Transcript:
Power plants, factories, and other industrial facilities emit climate-warming gases, along with additional pollutants that harm human health.
McCormick: “Over 8 million people a year die from air pollution … and that’s pollutants like SO2, NOx, PM2.5, and those are typically emitted by the same facilities that are emitting a lot of greenhouse gases like CO2 and methane.”
Gavin McCormick is with Climate Trace, an initiative that uses satellite data to track pollution from millions of facilities around the world. It monitors not only climate-warming emissions but other harmful pollutants as well.
And it makes that information public at ClimateTrace.org. Users can zoom in on a map to learn about pollution sources in any community.
And for more than 2,500 urban areas, the tool shows where plumes of pollution travel as they drift through the air.
McCormick: “So you can absolutely see when you look at a city that certain neighborhoods are heavily, heavily experiencing more pollution.”
They’re often areas that have suffered disinvestment for decades.
McCormick: “And so there’s a racial component, there’s an economic component.”
So the data helps identify communities where solutions are needed most.
Reporting credit: Sarah Kennedy / ChavoBart Digital Media
