There’s been no shortage of deniers saying dumb things about the coronavirus pandemic. But there’s a new argument poised to gain traction as the lockdown reveals just how much, or how little, pollution is driven by driving.
The argument, such as it is, goes something like this: If there’s still pollution but no cars on the road, then that proves cars aren’t responsible for the pollution. Therefore, there’s no reason to reduce emissions from cars.
We came across this bold hypothesis in a blog post at NoTricksZone. The post is based on a far-right German blog that itself drew from a piece claiming that the lack of reduction in pollution levels in the city of Stuttgart proves that German regulations on diesel engines are pointless. After all, if diesel engines are responsible for 80% of the nitrous oxide pollution (NOx or NO2), and therefore potentially subject to being banned, then the coronavirus lockdown that has dramatically reduced traffic should also dramatically reduce that pollution.
Now, one might expect that such a claim would be accompanied by some sort of evidence of current pollution levels, compared to the past. While the blog posts are clear about the past part, they don’t actually provide any current pollution measurements nor actually compare the two. NoTricksZone was particularly emphatic that “it cannot be the evil diesel engine cars that are ‘choking’ our cities”; the post is illustrated with a map from NASA showing pollution levels across Europe. The problem: that image shows changes in NO2 levels from 2005 to 2015, a fact readers would only know if they clicked through to NASA and read the image’s description.
So we did the unthinkable, and asked some actual experts for current data. According to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air’s analysis of European Space Agency’s Sentinel 5P satellite data, there is currently significantly less NO2 pollution in the air around Stuttgart.
Here’s an image comparing satellite measurements of NO2 from March 20th to April 15th of 2019 on the left, and 2020 on the right. And the ESA has other visualizations of much lower pollution levels in China, and others showing levels dropping across Europe, where some cities are experiencing 45-50% less pollution than this time last year. (Seriously, these images are incredible.)
This is not the exact 80% reduction that deniers claim should be happening. Precise pollution levels vary due to natural conditions. For example, seasonal wind patterns can blow in enough pollution to mask otherwise large drops in emissions.
Add to that the fact that trucks with diesel engines are presumably still making deliveries during the lockdown, and any ban on polluters will take time to be effective since particles emitted prior to the lockdown wouldn’t just disappear overnight anyway. Given all that, it would be stupid to expect pollution to disappear altogether.
Evidence aside (where it belongs, according to deniers) we’re concerned about this argument because it’s the sort of counter-intuitive take that could potentially get traction with editors; particularly, but not only those who work at Murdoch-owned operations. So it’s probably only a matter of time before someone’s trying to tell you that since the drastic, abrupt societal reordering necessitated by the pandemic, which put millions of people out of work, wasn’t enough to clean up the environment, then any climate policy aimed at reducing emissions will need to be even more draconian and painful than this.
Don’t fall for it.
And if you’re an editor, don’t be like NoTricksZone and publish something about how the 2020 pandemic response didn’t change 2015 pollution levels somewhere in Europe a full two weeks after the European Space Agency announced that pollution levels have dropped across Europe.
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