The death of Ella Kissi-Debrah in 2013 will be forever notable as the first instance in the United Kingdom of air pollution being recorded as contributing to the death of an individual. Whilst in itself a monumental shift in consideration of air pollution and the impact on human health, the recording by the coroner of Ella’s death as having been contributed to by air pollution has significant human rights implications. This piece considers the circumstances surrounding both Ella’s death and the report of the coroner and connects these to decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. It presents the argument that the failure to address a known risk to life presented by air pollution could constitute a breach of the right to life protected by Article 2 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR). Cases in which environmental conditions are found by the Court to have breached Article 2 are rare, but this paper contends that the formal acknowledgement of the threat of air pollution as a result of Ella’s death means that failure to address it meets this threshold.

Despite the substantial evidence linking particulate matter exposure to adverse health outcomes, a large portion of the global population, particularly in low-income countries, continues to rely on highly polluting fuels, such as wood, for cooking and heating. This study evaluates the immediate effects of wood-burning restrictions, which are triggered by air quality warnings, on levels of fine (PM2.5) and coarse (PM10) particulate matter in southern Chile. Using a difference-in-differences design that incorporates pre-policy data, we provide plausible causal estimates indicating that wood-burning restrictions lead to significant reductions in hourly PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations during the most severe air quality warning. Additional analyses, including a regression discontinuity design, further support these findings. While our analysis suggests that wood-burning restrictions are effective, they may not be sufficient to reduce air pollution concentrations to levels that are considered safe for public health.

Recording the epiphytic lichen flora in Amsterdam on 576 trees distributed over eight common lane tree species shows that the urban epiphytic diversity alone is considerable, representing 15.2%, or 100 species, of the total lichen diversity in the Netherlands. The species recorded include many rarities and some that can be viewed as urban opportunists. Trees bear 15 lichen species on average but are greatly influenced by local factors. Species-specific bark qualities such as water-holding capacity, texture and bark-shedding, influence species richness greatly but are often overshadowed by dominant environmental factors. Tree species with a higher water-holding capacity and texture generally bear the highest species richness. Bark qualities are more indicative of species richness than tree species, showing few significant differences between species richness linked to tree species. Platanus × hispanica is the only observed species whose frequent bark shedding causes it to consistently have the lowest lichen species richness, regardless of environmental factors. In general, bark desiccation and eutrophication are the most dominant factors in influencing urban epiphytic lichen diversity, resulting in xerophytic and nitrophytic lichen species being the most common. Pollution is no longer observed to be the main limiting factor for urban lichen diversity as it was in the past. Instead, bark desiccation associated with the Urban Heat Island (UHI) and low air humidity (drought) is the most damaging factor in contemporary urban conditions in Amsterdam, but it rarely reduces species richness to zero or near zero levels. Areas in which eutrophication and desiccation are much less dominant were repeatedly observed. Such areas sometimes showed local dominance of acidophytes or other distinctive communities. In line with long-term improvements to Dutch air quality, the city now offers a niche to a wider range of species. Three ecological groups (acidophytic, lithophytic-minerotrophic, xerophytic-nitrophytic) are described in this context to characterize reoccurring lichen communities in the city that are indicative of contemporary urban conditions. The term ‘lithification’ is proposed in an ecological context to describe the frequently observed urban phenomenon of tree bark taking on the properties of rock and consequently bearing lithophytic communities. Additionally, we show the potential use of lichen species and ecological groups to monitor urban climate factors such as the UHI on a very local and accurate scale.

