Better breathing now, but badr days probably for Chicago due to climate change

Breathing in Chicago isn’t as easy as it once was. And it won’t get better.

Just two days in a recent month-long period have seen the air in and around the city rated good. For several days the air was so bad the worst in the world that people were warned to stay indoors for fear that particulate matter in the air could make them sick or even put some people at a higher risk of dying.

This was preceded by drought conditions across Illinois and followed in early July by record rainfall causing severe flooding around Chicago.

It’s been a couple of months of extreme weather that experts say is a result of climate change and global warming.

Much of the recent bad air has been caused by smoke blown from weather-related forest fires raging in Canada.

In addition, conditions were ripe for car and truck exhaust to cook in the sun and worsen ozone pollution, another major health threat.

Heavy rains have helped clear the air. But none of this was over.

There’s a chance Canadian smoke will return to Chicago, though air quality is unlikely to be as extreme and unhealthy as it was in late June, experts say.

Smoke blowing from fires elsewhere is not uncommon in Chicago. By summer’s end, the wildfires that typically rage at that time of year in the western United States will almost certainly have an effect on air quality in the city.

And summer cooking of chemicals in the air, a common occurrence that can last from spring to fall, could lead to more ozone pollution.

We need to learn to deal with all of this, says Daniel Horton, an assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences who leads the climate change research group at Northwestern University.

A depressing way to put it is: This is a taste of the future. The dice are loaded and coming out of snake eyes, Horton says. We know things are going badly. But we also know how to solve these problems.

Concerns about recent unhealthy air quality in Chicago and other cities, including New York and Detroit, have highlighted the problem that should be channeled into a call to action, Horton says.

The way people sit up and acknowledge climate change is through extreme events, he says.

Reducing the use of fossil fuels for energy, heat, transportation, manufacturing and many other sources has become a government goal. That’s why so much attention has been placed on phasing out coal-fired power plants and using natural gas and oil as fuel. These fossil fuels burn and create carbon dioxide, which accounts for more than three-quarters of the gases that cause global warming. Methane is the second largest contributor.

Local, state and federal governments all have climate action plans.

Horton says he is encouraged that the Biden administration is providing billions of dollars for research into how to further reduce the harmful pollution that contributes to extreme weather and resulting bad air that, across a population, could shorten life. lives.

He, other academics and environmental advocates say one of the first steps for anyone concerned about recent air woes is to acknowledge the climate threat, change their behavior, and urge politicians and businesses to take actions that overall can start slowing the impact.

They say that, in Illinois, where transportation contributes the most to the carbon dioxide release that is fueling climate change, people can ask government officials to speed up the switch to electric trucks and cars to reduce pollution from gas-powered vehicles and diesels.

This is especially important in Chicago, a freight hub where the transportation-related industry is a major target of economic growth but is also a major source of ozone pollution.

That sector includes warehouses that hold online orders and the thousands of trucks that roll in and out of these facilities, as well as the intermodal hubs where diesel-powered trains bring in containers carrying goods that are then typically delivered by diesel trucks. The transportation, distribution, and logistics industry grew rapidly in Chicago and the surrounding area.

Because of the way our politicians have received it, the electrification part is so crucial, says Jos Acosta-Crdova, a senior transportation policy analyst for the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization who is also a doctoral student at the Urbana-Champaigns Department of the University of Illinois Geography and Geographic Information Sciences.

Brian Urbaszewski, director of environmental health for the Respiratory Health Association of Chicago, wants Governor JB Pritzker to speed up the shift to electric vehicles, as some other states have done.

California is leading among states in implementing policies to aggressively require large fleets of trucks to be quickly converted to electric models. That state aims to cut its oil consumption in half by 2030. Other states have followed California’s lead, including Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York.

Illinois has not set a similar goal. But Pritzker has promoted the production of electric trucks and other vehicles and signed a law to phase out fossil energy sources, a major cause of greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

Tackling climate change is a generational task, but Illinois is on track to reduce its carbon footprint and build a cleaner future, says a Pritzker aide.

A new initiative underway at Lemont’s Argonne National Laboratory is seeking to identify climate-related impacts on Chicago neighborhoods. The goal is to help people locally, particularly in communities of color, where pollution is often worse than in other areas, to adapt and address issues that lead to poor air quality, urban flooding, and other dangers.

Scott Collis, an atmospheric scientist at Argonne, which is part of the US Department of Energy, says people can reduce their carbon footprint, which contributes to climate change, by finding alternatives to driving like riding a bike or take public transport.

If we keep burning fossil fuels and warming the planet, we expect these things to get worse, says Collis of Canada’s wildfires.

One of the most promising things is: it’s us, he says. We can do something about it. It is the result of our actions. There is something we can do about it.

One climate-fighting tactic mentioned by Collis: cutting back on beef consumption. The environmental impact of global beef demand has had widespread effects, including reducing the size of Amazon rainforests and other natural sources that absorb air pollution. Additionally, cows emit methane, which contributes to climate change.

And the threat of more smoke from Canada as the fires keep burning?

It really depends which way the wind is blowing, Horton says. They will burn all summer and into the fall. We may be under fire again. Also, we will have heatwaves and local air quality issues with ozone.

Brett Chases’ environmental and public health reporting is made possible by a grant from the Chicago Community Trust.