Air Pollution

Crosswalk at Broadway and 104th Street, looking north, 4:50 pm, March 24, 2020, in front of the author’s home. The avenue is normally clogged with traffic at this hour. Credit: Kevin Krajick/Earth Institute Vehicle travel, factories, and other air pollution sources are shutting down in the wake of the coronavirus…

The covid-19 pandemic has changed the world, grinding to a halt increasingly large geographic areas and portions of the economy in an effort to slow the virus’ spread.The impacts have been profound on the ground, but government-mandated lockdowns have also remade the atmosphere. Satellite data from China, the first epicenter…

Image: AP ImagesSmog is the natural enemy of humanity. The pollution created by transportation, shipping, and industry has been killing us slowly for decades, contributing to numerous respiratory diseases. And according to a new joint study from the universities of Bologna and Bari in Italy, smog may have been a…

The European Space Agency released new video this weekend that shows air pollution vanishing over China as the country goes into COVID-19 coronavirus lockdown, then returning as business resumes. The animation, based on data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite, charts nitrogen dioxide, a noxious gas produced primarily by the burning…

Earlier this week, Amazon announced that it will hire 100,000 warehouse and delivery workers across the country to handle the online shopping surge caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. This may be welcome news for those facing job losses and customers hoping for speedier deliveries of essential goods. But some in…

Last week, the European Space Agency (ESA) released an animation showing the reduction in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emission levels over northern Italy. The ESA describes NO2 as "a noxious gas emitted by power plants, cars and factories," one of the family of ni… Read More

This image, using data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite, shows the nitrogen dioxide emissions over China from 7 to 16 March 2020. Credit: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2020), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO Recent data have shown a decline of air pollution over northern Italy coinciding with…

View Slideshow According to the World Air Quality Index of 2019, the city of Bangkok suffers from unhealthy levels of air pollution most of the year. In a bid to raise awareness about air quality and the urban heat island effect, Thai design collective Shma Company created Safezone Shelter, an…

WUHAN, CHINA: A masked woman walks in the empty street due to the lockdown to curb the COVID ... epidemic in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province Friday, Feb. 21, 2020. Photo by Feature China/Barcroft Media via Getty Images. Barcroft Media via Getty Images China’s coronavirus lockdown likely saved tens…

Air pollution seems to gain another menacing nickname with every new study. Silent killer. Epidemic. Airpocalypse. The director of the World Health Organization has called it a “global public health emergency.” Recent headlines have declared dirty air a “pandemic,” maybe on the off-chance they will grab the attention of anxious…