The AQG number is the main recommendation, and refers to the concentration in micrograms per cubic meter (ug/m^3). So the report says the world should aim for 5 ug/m^3 or less of PM 2.5 annually, and 15 ug/m^3 or less PM 10 annually.
The interim targets are meant to be realistic goals to set along the way, so anywhere with worse than 75 ug/m^3 PM 2.5 on a daily basis might aim for that goal first.
I had to check how the concentrations compare to various AQI (Air Quality Index) reports, like my iPhone weather app. 5 ug/m^3 of PM 2.5 is an AQI of 21. Currently an AQI of 0-50 is considered “good”, so maybe down the road the scale will be adjusted based on these new recommendations.
https://www.airnow.gov/aqi/aqi-calculator-concentration/
Curious to see what the previous recommendations were, the 2005 report has the same first 3 interim targets for PM 2.5 and PM 10. The current report’s 4th interim target is set to the AQG (final recommendation) level from the previous report, and the new AQG level is now lower than the previous one. This is because there is now stronger statistical evidence of health damage occurring at levels above the new recommendation, the data has shown we needed a new lower threshold.
Looks like a decent guideline, but it’s important to keep in mind that there appears[0] to be no safe level of particulates.
what does "annually" mean in this context? That your time-weighted expousure should be less than 5 ug/m^3, or that it should be always under 5 ug/m^3?
There are recommendations for other specific pollutants too, I left those out, but the table includes recommendations for O3, NO2, SO2, and CO. There’s a 2nd table on the next page with recommended maximum exposures for those last 3 in terms of 1-hour and other timeframes smaller than 24 hours.
The physical effects of spending even an hour outside are immediately apparent and scary when I contemplate what this would probably do to my health if I rack up years of exposure. It's even scarier to think about children who are exposed to this air from birth and grow up inhaling it every time they walk to school, go outside to play, etc.
I've been equally surprised when visiting other cities with cleaner air than my own. It might be one of the things that pushes me to uproot my life here and try make a home someplace else.
It’s kind of of insane that we know about the harm done by pollution but shrug it off because doing something would be too expensive.
This, combined with the currency controls that China implements are, for example, an interesting manifestation of how the Chinese people literally sacrifice their lives and purchasing power to improve their economy, become globally competitive, and make their ‘leaders’ wealthy. The average person there does not know that they are doing this, but the leadership has this option in a totalitarian government that other states do not.
I live in Taiwan. While there's no doubt that some (and at times perhaps a lot) of the air pollution in Taiwan blows over from China, there are plenty of domestic sources of air pollution. Taichung has the fourth largest coal-fired power plant in the world, and the area between Taichung and Kaohsiung is home to many factories and industrial sources of pollution. Scooter usage is very high as well.
Taiwan is a democracy, getting closer to developed than developing, and a lot of younger people care about the environment. But without manufacturing and the pollution that comes with it, Taiwan doesn't have an economy.
Malaysia has a lot of air pollution. Some is industrial, but a lot comes from fires in Indonesia. A similar situation exists in Thailand. The northern part of the country, including Chiang Mai, has horrible seasonal pollution from agricultural fires in Myanmar and Laos. And of course many parts of India are infamous for pollution.
The bottom line is that Asia is the world's factory and home to many natural resources that have severe environmental consequences when exploited. Asian countries want to develop and the only realistic paths to economic growth are paved with pollution.
Living here has made it clear to me that for all of the talk about reshoring manufacturing in the US, it isn't going to happen, not just for economic reasons, but because there's no way Americans will be willing to sacrifice the clean(er) air and water they have today.
Pollution in Asia is a big problem but the West, because of its consumption that drives industrial activity in Asia, is reasonably as much a cause of the problem as the people in Asia are.
That's how it can feel.
Quite like this idea, as (I assume) it also makes data available to others: https://airly.org
Also, took note of a recent article[0] by Jeff Geerling. It’s relying on AirGradient’s sensor.
You can hook it to a USB port via a serial/USB adaptor, such as this FTDI cable from Sparkfun [2].
The male pins on the cable from the SPS30 will plug right into the female sockets on the FTDI cable.
There's sample code provided that easily builds on Unix and Unix-like systems (you'll just need to change one line to tell it the device name of the serial port). That code will poll the sensor and give regular readings, and also (assuming you keep it running long enough) do the periodic cleaning cycle of the sensor.
The SPS30 also has an I2C interface, although it is not as capable as the UART interface (it only provides mass concentration data, not number concentration data).
Sparkfun also caries a similar sensor from Honeywell [3], but I don't see any links to sample code or drivers, and the datasheet they link to does not have a lot of detail on the protocol.
Note: Sparkfun has several FTDI cables. The one I've linked to has 5 V power, 3.3 V signals. They also have one that is 5 V power and signals. The SPS30 is 5 V power 3.3 V signals, but is 5 V tolerant on the signals so the 5 V power and signals FTDI cable should also work without frying the SPS30.
Going the other way, in general, a 3.3 V serial device can send to a 5 V serial device with no problem unless the cable is really long because the lowest voltage the 3.3 V will output for a high output is still above the lowest voltage the 5 V side accepts as a high. So the 3.3 V SPS30 signal should also work with the 5 V FTDI cable.
But I recommend the 5 V power 3.3 V signal cable in general. You can use it with both 3.3 V and 5 V signal systems with no problem. With the 5 V signal cable you have to be careful to not use it with 3.3 V systems unless they are 5 V tolerant. An example of a 3.3 V system that is not tolerant is Raspberry Pi.
[1] https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15103
Air quality in Europe is already in a sorrid state
I feel almost alone when I complain about this stuff. Coal + old clunkers = fantastic. There is no escape unless ones moves far away from all humans
It’s choking outside in the winter, just from this one fire. I’m thinking about offering to put in a heat pump for him and pick up his electricity bill, it’s that bad.
Imagine what it was like when everyone used to heat with it !
I spent that entire period watching windy.com particulate maps and forcasts trying to time when I rode into work, for weeks on end it wasn't smart to do so, and those fires were in another state to me entirely, thousands of KM away.
I feek for those who live in countries where polution is nearly as bad year round as those fires were during their peak.
I soon want to integrate CAMS data from the Copernicus Project to offer Air Quality APIs for non-commercial use applications.
