Environmental Protection - Ark in the Ashes

Distribution of PM2.5/PM10 concentrations in major cities in developing countries

(a) The status quo

In recent days, there have been hazy weather in large areas such as Beijing, Liaoning, Henan, Shandong, Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hubei and Hunan. Visibility in some areas is even less than 500 meters, and the air quality has dropped sharply. With the continuous inclusion of PM2.5 in monitoring programs throughout the country, public awareness of air quality continues to heat up. These "ultra-fine dusts" that are invisible to the naked eye have exceeded the imagination. Guangzhou meteorological experts found that the excessive haze caused by PM2.5 would harm the respiratory system and cardiovascular system. “Strontium will replace smoking and become the number one killer of lung cancer.”

As can be seen from the figure, with PM2.5 as the standard, the entire North China and East China regions are in the deep red region, which means that the pollution is the most serious, which also responds to “Shanghai is ranked 978 among the 1100 global cities. Beijing ranked 1035, almost the bottom of the results. In the case of similar per capita GDP, taking the PM10 as a standard, the pollution situation in the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area ranked 144th in the world and the rankings behind Beijing and Shanghai are not much different, but in the PM2.5 standard Next, there is a huge color difference: dark blue and deep red.

The official United Nations microblog was released in September this year. WHO ranked the air quality data collected by 1081 cities worldwide. The ranking of air quality in Chinese cities is basically based on the latter. The cities with the lowest average PM10 in China are Haikou (814), Lhasa (891th), and Nanning (892th); the highest is Lanzhou, ranking 1058, while Nanjing is ranked 1009.

(b) Source

Where does the ashes come from? According to the results of expert monitoring, in addition to deserts and other areas with large dust particles, PM2.5 mainly comes from motor vehicle tail gas dust, fuel oil dust, sulfate, restaurant oil smoke, building cement dust, coal smoke dust, and nitrate. This means that the more densely populated and economically prosperous regions are, the more vulnerable they are to haze. No wonder that the economically developed regions such as the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan, Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta are red. However, from the global PM2.5/PM10 concentration distribution map, economic development does not have to be at the expense of the environment, and super cities are not all the hardest hit areas of air pollution.

(III) Response

Some methods of temporary treatment, such as masks with poisonous functions, households using air purifiers, and spending money to buy peace of mind, actually, although each of us is a victim of air pollution, it may also be air. Contaminated manufacturer. In many cases, we tend to push our responsibilities to the outside world to escape the responsibilities that we need to take. While calling for the government to closely monitor air quality and strengthen governance, should we also reflect on our own behavior? We know that to resist smoking in public places, we should examine our own living habits more and more, and gradually turn protection of the environment into a kind of conscious social morality. The slight effort of the individual seems to be insignificant, but only if all people really act, the air quality can be completely improved.

In fact, we can avoid this unless we do not breathe. In social life, each person may play a different role, but in front of nature, human beings are just tiny bacterial groups. Especially in this country, the urgency of environmental protection is far more serious than we think. On this ark, we are not spectators. We are all passengers.