Chemistry can make us think things through from a new angle
Every day it seems we learn something new about the air we breathe. And what we learn is often worrying. Scientists are finding more and more evidence for direct links between air pollution and illnesses like heart disease, lung cancer and asthma. The European Environment Agency estimates air pollution causes more than 400,000 premature deaths every year in Europe. And a recent report suggests air pollution is the fourth highest cause of death globally.
In the UK, activists don’t feel leaders are doing enough about the issue. Earlier this year, campaign group ClientEarth took the Welsh government to court for breaking EU-set NO2 limits. The UK government has now lost its third court case brought against its air pollution policy. Thanks to the same group, the High Court ruled that current policy is sufficiently inadequate to be unlawful. And in March, environment experts resigned from the Scottish government’s clean air strategy team out of frustration from lack of progress.
Air pollutants and their sources are commonly studied in secondary level chemistry courses (see Taking care of the air (p16) for classroom resources and curriculum links). But, despite its real-world relevance, secondary teachers have told me it can be difficult to keep students interested in the topic. The same goes for other big environmental challenges, like climate change.
Air pollutants and their sources are commonly studied in secondary level chemistry courses (see Taking care of the air for classroom resources and curriculum links). But, despite its real-world relevance, secondary teachers have told me it can be difficult to keep students interested in the topic. The same goes for other big environmental challenges, like climate change.
The scale of the topic is so large and impersonal, that it can feel like it’s too big to care about. There’s no nice, neat personal story, and there’s no fast-paced drama. Also, when we think of environmental issues – such as air pollution – we think we already know how to solve them: we’re still using too many polluting vehicles, still burning too much fuel.
But new research reported in Science did grab my attention (p12). Scientists have found a major source of a particular kind of pollutant – volatile organic compounds (VOCs) – that has been almost entirely overlooked so far: household products like cosmetics and cleaning agents. Apparently, VOC emissions from these sources are actually two or three times greater than we estimated. These products actually emit VOCs into the air on a comparable scale to vehicles.
But new research reported in Science did grab my attention. Scientists have found a major source of a particular kind of pollutant – volatile organic compounds (VOCs) – that has been almost entirely overlooked so far: household products like cosmetics and cleaning agents. Apparently, VOC emissions from these sources are actually two or three times greater than we estimated. These products actually emit VOCs into the air on a comparable scale to vehicles.
It’s not necessarily good news that there is another emission source that we haven’t been paying enough attention to. But it is important to point out the optimism of the researchers when they spoke to Chemistry World about their findings. They highlighted that now we’ve discovered this issue, we can do something about.
This research has changed how I think about air pollution, and rekindled my interest in the subject. There is much more nuance to the kinds of chemicals that pollute the skies than I’d realised, and much more nuance to where they come from. I’m also looking at some of the things in my life in a new way.
I think this illustrates a particular quality of chemistry. It’s undoubtedly cool when physicists point out some mind boggling fact about the universe, but chemistry can make us look at our everyday lives in a totally new light. In doing so, it can help us pay attention to the way in which big processes are constantly being shaped and built by the small ones.
No comments yet