Progress on Eliminating Mexico's Air Pollution

For the past two decades, Mexico City has endured a fluctuating period of air pollution. Regarded as the world's fifth-largest metropolis by Next City, Mexico City's pollutant problem dates back to the 1950's, however treatment for the disaster did not come to public notice until the early 1990's.

According to a study conducted by Dana Loomis, throughout the 1950's, Mexico City's infant mortality rate "acutely increased" due to episodes of air pollution. Loomis took on the incentive to compare those casualty rates with those occurring in the 1990's; as a result, Loomis discovered that nitrous oxide particles were linked to the mortality rates; and concluded that unstable housing and inadequate nutrition/sanitation could pose a great risk for children already living in a polluted-poverty-stricken environment.

Aside from housing, road traffic accounted as one of the probable triggers in Mexico City's air pollution. According to Harvard Gazette, Mexico City's air quality was reportedly so filthy and unbearable that flying birds would fall dead from the sky. Moreover, the United Nations certified Mexico City as the "planet's worst" and "world's most dangerous city for children's health".

Those were the '90's. Presently, the conditions of Mexico City's breathing environment have seen some improvement. This past year, meteorologist and Mexico City's director of atmospheric monitoring Armando Retama Hernandez disclosed to Next City that he frequently works to strengthen anti-pollution measures, alongside holding the responsibility in measuring, documenting and publicizing the city's air polluting crisis with the use of time-stamped photographs and regional wind maps.

More aid in relief of the crisis yields support from the pending studies conducted by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH) and Harvard's Graduate School of Design (GSD). The latter of which endorses funds raised by Mexico's National Worker Housing agency to implement smarter and safer housing, in efforts to minimize the air pollution.

With such support and hopeful promise, we can only keep our fingers crossed that the increased awareness will eventually retrace to Mexico City's once bright blue skies and radiant volcanic icecaps, without the inclusion of nasty pollutants blocking such sights.