Welcome to the Air Workgroup.
This workgroup’s objective is to draw upon the knowledge and expertise of the many individuals and organizations around the world who are active in studying this planet’s atmosphere, particularly in regard to the presence of pollution and the growing threat of climate change, to make a plausible estimate of what would be required to meet the one-time goal of making our planet’s air safe, and what would be needed thereafter to maintain it at that level in the future.
The first step, therefore, is to identify those expert individuals and organization. Below is the list as it has been developed thus far. If you happen upon additional information sources that you believe will assist in this effort, please let us know by way of the CONTACT form. Or, if you would like to engage in your own line of research, let us know the results. And finally, if you feel the concept of the Whole Earth Design Project is something that you may wish to become involved in, let’s get acquainted.
The situation now:
“Indoor air pollution is estimated to cause approximately 2 million premature deaths mostly in developing countries. Almost half of these deaths are due to pneumonia in children under 5 years of age.
“Urban outdoor air pollution is estimated to cause 1.3 million deaths worldwide per year. Those living in middle-income countries disproportionately experience this burden.
“Poor indoor air quality may pose a risk to the health of over half of the world’s population. In homes where biomass fuels and coal are used for cooking and heating, PM levels may be 10–50 times higher than the guideline values.
“Exposure to air pollutants is largely beyond the control of individuals and requires action by public authorities at the national, regional and even international levels
“The WHO Air Quality Guidelines represent the most widely agreed and up-to-date assessment of health effects of air pollution, recommending targets for air quality at which the health risks are significantly reduced. The Guidelines indicate that by reducing particulate matter (PM10) pollution from 70 to 20 micrograms per cubic metre, we can cut air quality related deaths by around 15%.”
World Health Organization Fact Sheet No.313, Updated September 2011 — The entire document is available at: (https://web.archive.org/web/20110926100607/http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs313/en/index.html)
To let us know what you have to say about this subject, go to the discussion page where The Subject is AIR.
Here are some of the experts:
The Global Carbon Project (http://www.globalcarbonproject.org) is an international collaboration of scientists tracking carbon emissions.
CICERO, the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research (http://www.cicero.uio.no) is an independent research center associated with the University of Oslo.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (http://www.eia.gov) and the International Energy Agency (http://www.iea.org) are sources of statistical information regarding global energy use.
The Clean Air Task Force (http://www.catf.us) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing atmospheric pollution through research, advocacy, and private sector collaboration.
Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center is the primary climate-change data and information analysis center of the U.S. Department of Energy.
The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) (http://www.ipcc.ch) is the UN body charged with reviewing research on climate risk.
Ralph Keeling runs the carbon-dioxide monitoring programme that his father, David, started 50 years ago at Scripps Institute of Oceanography. (https://scripps.ucsd.edu/) Veerabhadran Ramanatha, also at Scripps, is an expert on “black carbon.”
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (http://www.noaa.gov) runs the biggest network of air and ocean monitoring sites.
Max Bangert of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (http://www.imk-tro.kit.edu/4876.php) and Ilan Koren at the Weizann Institute of Science (https://scripps.ucsd.edu/) are both engaged in research regarding the international transfer of airborne dust.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (http://www.epa.gov)
The Natural Resource Defense Council (http://www.nrdc.org) estimates the cost of pollution on human health
Prof. Veerabhadran Ramanathan is the Director of the Center for Clouds, Chemistry, and Climate, funded by the National Science Foundation and is located with the Center for Atmosphere Sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at US San Diego (http://www-c4.ucsd.edu)
Paul Crutzen is a Nobel Prize winning atmospheric chemist now at the Max-Planck Institute for Chemistry at Mainz, Germany (http://www.mpic.de)
Environment America: (http://www.environmentamerica.org)
Global Reporting Initiative (http://www.globalreporting.org)
Carbon Disclosure Project (http://www.cdp.net)
Noelle Eckley Selin is a professor in the Institute for Data, Systems and Society and the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (https://eapsweb.mit.edu/people/selin)
Max Zhang of Cornell University (https://research.cornell.edu/researchers/k-max-zhang)
Mark Jacobson, senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and the Precourt Institute for Energy (https://profiles.stanford.edu/mark-jacobson)
Rebecca Saari, professor at the University of Waterloo (https://uwaterloo.ca/civil-environmental-engineering/profile/rsaari)
World Meteorological Organization (https://public.wmo.int/en)
International Union for Conservation of Nature (https://www.iucn.org/)
Climate and Clean Air Coalition (https://www.ccacoalition.org/en)
Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/)
Dr. Joy Shumake-Guillemot leads the World Health Organization/World Meteorological Organization Climate and Health Joint Office in Geneva (https://futureearth.org/contacts/joy-shumake-guillemot/)
FutureEarth is an environmental science organization with global research projects which include the Earth System Governance Project, the Global Carbon Project, Integrated Land Ecosystem-Atmosphere Processes Study, and many more (https://futureearth.org/)
Group on Earth Observations covers a variety of environmental research and science, including Water Resources Management, Energy and Mineral Resources Management, Infrastructure and Transportation Management, Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture, and more (https://earthobservations.org/index.php)
Climeworks (https://climeworks.com/purpose)