After my trip through the Great American West last month, I’m seeing the environment through fresh eyes. The air in the plains of Nevada just felt fresher in my lungs than it does in our cities. Sure, some of that could have been the placebo effect. I was standing in the middle of flat land, without a building for 10 miles in any direction. Nothing but nature and natural, clean air in my lungs.
But I’m starting to feel a little better about our cities after seeing the smog issue in Beijing right now. They recently raised their smog alert levels to red, which requires the scaling back of driving and industry production in the hopes of clearing out some of the oppressive smog which currently sits atop the capital.
Apparently this smog is the result of two factors: industrial and vehicle pollution coupled with a weather system that isn’t allowing the lower elevation air to float up into the atmosphere. So I suppose the takeaway here is that all the pollution we’re seeing on ground level in Beijing is what normally floats up into our shared atmosphere. That’s a troubling thought in it of it itself.
I’m not sure what the answer is to our environmental problems, but I can say one thing for sure: 100% of people on Earth should recognize air pollution is a big, long-term problem. Debating whether or not humans are the sole reason for climate change isn’t really the core issue. The core issue is this: Is pollution good or bad for the environment?
It’s obviously bad, and it’s time for each and every one of us to get serious about lessening our role in the problem.
