Satellite photographs showed the disappearance of destructive pollutants over China and Europe when the global closure occurred as a reaction to the coronavirus pandemic. But on the Milan flat, environmental economist Valentina Bossetti was because the air wasn’t cleaner.
“What I expected is that from tomorrow, the air quality will be fantastic,” he said through Resources Radio. “But then we were surprised by the fact that the air quality was not as smart as we expected. What’s going on?”
Traffic has stopped in northern Italy. Most business activities have been closed. Shops and schools have been closed. Because it’s a warm spring, there’s less heat than usual.
“And then the big thing is why haven’t we had a greater effect?” said the lead scientist at the European Institute of Economics and Environment. “And the answer we found is agriculture.”
In January, February and March, farmers in northern Italy excrete livestock in open fields.
“It’s a practice nothing unusual,” Bossetti said. “And he releases a lot of ammonia. And that ammonia is a precursor to PM2.5.
“This means that with ammonia in the air, safe chemical reactions basically occur and secondary PM2.5 are formed. So the explanation of why we didn’t see the relief we expected was basically due to agricultural activity. And that led us to think about the fact that this is a massive source of PM2.5. »
Air pollutants kill another 7 million people each year, according to the World Health Organization, and tiny PM2.5 particles are the leading cause of death from air pollutants.
“I searched, and it’s also vital in America,” Bossetti said. “But this is a widespread problem, there is very little trackingArray … There is much less trace of this type of contamination.
The closure allowed Bossetti and his colleagues to demonstrate these agricultural pollutants to the Lombardy Environmental Protection Agency and the farmers themselves. Research can help technologies that save you the dispersion of ammonia from fertilizers.
“Now we can quantify how many lives he may have stored with the advent of these technologies,” he said. “And we can even justify a subsidy to use those technologies that save ammonia on air leaks.”
Watch Valentina Bossetti on Resources Radio:
I’ve been covering the electricity and the surrounding area since 1985, when I found out my school was throwing radioactive you in a trash can. This story took place in the Republic of Arizona.
I’ve been navigating the energy and the surroundings since 1985, when I found out my school was throwing radioactive you in a trash can. This story took place in the Republic of Arizona. I searched for electrons and contaminants for newspapers in Arizona and California, for select weeklys, adding New Times and Newcity, for online innovators such as The Weather Channel’s Forecast Earth project, The New York Times Company’s LifeWire union and True/Slant, the prototype of the fashionable Forbes. I walked a long way: to cover the counter-revolutionary war in Nicaragua, the World Series earthquake in San Francisco, the United Nations climate repositioning meetings in Copenhagen and Paris. He also taught journalism, argumentation and clinical writing at the University of Chicago. Write to me here: jeffmcmahon.com/contact-jeff-mcmahon/