Urban air pollution ethical dilemmas

Urban air pollution is one of the biggest environmental concerns for my community. And not just my community; air quality has seriously deteriorated in many cities around the globe over the last 60 or so years. The increasingly poor urban air quality has been largely caused by industrialization. Vehicles exhaust has also contributed to the poor air quality. In most urban areas, air pollution is a mixture of gas-phase and particle pollutants. Air pollution has serious negative effects on the quality of life especially in terms of health. In my community, the pollution sometimes gets so bad that it is visible. In other cities and mega cities around the world industrial smog is so bad it affects visibility on the road (Liu et al., 2016).

Ethical Dilemmas Concerning Urban Air Pollution

Accidently making things worse

One of the ethical dilemmas is the fear that in dealing with certain sources of urban air pollution, we may be unknowingly promoting worse alternatives. Thus, many people are arguing that there is really a need not to rush to push certain solutions without thoroughly studying the implications of such solutions on our environment. For example, in pushing car manufacturers to make cleaner cars, environmental agencies unfortunately set the bar too high that some manufacturers such as Volkswagen ended up making cars that could “cheat” the systems that they were clean yet they emitted more polluted air than before (Notman, 2017).  Another example is in the fact that while we are focusing on reducing exhaust emission, we might be making things worse by not focusing on other types of ways in which vehicles may be polluting the environment. For instance, researchers are in agreement that apart from vehicle exhaust, vehicles also cause urban pollution through non-exhaust sources such as particles from the wear and tear of tires and breaks (Notman, 2017). So even though my community has recognized that there is a need to reverse the trend on urban air pollution, there is also a need to go for more wholesome solutions; not solutions that offer ethical dilemmas.

A balancing act

There is a need to balance environmental health with environmental justice and environmental ethics. Without environmental justice or ethics, we cannot resolve environmental health issues comprehensively. There is tension when environmental health is not balanced with environmental ethics and justice. More practically, in restoring environmental health, agencies, organizations and communities need to focus on the greater good and achieving environmental health sustainably. So, there is a need to ensure that in restoring environmental health, the newfound health is sustainable in one way or another. However, there is an ethical dilemma in the sense that it is destructive practices that lead to damaged environmental such as in my community with our poor urban air quality. So, this contradicts assertions earlier made of sustainable development. Regardless, environmentalists have to realize that right now the authorities and many agencies are for development and progress. And that many will choose development over the environment. Thus, there is a need to work with and not against such authorities so as to achieve a balance of sustainable development. The kind of development in which every party wins. Sustainable development promises better overall quality of life for citizens. It also does justice to the environment. Hence, city professionals in public health, in recreation, in ecology, in planning and in all other areas should work together to ensure that if it a must for some form of development to occur, it is done safely without adversely affecting air quality or any other part of the environment.

References

Jennings, V., Yun, J., & Larson, L. (2016, August). Finding common ground: environmental ethics, social justice, and a sustainable path for nature-based health promotion. In Healthcare (Vol. 4, No. 3, p. 61). Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute.

Liu, X., Zhu, H., Hu, Y., Feng, S., Chu, Y., Wu, Y., … Lu, Y. (2016). Public’s Health Risk Awareness on Urban Air Pollution in Chinese Megacities: The Cases of Shanghai, Wuhan and Nanchang. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 13(9), 845. http://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13090845

Notman, N. (2017, January 12). Urban air pollution. Retrieved June 6, 2018, from https://www.chemistryworld.com/feature/urban-air-pollution/2500224.article