Smog Has as Much Deodorant as Diesel in It

Climate Change, Anthropocene, & Associated Issues

Dr. Conca reports that when smog has as much deodorant as diesel in it, you know the Earth is in trouble. A new report, published in Science, shows that urban emissions of personal product volatile organic compounds have increased, just as transportation and power plant emissions have declined. These are the compounds that contribute to regional ozone and particulate aerosols, and combine to form smog.

This means, in cities like Los Angeles, that the amount of volatile chemical products (VCPs), including personal care products like hair spray, soap, air fresheners, lotions and deodorant, cleaning products, pesticides, coatings, printing inks and adhesives — is now approaching the level of bad effects as those coming from the burning of fossil fuels. This is important because these personal care VCPs are a lot more effective at producing smog than fossil fuel emissions themselves. So using 20 times as much fossil fuel as these personal chemical products isn't the best comparison. In addition, these chemical products mostly come from processing petroleum anyway.

Unfortunately, existing regulations exempt many of these chemicals from environmental concern. The researchers noticed that levels of certain volatile organic compounds, like ethanol and acetone, were far too high to be explained by vehicle emissions alone, and began searching for other sources. They found that personal chemical products in the home and at work were contributing a huge amount by leaking out of buildings where they are used, and entering the atmosphere.

Humans have dammed a third of the world’s rivers, and have covered, destroyed or altered almost half of the world’s land surface. And we still cut down 50 million acres of forest every year.

Humans use up most of the globe’s fresh water faster than it can be replenished. We use about 3 quadrillion gallons of fresh water per year, about equal to the annual flow of the ten biggest rivers in the world. Most of this water is used to grow food and animals, but it does take 2,600 gallons to make a pair of jeans.

We have a name for this time period since humanity began impacting the planet - we call it the Anthropocene epoch. So as we try to reign in burning fossil fuels, we need to look around and see what’s taking their place in our lungs. We certainly could use less deodorant, scented lotions and air freshener.

Original URL: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2018/02/20/smog-has-as-much-deodorant-as-diesel-in-it/#10f590f568ce