car traffic level off rather than increase .. and that in dense urban areas traffic levels are declining”

” Average car driving mileage per head of population has changed little in Britain over the ten-year study period.. large differences in trends between men (whose driving mileage has decreased) and women (whose driving mileage has increased); the largest drop has been for men in their 20s, whose average car mileage fell by about 2,000 miles per year.

Most of the reduction in mileage by men…can be accounted for by a sharp fall in company car use; this seems to be linked to the large increases in taxation on fuel provided for private use.

Half of the increase in mileage by women can be accounted for by a rise in adult female licence holding (up from 56% in 1995/7 to 62% in 2005/7).

London is different…car travel is lower and rail travel higher among both London residents and those from outside who work in the capital… has been a pattern of continuing growth in non-company car use outside London for those aged 30 and over

60% growth in GB rail travel is the result of more people starting to travel by train, rather than existing rail users travelling more.. Rail mileage has grown most rapidly for business purposes – it has nearly tripled – and there is some evidence of a partial shift of business travel from company car to rail for men.

“this effect is cultural rather than simply economic, led by new trends such as fewer young people desiring cars of their own, and the growth of home offices, online shopping and radical changes in communication technology making face to face meetings and transactions less necessary, to the extent that they affect travel patterns in a significant way”

Monday, December 24, 2012

Satellite Monitoring of Air Pollution in the World’s MegaCities

AOD trends over megacities based on space monitoring using MODIS and MISR(11 page pdf, Pinhas Alpert, Olga Shvainshtein, and Pavel Kishcha, American Journal of Climate Change, Nov. 2012)

Also discussed here: Tracking Pollution from Outer Space: Team Uses NASA Satellites to Measure Pollution Hovering Over World's Megacities(ScienceDaily, Nov. 27, 2012)

Today we review research that used three different satellite sensors to estimate atmospheric optical depth for 189 large cities world-wide over an eight year period. One big advantage of this method is that it gets away from the sometimes non standard or inconsistent pollution monitors on the earth’s surface. Another is that trends in air quality in various cities can be measured and compared using the saem equipment. While cities in Southeast Asia and Northeast USA show an improvement, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East and Northern China show deteriorating air quality. This approach looks very promising for future monitoring on a global basis.

Key Quotes:

“Using eight years' worth of data collected by the satellites [MODIS-Terra, MODIS-Aqua, and MISR], the researchers tracked pollution trends for 189 megacities -- metropolitan hotspots where the population exceeds 2 million”

“Unlike ground-based measurements, satellite remote sensing of aerosols has the advantage of providing global coverage on a regular basis [10]. This provides us with an opportunity to compare aerosol tendencies in different megacities using satellite data of the same sensors”

"By merging the data from three imperfect sensors, their flaws are mostly counterbalanced. In cases where the three sensors show differing signs of pollution levels, more research is required."

“The increasing AOD trends over the largest cities in the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, and North China can be clearly seen. By contrast, megacities in Europe, the north-east of US, and South-East Asia show mainly declining AOD trends”

“Space monitoring of aerosol optical depth trends over megacities can serve as a potential space indicator of global anthropogenic air-pollution changes”

Friday, December 21, 2012

How To Develop Resilience to Rare Extreme Events

Climate Risk and Resilience: Securing the Region’s Future (Photo credit: Asian Development Bank)

General Resilience to Cope with Extreme Events(12 page pdf, Stephen R. Carpenter, Kenneth J. Arrow, Scott Barrett, Reinette Biggs, William A. Brock, Anne-Sophie Crépin, Gustav Engström, Carl Folke, Terry P. Hughes, Nils Kautsky, Chuan-Zhong Li, Geoffrey McCarney, Kyle Meng, Karl-Göran Mäler, Stephen Polasky, Marten Scheffer, Jason Shogren,Thomas Sterner, Jeffrey R. Vincent, Brian Walker, Anastasios Xepapadeas and Aart de Zeeuw, Sustainability, Nov. 28, 2012)

Today we review an article that looks at resilience when faced with extreme events, an especially timely topic given the recent hurricanes, droughts, forest fires, storm surges, earthquakes and tidal waves and the expectation that climate change will increase the frequency of rare weather-related disasters. Among the key activities and outlooks needed in advance of such disasters is the need to combine long term considerations into short term planned actions and the usefulness of such tools as planning alternate scenarios to identify needs.

