Record-Breaking Air Pollution Engulfs New York City: A Glimpse into an Apocalyptic Scenario

In the streets of New York on Wednesday, June 7, 2023. ©2023 Getty Images

In the afternoon of Wednesday, the air pollution index in New York rose to 484 (on a scale of 0 to 500), a peak not reached by the city since the federal agency of environmental protection systematized its monitoring in 1999. Pulverized, the previous local record, established in July 2002, was 167. of the American Northeast.

A mist with an apocalypse color chart

Hundreds of blazes have thus already ravaged more than 3 million hectares this spring – and in particular in Quebec, hit by four times more fires than the average of the past decade, including 150 currently active – while the season begins early. fires. It threatens to break out this year with unprecedented intensity, given both this infernal start and a long-term drought fueled by climate change. While the majority of Canadians are preparing to face a high risk of seeing their region turn into a furnace in the coming months, more than 100 million North Americans were concerned on Wednesday by public health alerts relating to a considerably degraded air quality, from Toronto to Atlanta.

New York was, and was to remain on Thursday, the hardest hit major city, and even the most polluted in the world according to iQair, far ahead of podium regulars Dubai and Lahore – but the worst of the pollution concerned the same moment of less densely populated areas and thus not taken into account by this classification, in Canada, Pennsylvania and northern New York State. Various scientific experts have suggested that a day of breathing the stale air of the country’s most populous metropolis (8 million inhabitants) would be equivalent to inhaling half a dozen cigarettes.

Manhattan’s towering plantation of skyscrapers has therefore been on and off from view from the bridges and shores of Brooklyn, Queens and New Jersey, simply engulfed in the batter of a toxic haze of color charts. ‘apocalypse. As the hours passed, libraries, zoos and schools were closed. The streets gradually emptied, the swarms of delivery men and increasingly rare passers-by mostly donning masks – the Covid pandemic has passed by, and the governor of the state, Kathy Hochul, announced the immediate availability of one million FFP2. Almost all sports activities, both outdoor and indoor, were canceled, as were many cultural or political events, and even some commercial flights, due to lack of visibility. Hospitals reported a slight increase in admissions related to respiratory symptoms during the day.

Return to normal expected on Sunday

“Mask up and limit your outdoor activities,” implored the city’s mayor, Eric Adams, according to one of his many calls for caution, while the state of health alert was extended until Thursday at least midnight. The worst of the phenomenon was expected in New York on Wednesday evening, before slowly deporting to other lands further west. But Thursday could see further deterioration in the afternoon, Adams warned. The atmospheric conditions do not give hope of a return to normal before Sunday – in particular due to the direction and especially the intensity of the winds, which do not allow the smoke to rise to disperse in the atmosphere.

From an equally affected Washington (just like Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore…), White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre pointed out in this episode “another worrying sign of the way the climate crisis is affecting our lives”, calling on the inhabitants of the affected areas to increase precautions and to check in with neighbors, families and friends. The American presidency has also announced the dispatch of 600 firefighters to Canada, in addition to those already busy fighting the approximately 250 active fires currently deemed to be out of control.

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2023-06-08 07:00:00
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