Air pollution exposure and its health effects are a central concern of environmental epigenetic research with birth cohorts. This article explores why researchers have turned to the placenta as a research object to study the dynamic interactions between in utero exposure to air pollution and future child health. Drawing on Science and Technology Studies, particularly the bio-object concept, this article analyses the transformation of the placenta into a technologically manipulated postgenomic bio-object through scientific discourse and practice. Building on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at an institute of epidemiology and public health in Spain, we analyse how researchers deal with the tension between the placenta’s promises for epigenetic research and the practical research realities in postgenomic sciences. First, researchers discursively call upon the placenta as a suitable research object that embodies air pollution exposure and becomes entangled with and responds to this exposure via epigenetic changes. Studying the placenta promises to elucidate the temporally dynamic and environmentally embedded process of disease development as one of postgenomics’ core epistemic concerns. Second, in practice, however, accessing and preparing the postpartum placenta for epigenetic analysis defies its promise as a postgenomic bio-object. The constraints of research with birth cohorts, such as only having access to the postpartum placenta at birth, limit what researchers can know about the dynamic process of disease development. Third, we show how researchers deal with these limitations by assembling additional data in and around this organ to recontextualise the epigenetic analysis performed in the postpartum placenta and revive its postgenomic character. We conclude by discussing how ethnographies of epistemic practices provide entry points to collaboratively reflect upon the theoretical and methodological opportunities and challenges in birth cohort research to study biosocial dynamics. We suggest avenues for using qualitative social science perspectives for future biosocial research and collaboration between the social and life sciences.

The undeniable impact of climate change and air pollution on respiratory health has led to increasing cases of asthma, allergic rhinitis and other chronic non-communicable immune-mediated upper and lower airway diseases. Natural bioaerosols, such as pollen and fungi, are essential atmospheric components undergoing significant structural and functional changes due to industrial pollution and atmospheric warming. Pollutants like particulate matter(PMx), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons(PAHs), nitrogen dioxide(NO2), sulfur dioxide(SO2) and carbon monoxide(CO) modify the surface and biological properties of atmospheric bioaerosols such as pollen and fungi, enhancing their allergenic potentials. As a result, sensitized individuals face heightened risks of asthma exacerbation, and these alterations likely contribute to the rise in frequency and severity of allergic diseases. NAMs, such as precision-cut lung slices(PCLS), air–liquid interface(ALI) cultures and lung-on-a-chip models, along with the integration of data from these innovative models with computational models, provide better insights into how environmental factors influence asthma and allergic diseases compared to traditional models. These systems simulate the interaction between pollutants and the respiratory system with higher precision, helping to better understand the health implications of bioaerosol exposure. Additionally, NAMs improve preclinical study outcomes by offering higher throughput, reduced costs and greater reproducibility, enhancing the translation of data into clinical applications. This review critically evaluates the potential of NAMs in researching airway diseases, with a focus on allergy and asthma. It highlights their advantages in studying the increasingly complex structures of bioaerosols under conditions of environmental pollution and climate change, while also addressing the existing gaps, challenges and limitations of these models.

This work provides a comprehensive examination of microplastic air pollution in Antarctica. Due to atmospheric microplastics’ emerging importance, analytical procedures and health effects are discussed. Microplastic pollution poses an increasing threat to the unique and delicate Antarctic ecosystem, potentially triggering harmful consequences not only for the local ecosystem and fauna, but also for human health and well-being, given the severe implications of microplastic pollution for global scenarios such as imminent worldwide warming and the melting of polar ice. Numerous investigations have now exposed the extent of microplastic pollution in the Antarctic and the prevalence of both nano- and microplastics in this region, a significant storehouse of the planet’s freshwater. This work also highlights the challenges of assessing the hazards that microplastics, particularly the nanoscale variants, may pose to human health and life maintenance. The results of this work suggest that global mechanisms of microplastic pollution mitigation are critical to microplastic transportation to the Antarctic reaches. This overview provides a better understanding of microplastic pollution in Antarctica while highlighting the urgency of more comprehensive research in this area to elucidate more precisely the short-, medium- and long-term effects of the arrival of these emerging contaminants in the Antarctic.

Outdoor air pollution is estimated to cause a huge number of premature deaths worldwide. It catalyzes many diseases on a variety of time scales, and it has a detrimental effect on the environment. In light of these impacts, it is necessary to obtain a better understanding of the dynamics and statistics of measured air pollution concentrations, including temporal fluctuations of observed concentrations and spatial heterogeneities. Here, we present an extensive analysis for measured data from Europe. The observed probability density functions (PDFs) of air pollution concentrations depend very much on the spatial location and the pollutant substance. We analyze a large number of time series data from 3544 different European monitoring sites and show that the PDFs of nitric oxide ($ NO $), nitrogen dioxide ($ {NO}_2 $), and particulate matter ($ {PM}_{10} $ and $ {PM}_{2.5} $) concentrations generically exhibit heavy tails. These are asymptotically well approximated by $ q $-exponential distributions with a given entropic index $ q $ and width parameter $ \lambda $. We observe that the power-law parameter $ q $ and the width parameter $ \lambda $ vary widely for the different spatial locations. We present the results of our data analysis in the form of a map that shows which parameters $ q $ and $ \lambda $ are most relevant in a given region. A variety of interesting spatial patterns is observed that correlate to the properties of the geographical region. We also present results on typical time scales associated with the dynamical behavior.

