In a joke currently circulating on China’s most popular social media, Sina Weibo, a Beijing resident boasts about his happy life in the badly air-polluted capital, saying that every morning when he opens…
Heavy smog is descending on Beijing again, a week after record air pollution choked China’s capital and much of northern China.
AAP/EPA/Adrian Bradshaw
Beijing has been smothered by a dense and dangerous smog this month, which has set new air pollution records over several days. The World Health Organization advises that the acceptable level of fine particles…
A massive expansion of Newcastle’s coal export terminal has been proposed by Port Waratah Coal Services. Approval is likely soon, but the expansion’s effect on human health has been ignored in the project’s…
It is shocking to discover that more than 3000 children have been lead poisoned in the South Australian town of Port Pirie during the last decade. Whilst Australia continues to be a world leader in lead…
Nice when a few sandstone houses get smoking, but what are people breathing in bigger rural towns where wood stoves are common?
Flickr/welshmackem
Winter in many Australian country towns is accompanied by a pall of smoke from wood-fired heaters that lasts from late afternoon to the following morning. In larger towns and cities burning wood has been…
It’s currently difficult to limit your exposure to traffic pollution because you can’t smell it.
Flickr/pəruse
The World Health Organization’s recent decision to categorise diesel fumes as carcinogenic is yet another reminder of the negative health effects of traffic pollution. Cancer can now be added to a list…
It’s not just greenhouse gases that affect climate: other air pollution could be changing atmospheric circulation.
NASA Goddard Photo and Video
The Earth’s principal climatic zones appear to be shifting poleward. If this continues, as climate models project, the weather patterns that give rise to deserts in the subtropics, and stormy wet weather…
Australians should be more aware of the health effects of pollution.
OZinOH
Every time smokers pull a cigarette pack out of their pocket, they’re reminded of the harms their habit is likely to cause. In much the same way, Australian petrol stations should display health warnings…
Tens of thousands of Australians live and work close to coal-fired power plants. The cocktail of gaseous and particulate pollutants arising from coal power generation is injurious to human health. All…
The risk of cancer from air pollution is a fraction of the hazard posed by smoking.
EPA/Alex Hofford
The fixation on potentially cancer-causing chemicals in the air, food and consumer products is diverting attention from the real risks, according to a review of global evidence by an Australian cancer…
Professor & Chair in Air Quality and Health; Founding Director, Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), Co-Director, Institute for Sustainability, University of Surrey, University of Surrey