Mexico City Pollution

mexico-city pollution

For those who do not know, there is a massive smog that hangs over Mexico City most days to a point in which one cannot see the surrounding snowcapped mountains, this causes major health hazards to Mexico City’s citizens. Smog is defined as “smoke or other atmospheric pollutants combined with fog in an unhealthy or irritating mixture.”-Dictionary.com. Why, do you ask is there so much smog? Well, many things have contributed to this issue including industrial growth, urbanization, a population boom in 1950 from three million to present day 20 million or so, as well as the increase in vehicle usage/the number of vehicles present in this area. One amplifier to Mexico City’s pollution problem is the geographic coordinates of Mexico itself. Mexico is located around 2,240 meters above sea level, in the crater of a now extinct volcano. Due to this low altitude, lower atmospheric oxygen levels occur causing a disruption in the fuel combustion in engines of cars and higher emissions of carbon monoxide and many other compounds. In simple terms, pollutants from cars and industry were are trapped under thermal air inversions. Due to the close relativity to the equator, sun rays are intense in this region which only perpetuate smog levels. As far as health concerns go there are some pretty big impacts. The most serious pollutants in the air were PM10 and ozone, PM10 comes from things such as forest fires, construction dust, diesel trucks, (etc.). Ozone once contributed to 1,000 premature deaths annually and 35,000 hospitalizations. These pollutants can cause aggressive repertory and cardiovascular ailments and premature death. These pollutants also hurt the physical environment as well. In 2011, air pollution accounted for 75 percent of the costs of environmental degradation, this is equivalent to five percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The forms of environmental degradation that occurs in Mexico include the pollution of water, the irregular growth of trees and plant growth, the depletion of animals because of environmental living hazards such as birds flying through the sky and getting sick due to the pollutants in the air. Not only, does this hurt the local environment but, the world’s environment as a whole. As the Carbon dioxide emission increase in the air we are adding on to the greenhouse effect which is a bad thing because, with an increase in these elements in the atmosphere we are increasing the overall temperature levels of the earth. Thus, global warming occurs at an increased rate which is bad for multiple reasons including the melting of the polar ice caps hurting the animals in the polar region such as the polar bears. So, what does Mexico plan to do about this on growing problem? Going green of course! Mexico’s great plan to fix this environmental hazard is to go green by cutting down on things that can produce pollutants into the atmosphere such as the substitution of many individual cars to a bus that can hold multiple passengers, as well as practicing other ways to obtain energy or implementing laws to find other green ways to do things. However, Mexico is growing economy that relies on the manufactured goods made in industries which produce a lot of pollutants. So, although the green change may be better for the environment, most people ignore this because the value a better economy over a better environment.