Key Quotes:

“Resilience, in the context of environmental management and sustainability, is the capacity of a social-ecological system to absorb disturbance, reorganize, and thereby retain essential functions, structures and feedbacks”

“rare or unprecedented disturbances that are unusually intense or extensive require a more broad-spectrum type of resilience”

“Monitoring—the provision of transparent, relevant information about status and trends of the socialecological system—is essential for building and maintaining resilience. Indicators of social processes and the ecosystem help users and managers understand status and trends of critical ecosystem services. Sometimes indicators may provide early warnings of approaching thresholds”

“seven principles for enhancing resilience, which address

diversity,
connectivity,
feedbacks and slow variables,
polycentric governance,
learning and experimentation,
breadth of participation, and
the complex adaptive characteristics of social-ecological systems”

“Scenario planning is a method of exploring the resilience of a social-ecological system to a wide range of factors. Scenarios are a coordinated set of stories that reveal sharply different alternative futures for a social-ecological system. The alternate scenarios within a set diverge as a result of human decisions, diverging drivers, and large-consequence events.”

“The greatest challenge of general resilience is to design and implement concrete policies and actions. Unless incentives are constructed properly, short-term decision making will tend away from the long term view that is needed to build and maintain general resilience. How can long-term practices be woven into actions that also meet the immediate needs of people and ecosystems?”

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

How Well Do Countries Follow Ambient Air Pollution Standards?

Global review of national ambient air quality standards for PM10 and SO2 (24 h)(7 page pdf, Candace Vahlsing & Kirk R. Smith, Air Qual Atmos Health, Jan. 2011)

Today we review an assessment of national air quality standards for PM10 and SO2 for over 80% of the population of the world compared to guidelines issued by the United Nations through the World Health Organization. Results indicate that average national standards in place exceed those of the WHO. Also, the degree of national compliance is inversely proportional to energy use and directly proportional to observed national PM levels i.e. standards are less applied in high energy use countries and more applied where the pollution is poorer. An interesting observation when it comes to health impacts fro air pollution is that countries tend to restrict their use of these studies tot hose conducted within their country rather than extrapolate findings from other countries.

Key Quotes:

“This paper reviews the 24-h national AAQSs for particulate matter less than ten micrometers in aerodynamic diameter (PM₁₀) and sulfur dioxide (SO₂) globally… for 96 countries, which represent 84% of the global population”

“The average AAQS for both PM₁₀ and SO₂ are substantially higher than the recommended World Health Organization Air Quality Guideline (WHO AQG) value”

“Energy use, health/government expenditure, and country level PM₁₀ concentration had the strongest association to PM₁₀ AAQS stringency”

“Most of the respondents (77%) indicated they only use epidemiology studies that have been conducted in their own country and require the epidemiology studies used for standard setting to be peer-reviewed (75%)”

Monday, December 17, 2012

Is Traffic Congestion a Good Thing?

Why Congestion Is Good (Damien Newton , LA Streets Blog, Feb. 1, 2008)

Also discussed here: What Do These Things Have in Common: Smog, Highway Widenings and Congestion? ( Damien Newton , LA Streets Blog, Apr. 29, 2010)

And here : Congestion as policy. (I have seen worse.) (Eric Britton, WorldStreets, Nov. 28, 2012)

Being stuck in traffic for many commuters is a bad experience and anything that can be done to alleviate it is a good thing- widening the road, increasing the speed limit or even adding a toll road with faster flowing traffic. All of these things come with a price and sometimes are counter-productive as more traffic is attracted to these alternatives resulting in even bigger traffic jams and more vehicle emissions and poorer air quality. In today’s review, we examine some of the benefits of congestion and even consider allowing congestion to grow is a deliberate policy option- the do nothing option, if you wish. Certainly would be cheaper than building a new road or maintaining an old one that does not meet maximum capacity!

