WT – Air Pollution

Air pollution in cities is growing at an alarming rate. What measures could be taken to address
this problem?

Pollution is one of the biggest worries nowadays everywhere because of its negative effects on
the environment. However, there are several types of pollution that have been hurting our
planet which is why is important to note that each of them has a different cause and way to be
solve. Among these, there is one particularly that has become particularly severe because of
an extreme growing at alarming rate: air pollution.

This type of pollution is one of the most harmful for people because of how it is provoked and
how continuous it is. In fact, air has been progressively more and more contaminated by our
system of production. Industrialization and capitalism are both responsible for how pollution is
affecting us right now but also for changing our habits to worsen the problem. It is true that
people do not take care of how much fossil fuels they use or how much damage they cause by
smoking, burning garbage, etc.

Nevertheless, that is not the most important part of the problem. Common people are not the
most responsible for what is happening right now. The truth is that 65% of the whole air
pollution is caused by only 90 companies around the world which means that recycling, using
less cars or any of the alternatives proposed by the whole “green movement” will not solve the
real problem.

Necessary measures to address this problem are related to international collaboration

between countries and reducing progressively (but urgently) activities that imply the use of
fossil fuels or harmful chemicals. In this regard, there are three powerful alternatives at that
level to be apply: 1. Banning carbon bonds; 2. Prohibiting definitively the use of carbon
monoxide, plumber and similar chemicals; and 3. Using renewable energies instead of fossil
fuels.

If governments finally decide to agree on this, there might be hope for future generations to
have a planet in which they can breathe clean air. However, the path is complicated since the
most powerful countries has no intention to apply any of these alternatives. Both USA and
China are no longer signing countries of the Paris Agreement which has even more flexible
standards to address the problem. In this sense, our last hope is political action to be taken by
common people and demand changes to become real.