Air Pollution: Past, Present & Future

Join Professor Gunnar Schade of Texas A&M University to learn about the issue of air pollution. Air pollution is a major factor for public health throughout the world. An increasing human population, increasingly clustered in urban areas, is exposed to a variety of air pollutants. Among the common pollutants, fine particulate matter and ozone exposure dominate health effects, which have become much better understood in the last two decades. While air quality has improved in much of the western world, population growth and the continued usage of fossil fuels to power economic growth has worsened air quality almost everywhere else. As the overwhelming amount of air pollution is caused by fossil fuels, namely their mining, combustion and widespread consumer use, a rapid transition to renewable energy use alongside the “electrification of everything” is expected to near eliminate air pollution as an environmental problem in the 21st century. Whether this can be achieved is therefore closely linked to climate change mitigation via phasing out fossil fuel use in energy production and agriculture. Time for interactive discussion will be provided after his talk.