Harmful Emissions caused by Traffic and Cars


Image result for harmful emissions cars

By: Andrew Thomas
A big issue that we face in our day to day lives in the presence of harmful emissions. This has been an ongoing issue that has presented a great obstacle for the people as the increase in nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrocarbons, and many other gases are released in transportation, especially in cars is affecting our air. A new study led by University of Toronto Engineering researchers reveals that emissions from nearby traffic can greatly increase concentrations of air pollutants, with highly polluting trucks making a major contribution to the air pollution. 

 In a recent report, the study has shown that in the large cities of Canada, Vancouver, and Toronto, that traffic emissions have been increasing in these cities which means that nitrogen oxides, ultrafine particles, black carbon, metals, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide are also increasing. Cars, SUVs, and light-duty trucks that are fueled by gasoline, diesel, and E85 emit both greenhouse gases and smog-forming pollutants from their tailpipes. Exposure to these emissions can lead to a wide range of health issues, including asthma, cancer and cardiovascular mortality.
Image result for harmful emissions carsImage result for harmful emissions cars chart
Heavy-duty vehicles cover about 5 percent of all vehicles on the road, yet they produce more than 25 percent of global warming emissions that come from the transportation sector and significant amounts of air pollution. As the United States continues to deal with different issues each year, the challenge of reducing emissions from this sector will continue to grow. Addressing heavy-duty vehicle pollution is urgent for improving air quality and lowering global warming emissions in communities around the country. Continuing to lower emissions from fossil fuel-powered trucks is an important first step. 
Policies and investments from federal, state, and municipal governments will accelerate the transition to a zero-emissions transportation system which can greatly impact the earth. As these issues continue to develop in our day to day lives, we need to do our best to try and avoid the increase in harmful emissions. So what are some ways we can decrease the number of greenhouse emissions when using transportation? What are some policies that we can enact to prevent these issues? 
Sources:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191030073340.htm
https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/light-duty-vehicle-emissions
https://www.dieselnet.com/tech/env_effect.php


Comments

Anonymous said…
I am a strong believer in public transportation, like busses and subways they are so helpful for many people, but they seem to only be sensible to some in a city environment. The same with bike stations, where you can rent a bike for a dollar for about an hour or some other ratio. I would love that to become more popular, but it would be hard to implant that in a place like Flower Mound. Right now, I just try to car pool(within the legal limits, or course), but I don’t that still does anything. My favorite idea is what China is doing with the new city plans that have plants everywhere. It will make their carbon levels level with all of the plants there(bad phrasing, sorry) and I just think it’s such a cool idea. It looks amazing as well!
November 11, 2019 at 9:32 AM
Urvi Vallapareddy said…
I did not realize how damaging larger vehicles were to emitting CO2. I think that reducing the number of vehicles on the road would be a step in the right direction. Because larger vehicles are necessary for delivering products, carrying petroleum, and other industrial requirements, it would be beneficial to encourage more individuals to find an alternative to driving their own car. If people could use more public transportation or if there is a greater switch to electric cars that would be beneficial to reducing emissions. It would be in the best interest if heavy-duty trucks could also make the switch to electric vehicles. Urvi Vallapareddy
November 11, 2019 at 6:36 PM
Anonymous said…
I must say I’m not particularly surprised at the fact that heavy-duty vehicles are responsible for such a significant portion of transportation-based pollution, as the very evident pollution emitted from their exhaust pipes is very visible and apparent to anyone nearby. The ratio o pollution, however, does surprise me, as I did not expect large, heavy duty vehicles to make up such a small portion of transport vehicles while also producing a quarter of transportation-based pollution. Upon a little further research, I found that motor vehicles collectively cause about 75% of carbon monoxide pollution and 1/3 of total smog-producing air pollution. With these numbers in mind, I think it’s time we all found alternatives to driving, or at least alternatives to the way our engines produce so much greenhouse gas.
November 12, 2019 at 6:46 AM
Anonymous said…
I think it makes total sense that bigger vehicles emit more. Although I didn’t realize how much more they emit. This is very eye opening and concerning. The thing is some of these big vehicles are going to be difficult to replace because other alternatives also emit co2. They’re are many other options for like individual users but transportation of good might be a little more difficult. We as citizens could walk, carpool, bike, in some smaller areas or campuses there are scooters you can activate with like an app which are very popular and safe for the environment! I think we should all try to consider these options for transportation.
November 12, 2019 at 8:13 AM
Anonymous said…
In Europe most countries the populations daily life doesn’t include driving a car. Where I grew up in the summer in Germany I didn’t even think I needed a car because I biked or walked everywhere. And if it was further than a few miles I would take the U-Bahn (under ground subway) or the subway. I believe that we need to implement a system like this across the world. It would decrease the CO2 emissions by so much.
November 12, 2019 at 11:09 AM
Adam Yook said…
One way to mitigate the usage of large vehicles on the road is to deliberately alter your purchasing decisions. If everyone chose to source as much as they can locally, it would greatly cut down on the amount of large vehicles traveling across the country to ship goods. Additionally, one thing that is severely underrated is the value of carpooling. A majority of personal transportation can be reduced if people began to carpool more often.
November 12, 2019 at 7:05 PM
Anonymous said…
The things you mentioned are all under perfect control of us, so there really is no reason for us to not make environmentally friendly decisions, especially considering the state of our planet right now. Obviously we will have to give up some convenience, but if more people begin to make more Eco-friendly decisions, we can make a lasting impact and at the very least slow down our planet's spiral toward destruction.
November 13, 2019 at 10:08 AM
Anonymous said…
I knew that cars were a big producer of greenhouse gases, but it's disheartening to know that it makes up 25% of emissions. Thankfully, there are many ways we can reduce emissions. First, we can choose cars that are more environmentally green by having better gas-mileage. Additionally, we can start carpooling, taking public transport, or use alternatives like biking if the location isn't too far away.
November 13, 2019 at 6:12 PM
Rishi Chebrolu said…
I think that the best way to reduce vehicle emissions is to regulate gas mileage, efficiency, and advocate for more electric vehicles. Moving a fleet of public transportation to electric vehicles or less emitting fossil fuel buses can greatly reduce local atmospheres. In addition, cities with high density of people and a large density of car usages like New York, Detroit, and other cities can benefit from more people walking rather than using cars. Promoting subways systems reduces non-point pollution sources that can then be regulated later by the government.
November 13, 2019 at 6:51 PM
Anonymous said…
I feel like building regulations to reduce urban sprawl would be extremely helpful in reducing emissions even though it’d mostly impact emissions from smaller vehicles that have become more efficient over the years. A big reason emissions has gotten so bad is because the government and large companies care too much about money to pass hard and effective bills and laws so focusing on lots of smaller things that people would be willing to go for like slight changes in diet or plastic uses might be the best way to go.
November 14, 2019 at 7:08 AM
Anonymous said…
I honestly can’t say I’m surprised at this knowledge. CO2 and large vehicles are massive issues that have been known for an extremely long time. It is interesting how much large vehicles thrive regardless of that fact however. It’s probably because of money I suppose. It’s really a shame that money and preference continue to overshadow the state of our planet, as switching to more efficient vehicles could to an incredible amount of good.
November 14, 2019 at 4:57 PM
Anonymous said…
As a person who was considering Vancouver a nice place to move to I will now be rethinking that, whenever I think of carbon emissions and global warming I always think of the large quantity of cars we use on the planet as that major cause towards greenhouse gases. I never realized trucks, even as such a small percentage, would be so impactful. This has truly impacted my way of thinking towards carbon emissions.
November 14, 2019 at 6:23 PM
Anonymous said…
I think more car manufacturers need to produce more fuel efficient cars; this way, we can cut our fuel emissions. I also think people should carpool more. Trucks produce the majority of the emissions coming from cars; if companies can install more technology that will help reduce truck's carbon emissions, then we will be on the right track to a brighter future. Legislation needs to also be involved. We can preach the reduction of greenhouses all we want, but nothing will happen unless there are laws to back it up.This way, the mentality of “why should I do it when that person isn't doing it” will go away.

