Approximately 8.6 million people live in New York City. Known for the broadway shows, fashion icons, Wall Street, and hundreds of other unique attractions, millions of people both visit and live in this bustling city. With that many people in such a compacted space, air pollution is off the charts. The abundance of taxi cars, buses, and subway transportations are all responsible for the drastic increase in CO2 emissions. With a majority of the population in self-quarantine, there is less traffic releasing these pollutes. According to Columbia University, traffic levels were about 35% less than what they were a year ago.
As a result of the 35% decrease in traffic, carbon monoxide emissions have dropped about 50% in just a couple of days. New York’s air is able to be partially clean compared to a normal day of traffic. Usually, the month of May has the most CO2 emissions due to decomposing leaves; however, the lack of motor vehicles cause the levels to be the lowest they have been in over a decade. A similar situation is occurring in other countries as well, especially in China. NASA released pictures of China showing the decrease of nitrogen dioxide due to the decrease in vehicle emissions. According to Carbon Brief, there has been a 25% decrease in emissions and energy usage in just the past two weeks in China.
In addition to the lack of motor vehicle usage, air traffic has declined greatly as well. With fewer planes in the air, emissions of pollutes will decrease globally. People will stop traveling for work temporarily, people are less inclined to go on vacation and risk exposure, and most people decide to stay in self-quarantine to not spread or contract the virus as well. International travel prohibited which will decease large planes using an abundance of fuel to travel overseas as well.
Depending on the amount of time that economies will be slowed down determines whether or not these changes will stay. Similar circumstances happened during the global financial crisis in 2009. Emissions increased 5% after this crisis after fossil fuel usage skyrocketed. This pandemic could last anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months. No one knows how exactly this virus will play out but for now, we must do what is best to prevent the spread of the virus. This small benefit of declining toxins is proof that humans are the reason for most air pollution problems, climate change, and ozone changes. Air pollution will be on the decline for now.
This is crazy! I saw a post on Instagram earlier today about how there are fish and geese on the Venice river for the first time in years. It’s wild how quickly these changes are happening. While constantly quarantining ourselves obviously isn’t going to last forever, it does give indisputable evidence that climate change is our fault.