Indoor air pollution is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, but its sources and impacts are largely misunderstood by the public. In a randomised controlled trial including 281 households in France, we test two interventions aimed at changing indoor polluting behaviour by raising households’ awareness of health risks associated with indoor air pollution. While both generic and personalised information increased knowledge, only personalised information including social comparison feedback changed behaviour, leading to a reduction of indoor PM2.5 (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter ≤2.5 µm) emissions by 20% on average. Heterogeneous treatment effects show that this effect is concentrated on the most polluted households at baseline, for whom the reduction reaches 40%.

Atmospheric chemical reactions play an important role in air quality and climate change. While the structure and dynamics of individual chemical reactions are fairly well understood, the emergent properties of the entire atmospheric chemical system, which can involve many different species that participate in many different reactions, are not well described. In this work, we leverage graph-theoretic techniques to characterize patterns of interaction (“motifs”) in three different representations of gas-phase atmospheric chemistry, termed “chemical mechanisms.” These widely used mechanisms, the master chemical mechanism, the GEOS-Chem mechanism, and the Super-Fast mechanism, vary dramatically in scale and application, but they all generally aim to simulate the abundance and variability of chemical species in the atmosphere. This motif analysis quantifies the fundamental patterns of interaction within the mechanisms, which are directly related to their construction. For example, the gas-phase chemistry in the very small Super-Fast mechanism is entirely composed of bimolecular reactions, and its motif distribution matches that of an individual bimolecular reaction well. The larger and more complex mechanisms show emergent motif distributions that differ strongly from any specific reaction type, consistent with their complexity. The proposed motif analysis demonstrates that while these mechanisms all have a similar design goal, their higher-order structure of interactions differs strongly and thus provides a novel set of tools for exploring differences across chemical mechanisms.

This position paper highlights the dire impacts of environmental and household air pollution, which were responsible for 6.7 million deaths globally in 2019. These deaths occurred predominantly in low- and middle-income countries, with Afghanistan reporting the highest age-adjusted mortality rate. The situation worsens during large-scale disasters like earthquakes, which release more pollutants into the air, exacerbating health risks and leading to severe conditions such as pulmonary diseases. Because political factors may hinder foreign NGOs and similar organizations from providing direct support, the frequent occurrence of earthquakes in Afghanistan underscores the critical need for emergency response training for local residents. Consequently, it is essential to provide ERT training, including the proper use of protective equipment, to local populations as well as disseminating risk communication through online technologies and other appropriate means.

Coal is declining in the U.S. as part of the clean energy transition, resulting in remarkable air pollution benefits for the American public and significant costs for the industry. Using the AP3 integrated assessment model, we estimate that fewer emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and primary fine particulate matter driven by coal’s decline led to $300 billion in benefits from 2014 to 2019. Conversely, we find that job losses driven by less coal plant and mining activity resulted in $7.84 billion in foregone wages over the same timeframe. While the benefits were greatly distributed (mostly throughout the East), costs were highly concentrated in coal communities. Transferring a small fraction of the benefits to workers could cover these costs while maintaining societal net benefits. Forecasting coal fleet damages from 2020 to 2035, we find that buying out or replacing these plants would result in $589 billion in air quality benefits, which considerably outweigh the costs. The return on investment increases when policy targets the most damaging capacity, and net benefits are maximized when removing just facilities where marginal benefits exceed marginal costs. Evaluating competitive reverse auction policy designs akin to Germany’s Coal Exit Act, we find that adjusting bids based on monetary damages rather than based only on carbon dioxide emissions – the German design – provides a welfare advantage. Our benefit–cost analyses clearly support policies that drive a swift and just transition away from coal, thereby clearing the air while supporting communities needing assistance.