Key Quotes: Some Benefits of Traffic Congestion:

"one of the few restraints on excessive automobile use.
can increase public support for investments in more fuel-efficient, environmentally sustainable travel modes such as public transportation, cycling and walking
Roads with slow moving traffic are more conducive to walking, shopping, outdoor dining, conversing, crossing the street, children’s play on sidewalks, etc.
Slow traffic is safer.
When traffic slows down or stalls, drivers have more opportunity to take note of and stop to visit businesses.
The speed at which motor vehicles achieve their greatest fuel efficiency and lowest emission levels is around 30mph
25-35mph is the speed at which roadways achieve their greatest carrying capacity. Above that, it diminishes as the space between cars increases”

“the key to becoming less burdened by traffic is to build and retrofit our communities so we can meet an increasing number of our daily needs without driving.”

“one way or another congestion is policy, or at the very least a policy option. And in some cases quite possibly a wise one”

Friday, December 14, 2012

Babies near Traffic and the Risk of Autism

Traffic-Related Air Pollution, Particulate Matter, and Autism(Abstract, Heather E. Volk, Fred Lurmann, Bryan Penfold; Irva Hertz-Picciotto, Rob McConnell, Arch Gen Psychiatry, Nov 2012)

Also discussed here: Autism and early exposure to traffic pollution linked(Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 26, 2012)

And here: Autism Risk for Developing Children Exposed to Air Pollution: Infant Brain May Be Affected by Air Quality(Science Daily, Nov. 26, 2012)

And here: Older dads pass down more mutations: the implications(Rosie Mestel Los Angeles Times, Aug. 24, 2012)

And here: A direct characterization of human mutation based on microsatellites(Abstract,James X Sun, Agnar Helgason, Gisli Masson, Sigríður Sunna Ebenesersdóttir, Heng Li, Swapan Mallick, Sante Gnerre, Nick Patterson, Augustine Kong, David Reich & Kari Stefansson, Nature Genetics, Aug. 23, 2012)

New findings on the causes of autism were published recently with a focus on the environment and genetics as they affect the fetus and new-borns although uncertainty exists in the research community. One study in California found that exposure of babies to nitrogen dioxide and other pollutants found near roads with heavy traffic was linked to three times higher incidences of autism. Another study indicated that the mutations that occur in older fathers which double over a typical lifetime also lead to genetic changes associated with autism in their offspring. As people live longer, “old age diseases” such as autism become more a concern and more needs to be done to reduce the threats at the start of life, starting with keeping residences with mothers further away from traffic.

Key Quotes:

“Children with autism were more likely to live at residences that had the highest quartile of exposure to traffic-related air pollution, during gestation …and during the first year of life…, compared with control children”

“Exposure to traffic-related air pollution, nitrogen dioxide, PM_2.5, and PM₁₀ during pregnancy and during the first year of life was associated with autism”

"From studies conducted in the lab, we know that we can breathe in tiny particles and they can produce inflammation…Particles have varied composition, and there are many chemicals that can bind to them. The components of these particles could be hazardous to the brain."

"We know that traffic-related air pollution can contribute to many other diseases and conditions, and it is biologically plausible it also has a role in pathways of autism”

“older men pass on more new mutations to their offspring than do younger men, a fact that could help explain higher rates of disorders such as autism, schizophrenia and others in kids born of older fathers….. the mutation rate in fathers doubles between age 20 and age 58”

“We are much more concerned about the well-being of our children than the survival of our species…what poses risks to the next generation may actually be very important for the survival of our species going forward.”

“Because deleterious mutations are much more common than beneficial ones, evolution under this relaxed selection will inevitably lead to a decline in the mean fitness of the population.”