ICYMI: India’s Air Pollution Crisis, By the Numbers

In this article, published in October 2017 on HuffPost India, Prof. McNeill and Dr. Julia Nunes break down the data for particulate air pollution in cities across India. Air pollution is at an unhealthy level for a large part of the year, in most Indian cities.

The pie charts show the number of days in the past year that the average PM2.5 level fell into the following three categories: Green days (PM2.5 < 35.4 μg m-3) are healthy or moderate, yellow days (35.5 μg m-3 to 55.4 μg m-3) are unhealthy for sensitive groups such as children, the elderly or those with lung disease, and red days (PM2.5 > 55.5 μg m-3) are unhealthy for all. For more information on the data sources: https://aire.mcneill-lab.org/india-aq-2016-2017/

 

New ACS Policy Statement on Climate Change

The American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific organization, has renewed its policy statement on climate change for 2016-2019. Highlights include:

  • – A strong, clear message: “The American Chemical Society (ACS) acknowledges that climate change is real, is serious and has been influenced by anthropogenic activity.”
  • – Recommendations for how U.S. Government may take leadership in efforts to combat climate change
  •  – Links to valuable resources from, for example, the National Academies, the US Global Climate Change Resource Program, and the IPCC