Droughts and heatwaves are expected to worsen air pollution for Californian communities that already bear a heavy load of pollution, further escalating racial and ethnic disparities in pollution, according to a recent study led by North Carolina State University (NC State).
The experts, however, argued that, especially in the case of extreme heatwaves, financial penalties for power plants might dramatically minimize people’s exposure to air pollution.
The study lead author, Jordan Kern, an assistant professor of Forestry and Environmental Resources at NC State, said: “We have known that air pollution disproportionally impacts communities of colour, the poor, and communities that are already more likely to be impacted by other sources of environmental pollution. What we know now is that drought and heatwaves make things worse.”
Read Also: Tornado, storms kill at least 23 people in US
Using historical West Coast wind, air, temperature, and solar radiation values between 1953 and 2008, the researchers calculated emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxides, and fine particulate matter from power plants in California under 500 potential future climatic scenarios.
Then, using the information on the locations of California’s power plants and the quantity of electricity they would produce under various climatic scenarios, they approximated the amount of air pollution in each county.
According to the estimate, pollution would certainly worsen in the hottest and driest years due to increasing demand for air conditioning. Additionally, since droughts can affect hydropower’s accessibility, the extra electricity that would be required will depend on extremely polluting fossil fuel plants.
Story was adapted from earth.com
