Sarah Vogel, Ph.D., is Vice President for Health.
This post originally appeared on the Global Clean Air blog.
Our new animated video shows how invisible pollution makes its way into our body.
When we’re outside, either walking or driving, we’re instinctively looking out for traffic. “Look both ways when you cross the street,” is advice drummed into most children.
But even so, we all have blind spots, and we’re not aware of the present danger polluting cars and trucks bring into our daily lives.
Our new video shows that although air pollution from vehicle exhaust is invisible, its damage to our health is visible and deadly.
EDF’s Global Clean Air Initiative has spent years researching air pollution in cities around the world. Our pioneering work with Google Earth Outreach, academic, community and government partners in Oakland, Houston and London shows that levels of air pollution vary much more widely than was previously known. In Oakland, we now know that levels of air pollution can vary by up to eight times within one city block. We’ve been working to visualize local pollution and its impacts in order to support targeted policies for cleaner air especially in those communities hardest hit by pollution. But we also recognized the need to make the experience of pollution more visible and more personal to each one of us as we walk down a city street.