Dilanka llangasinghe
November 15, 2019 at 2:48 PM
Anonymous said…
I didnt realize how much is put into our environment, these gassed that cause cancer and asthma is very concerning, when people use public transport no one really notices what it can do to our earth, and all we focus on is getting to a destination. It would be difficult to spread the word about these issues since public transport os known around the world, maybe car pooling, biking, or taking the time to walk to certain places that are walkable.
November 17, 2019 at 6:56 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fake Meat Saves the Planet!

Image
By - Adam Yook What is fake meat? Fake meat is a replacement meat composed of alternatives to meat farmed from animals. There are two types of fake meat: plant-based and cell-based. Plant-based meats are created from harvesting the proteins from plants to form a meat-like substance. Cell-based meats are created from growing a single animal cell in a lab culture to grow meat. Why is it better for the environment? Plant-based meat 93% less land and have 90% less fossil fuel emissions compared to equivalent standard beef. However, the biggest environmental benefit is not easily quantifiable. Due to the continual growth of the global population, resources to feed the increase in population are becoming more and more scarce. Land used to produce livestock consumes nearly 30% of the world's ice-free land. As the population grows, that number will only continue to increase if the current diets stay the same. However, fake meat is not as beneficial to the environment as ...
Read more

We Rarely Remember the Rare Minerals

Image
We Rarely Remember the Rare Minerals By: Urvi Vallapareddy Smartphones, military equipment, aircraft engines, and wind turbines all require a resource in common: rare earth minerals (REM). REMs include dysprosium, europium, terbium, and thulium. These elements are necessary for developing high-tech  products, therefore making REMs a highly demanded mineral. Problematically, mining for REMs causes extensive water and soil pollution. Even though REM mining has caused significant destruction in mineral abundant areas, like China, technology companies need these minerals to produce their products, so the pollution continues to intensify. It is not just products like iPads and AirPods, wind turbines require up to TWO TONS of rare earth magnets. It becomes challenging when sources of clean energy require destructive mining in order to be constructed.  workers at a rare earth mining site in Ganxian county, China When it comes to mining, operations h...
Read more

Is it more beneficial to shower cold or hot water?

Image
Aerah Kim Millions upon billions of people take showers, this common activity is known around the world, there are two main groups, people who shower in hot water and people who shower in cold water. Both have positive and negative effects. Showering in cold water is a pleasant temperature to cool you off, calm itchy skin, increases circulation, reduces muscle soreness post-workout, and etc.  There are more to these perks, showering in cold water could also improve your mental health by promoting emotional resilience, a study shows that cold shower can help a nervous system that is resilient to stress. It could also lower the chances of depression, it stimulates "the blue spot" in our brain which helps play a role in easing depression.  Yet, there is a negative effect, once the cold spray hits your body there is a bit of shock that could increase, oxygen intake, heart rate, and alertness. Showering in hot water is a comforting way to relax, to end the day with...
Read more