With the EU voting on new air quality rules, satellite data shows 98% of people face pollution above limits recommended by the World Health Organization.
"With the current levels of air pollution, many people [are getting] sick. We know that lowering air pollution levels reduces these numbers,” said Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, director of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal).
Wow, I always thought Barcelona (where I live) was much worse, turns out it's just a bit worse ... clocking in at 17μg right now ... sometimes up to 40, esp. in the Summer.
Yeah particularly Flanders in Belgium gets absolutely wrecked by the massive meat industry and pollution of the Netherlands and the amount of diesel cars still in use. Our air quality levels are about the same as NL while going south to wallonia or France increases air quality drastically (drops to 5μg/L)
Southeast Asia is very impacted as well. I live in Digos City which doesn't have any weather stations, but our neighbor Davao City's sensors say 10μg/m³ which is two times over WHO's guideline value. And we're a pretty quiet city, I wonder what things will end up being once urbanization swoops us down.
People should just use air filters, IKEA sells a cheap one that works well, and stop cooking on gas. Not much else the average citizen can do except voting for parties with a green agenda.
They only work with the windows closed, unfortunately ... which, depending where you live, means you'd also need AC, which might spike up your electricity bill, etc ...