Wearing a face mask is how pedestrians in Jakarta — and perhaps also in other highly polluted cities in the world — commonly protect themselves against the harmful gases that cause air pollution such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and nitrogen oxide, most of which are produced by vehicles.

These gases are an invisible threat to human life, but studies have shown that air pollution also has adverse effects on plants and animals.

The harmful particles emitted from power plants, cars and mining sites are easily carried hundreds of kilometers away from their original source to pollute pristine natural areas, writes Sara Slavikova, a cofounder of greentumble.com, a website that promotes environmental protection and sustainability.

Slavikova cites the endangered Florida panthers in Everglades National Park and the plants in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, both in the United States, as examples of affected nonhuman species. The panthers (a type of cougar) have poor reproductive success due to high levels of airborne mercury. Particles of this heavy metal are blown into the park from coal-fired power plants and waste incinerators in nearby cities. The plants have leaf damage due to an increase in ground-level ozone, which is produced when man-made emissions mix.

“This pollution largely affects the functioning of the whole ecosystem by decreasing the capacity of plants to sequester carbon and retain water in their bodies,” she notes.

How can wild animals and plants escape air pollution?

Wearing a face mask is obviously out of the question. Thus, there is no other effective way but to track the original source of the pollution and apply prevention measures.

According to experts, the human activities that cause air pollution include household, industrial and agricultural activities, as well as transportation and waste. The major cause of air pollution may vary from one country to another, but as experts have found, energy production is a leading source of air pollution in many countries.

“Coal-burning power plants are a major contributor, while diesel generators are a growing concern in off-grid areas. Industrial processes and solvent use, in the chemical and mining industries, also pollute the air,” says
worldenvironmentday.global.

The United Nations Environment Program warns on the website that air pollution harms the planet and has increasingly deadly effects on life, and it calls on countries to take measures to usher in a greener, cleaner and more sustainable future.

With climate change and biodiversity becoming increasingly pressing issues, international attention has started focusing on the development of power plants.

When it comes to energy production to meet the rising power demand, taking advantage of renewable energy sources, such as river water, is the right solution to combat air pollution.

Compared to fossil fuels like coal, petroleum and natural gas, which are all non-renewable energy sources, moving water is a renewable energy source and is cleaner and environmentally friendly, as it does not produce carbon dioxide (CO2). This has spurred an increased preference for using hydropower to produce energy in many countries, including the US and China.

A report from the International Hydropower Association (IHA) says that the worldwide installed capacity of commissioned hydropower plants increased to “1,267 gigawatts (GW) in 2017, including 153 GW of pumped storage”.

“During the year, 21.9 GW of capacity was added, including 3.2 GW of pumped storage,” it said in its 2018 Hydropower Status Report, made available on hydropower.org.

The IHA says that by generating electricity from hydropower instead of coal, the world prevented up to 4 billion tons of greenhouse gases and avoided a 10 percent rise in global emissions from fossil fuels and industry in 2017. “It also avoided 148 million tons of air polluting particulates, 62 million tons of sulphur dioxide, and 8 million tons of nitrogen oxide from being emitted,” it said.

The more hydropower plants that are built to replace the fossil fuel power plants, the better it is for the environment. Since hydropower plants do not contribute to air pollution, the air will become cleaner and the air quality will improve to allow not only people to breathe fresh and healthy air, but also plants and wild animals to develop naturally.

Because hydropower depends on water as a renewable energy source, the operators of hydropower plants must also focus on environmental conservation. If a hydropower plant is built in a forest, its trees should be conserved because they contribute significantly to the water source. Deforestation contributes to reduced rainfall and increased runoff, which can deplete natural water supplies. This, in turn, threatens the sustainability of the power supply. In short, conserving forests contribute significantly to sustaining the power supply, while preserving the natural habitat for the biodiversity of endemic plant and animal species.

The development of the Batang Toru hydropower plant (PLTA) in South Tapanuli regency, North Sumatra, has taken tangible and strategic steps to bolster emission reduction efforts, environmental protection and biodiversity.

For example, the company plants trees to ensure the sustainability of its water source, especially to mark Earth Day every year on April 22. It also trains conservation staff on protecting the orangutan habitat in the nearby conservation forest in accordance with local wisdoms.

Protecting plant and animal biodiversity in the world leads to ecosystems that are healthier and more productive in terms of species, habitats and genetic variety, and therefore better able to adapt to challenges like climate change, according to the UN.

“The quality of the water we drink, the food we eat and the air we breathe all depend on keeping the natural world in good health,” says UN Secretary-General António Guterres. He also underlines that biodiversity is essential to achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and in addressing climate change.

Healthy ecosystems, says Guterres, “provide 37 percent of the mitigation needed to limit global temperature rise”. He also warns that the current negative trends in biodiversity and ecosystems are projected to undermine progress toward 80 percent of the SDG targets. “We cannot allow this to happen.”

Popular

PDI-P will likely be part of opposition: Ganjar

Indonesia one step from Olympics after beating South Korea

Bahlil leads task force to boost sugar, bioethanol production in Papua