Bad Air Makes us Sicker, but Pandemic Protocols Make the Air Better
The intense stress of a world in lock-down has us looking for silver-linings everywhere. From rumors of dolphins “returning” to Venice’s waterways, coyotes visiting the Golden Gate Bridge and Welsh towns overrun by goats, it’s clear that our favorite flip-side anecdote is that “nature is healing.” There is a clear desire that now is the moment we change our ways. Now is when we finally realize the impact we have on the balance of the planet. There is a blatant hope that a pandemic is all it took for us to fix it and have clearer, star-filled skies from now on.
While many of the animals in the streets stories have been debunked (those dolphins, for example, the other two are real), as I worked through my last Data Visualization I started wondering about air quality. Though, nature might not be totally forgetting about us and our mountains of plastic while we’re inside, the air should be improving, right? Most of those damaging particles come from all the transporting and manufacturing we do, so what happens when we don’t…as much?
Because of the data available, I focused on the US and looked at 2 cities, from January through May 2019 vs 2020 to see how much of a difference shelter-in-place makes. Let’s start with where I am, San Jose, CA:
The colored bands parallel the EPA’s code for air quality. Orange (AQI of 100–150) is unhealthy for sensitive groups, yellow (50–100) is moderate and green (0–50) is good. I tried to emphasize post shelter-in-place not only with a note, but also by shading the dates after shelter-in-place so that it’s easier to compare between 2019 and 2020.
Then I looked at a city that I personally know for its poor air quality and delightful theme parks: Los Angeles
Issues in Readability
This exercise made me realize how much air quality fluctuates greatly from day to day. It’s not surprising given the air quality is not only determined by pollution, but also wind and weather patterns. Because of how jumpy these graphs are, it makes it difficult to understand at first glance. To make it easier, I went with monthly averages to smooth the graphs.
This is simple and lovely and shows very clearly that 2020 has less air pollution after shelter-in-place than 2019 in the same months.
LA county is a bit confusing here because it shows May 2020 numbers trending upward beyond 2019. Cursory thoughts: LA air pollution is not only due to traffic, but also low rain and high dust quantities. Let me know if you know more.
The only reason I don’t like these visualizations is because there is not as much data, only six points, a full twelve would make me happier. But the point is made. Overall, it is apparent that air quality this spring is significantly better than last spring.
But, back to the memes. The question is, are we wondering how quickly the world would balance itself out if we disappeared of the planet? Or is it more a question of how much of an impact we can make if we reduce our carbon footprint? Air quality can be affected quickly, local water quality as well, but our plastic consumption is only going up and the economic struggle will make us more focused on immediate survival than long-term planetary wellness. We always want an easy fix and we were really hoping for a silver lining, but long-term change is going to require a long-term concentrated effort. That said, the silver-lining that I’m seeing is that people clearly want this. Maybe that is enough to continue to push momentum toward a healthier future.
