I believe in a human right for people to have clean air to breathe in as well as the protection and maintenance of wildlife and the ecosystem. I envision a world where forest fire occurrences are kept at an all-time low as well as a society where everyone is well educated on the negative health consequences of Particulate Matter 2.5 (PM2.5) as well as its negative environmental consequences. I want to start a movement that advocates for awareness of PM2.5. PM2.5 refers to fine particulate matter that is less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter, which often is a result of forest fires. Even with the recent forest fire smoke, I noticed that many people were not wearing masks despite the extremely unsafe levels. I came to realize that not many people were educated on the long-term health effects it possesses as well as the environmental and ecological impacts: namely how PM2.5 can deposit and affect plants, and water quality, as well as contribute to climate change. Furthermore, I wish that the government creates a bill that allocates a separate fund for these environmental educational campaigns, which should not just be limited to PM2.5. For example, I personally did not know that controlled/prescribed burns existed and how they actually can contribute to reducing larger detrimental forest fires. By bringing more awareness, more people can be actively educated on what is going on, which will allow them to take action to protect their health as well as their planet.
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Totally agree with you. The effect of high con concentrations of particulate matter on humans is clear: it has universally negative results, ad impacts long term health. Wildfire control and risk reduction is paramount to ensure that we don't have smoked over cities like we did this summer.
Hi Sara, I agree with having education on topics such as this to be a part of our school curriculum. I also liked how you touched on PM2.5 and how a lot of people don't really understand what this means and how it affects our health.
Hey Sara, I think there are some public health safety protocols that just aren't normal here for cultural reasons. There are legitimate reasons for people to listen to health advisories about air quality, but at the same time, people are willing to ignore all of this for their own freedom. I think we should push harder to educate people to mask up for forest fire smoke, but we have to ask if will it even work if we know how people feel about masking up for covid 😞
Hi Sara,
Great post! Focusing on the long terms is very essential to take steps in the present to reduce negative long-term effects. Even breathing during the smoke is so hard and it burns my eyes.
Hi Sara!
Agreed. We should definitely bring more awareness to the long-term health effects of forest fires and PM2.5. I personally did not know about PM2.5 and I wish I knew this 2 weeks ago, because I was one of those people who didn't wear a mask. Now I know and will be more aware of air quality. Let's hope I didn't breathe too much of it in..
Very good offer! Increasing people's awareness of hill fires is definitely a good breaking point!
But how should we do this, I thought about it, if I am a local in Vancouver, I have witnessed the hill fires every summer for years and years and I know it is uncontrollable. If I am an Australian, I still experience the fires every year, but the recent fires have caused a worldwide sensation, but I remain powerless because I know I can't control them. If I were a person who grew up in a place where there had never been a mountain fire, then I would show concern for the news of mountain fires in other countries and then turn around and forget about them.
I think we really need a very strong popularization approach, a very strong popularization approach! to educate everybody in a positive way.
In my hometown, PM2.5 is among the perennial exceedances in winter. But most of the elderly people or children are not willing to wear masks out because they don't know the health hazards of PM2.5. I think the movement you mentioned is a good way to help solve the knowledge awareness problem.
I can't even stand the smell of smoke from forest fires and that alone is enough for me to wear a mask designed for pollution. I'm also surprised more people dont care enough to wear a mask when the air quality advisory gets to dangerous levels.
Thank you for educating us on Particulate Matter! I hadn't heard of it at all before but it seems like a pretty big contributor to starting fires, I don't know why it isn't talked about more :O
I love the specificity of your intervention Sara! This feels like it could be a very concrete campaign, with tangible, meaningful impacts. As someone not very well versed on the impacts of PM2.5, can you tell me how the particulate matter itself contributes to climate change? Is this on top of the release of carbon/other impacts from the fires themselves?
Hey Sara!
I love the idea of creating a movement for a more specific cause; it's great to see that you feel so passionately about particulate matter 2.5. I definitely noticed that mask reinforcements are more common in parts of asia (including my home country) when compared to here, and I believe there is much we could learn from their practices. I also really like the idea of rallying the government to form a bill dedicated to educational campaigns.
Hi Sara, I was born in Beijing, so during my childhood I pretty much grew up with smog. PM 2.5 and PM 10 were two statistics that I heard constantly - I didn't even know what they truly stood for back then, only that high amounts meant bad air quality, which was what everyday was like. Today I did a pretty simple google search for worst air quality rank, and saw that Beijing is ranked 76th among the list (1st being most polluted). I was super happy to see this change! I had already experienced this back in 2019 when I went back to Beijing for the summer: there were too many sunny days than what I remembered in 2015. Now, this change has been proven by the air quality rank change. I'm sure that governments have the power to push for positive change; They can do almost anything if they wanted to. Let's keep up with spreading public awareness so that our concerns can be heard by the government(s)!
Nice post Sara! I agree that awareness is key in situations like this.
Great idea! If more people were aware of the dangers of PM 2.5, then they would be more willing to support changes to how forest fires are managed in order to protect public health!