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The Smog Days of Summer
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by
Pulse Team
July 3 - 9, 2008 |
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On the average day, for an average human, between 15,000 and 20,000 litres of air make their way through the body’s respiratory system, exchanging used air for new air, and replenishing the circulatory system with fresh oxygen.
On an average Ontario day, some of that air may be composed of smog, a dense blanket of ground–level ozone – caused when sunlight reacts with emissions like volatile organic compounds, sulphur dioxide and nitric oxides – and particulate matter. It’s the recipe for the hazy air Ontarians have grown accustomed to breathing in, and can make the lungs feel like lead and skin feel like masking tape.
Uncomfortable for most – and downright dangerous for others – air pollution accounts for nearly 5,900 deaths every year, according to Environment Canada, and costs the provincial economy an estimated $10.8 billion annually. Health effects from smog can be minor – an irritated throat or mild congestion – but they can also be serious, triggering breathing problems in asthmatics, and even heart attacks.
“In a medical sense, there is what they call no known threshold below which health effects are not believed to occur for particulate matter and for ground level ozone,” says Quentin Chiotti, a senior scientist at Pollution Probe. “It doesn’t matter how low those levels are, some segment of the population is going to be affected.”
Since 2000, smog levels have been on the rise in Ontario. Prior to that, the smog days clocked hovered in the single digits. Since the millennium, however, that number has sharply increased: According to the Ontario ministry of the environment, 2005 racked up 53 smog days; 2007 had 39. So far this year, Ontario has experienced four.
The dramatic change in numbers is the subject of much speculation. Some point to changing parameters in measurements, such as accounting for more factors, as the reason why there has been a sudden jump in smog days. The other theory says while much as been done to curb emissions, coal–fired power plants in the U.S. and a love affair with the automobile fill in the gaps all too quickly.
Chiotti says you’d be foolish to think air quality is worse today than it was in the ‘60s and ‘70s, when few air quality controls existed, but admits the problem has reached a stasis. “We’ve seemed to have hit a wall,” he says. “It’s becoming more and more costly, more and more challenging to improve air quality incrementally because we’re just sort of reaching this ceiling.”
The mess of pollutants that contribute to smog vary in composition and cause, making any single solution inadequate at best. Transportation is responsible for 64 per cent of nitric oxide emissions according to Environment Canada. Sulfur dioxide, also a smog component, is caused mostly by industry. However, working on reductions in these areas does nothing to reduce trans-boundary smog, which accounts for 50 per cent of Ontario’s air quality woes. Stateside pollution recognizes no borders, and needs no passport to blow into Ontario, nor can it be regulated by Queen’s Park or Ottawa. It’s enough to make one throw their hands in the air and exclaim, “I give up!” For its part, the Canadian government has said it will reduce air pollution from industrial sources by 50 per cent by 2015.
Despite the complexity of the problem, experts say something can be done.
“I think where we’re going to go to is recognize that, while you have these broader–scale problems, at the end of the day, we’re going to have to become much more sensitive to where we have local exposures,” Chiotti says. “In the scheme of things, it may not make a huge difference on the ambient air quality in general; maybe in your local neighborhood it will.”
Brian McCarry knows a thing or two about local pollution. The McMaster chemistry professor studies the phenomena at micro levels, areas of around a hundred square meters, which take into account hyper–local sources of emissions and looks at the effect of wind patterns and topography in order to pinpoint the areas most affected by smog causing compounds.
Like real estate, how much smog you experience is all about location. “The message that we’re finding is…it all depends on where the exact sources are, how close you are to them,” McCarry says. “It’s pretty clear that if you’re next to major roads or major sources of pollution you’re going to be impacted more so than if you were farther away.”
McCarry uses a mobile monitoring unit to analyze pollution levels across the city. The data shows those closest to the city’s major roads, such as Barton and Upper James Streets and Highway 403 in the West End, experience the highest pollution levels – a dramatic finding which McCarry expects to see repeated at other high–traffic sites across the province.
This adds up to a slew of locally produced – and preventable – health problems. According to Clean Air Hamilton, 620 hospital admissions are related to air pollution annually. And they aren’t just respiratory ailments; pollution actually has twice the effect on the cardiovascular system as it does on the lungs. Still, people aren’t making the connection.
“It’s very subtle and it’s not right up in your face,” McCarry observes of the relationship between smog and illness. “They don’t have a toe tag saying ‘air pollution killed this person.’”
Smog days, and preventing them, often come with a prescription: drive less, use public transportation, walk or bike, and turn up the thermostat. All of these can have an effect.
In addition to individual actions, McCarry points to municipal–level solutions as a way to improve public health and regional air quality. Better public transportation, anti–idling by–laws, efficient buildings, and walkable communities are just a few of the keys to unlocking the puzzle of growing smog rates.
“You need to have large–scale changes in behaviour to make a real difference,” he says. “But there’s no question that if you reduced emissions by 20 or 25 per cent, you’d see a 25 per cent improvement in air quality locally.”
Essentially, air quality is about lifestyle issues, questions about the quality of life we want to lead and the types of communities we want to live in.
“The problem, frankly, is us. It’s our whole lifestyle,” McCarry says. “We’re all in the soup together. We’re all contributing to it.” P
[SARAH VEALE]
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