Latin American Air Pollution Essay

Lima, the capital of Peru, has the worst air pollution in Latin American. AQI reports the city being in the high moderate zones on average days and according to the World Health Organization, “air pollution is Lima residents’ second biggest concern…where the average level of micrograms is 38 for PM 2.5 and less than 10 micrograms of fine particles qualifies as clean air” (World Health Organization, 2014). Old motorized vehicles, factories, and huge piles of unmaintained garbage are some of the underlying causes responsible for the dire amount of air pollution in Lima. With the affluent along the coast and the impoverished mostly inland, pollution is trapped in a “temperature inversion phenomenon in Lima. The ocean currents push the pollution back inland but it is then blocked by the small mountains bordering the city, where these neighborhoods are” (Alegre, Marco. 2015. Equal Times). The impoverished are at a double-disadvantage; these areas are often the most polluted due to nearby dump sites and are majorly behind in vehicular standards, making the air so toxic to the extent that “nearly 80% of the estimated 5,000 deaths a year from pollution may be caused by the city’s

This affects the conditions of the workers, those in factories and other occupations, and therefore the local economy, as Lima “has the highest prevalence of asthma in Latin America.” (Vidal, John. The Guardian.2016). Being a third-world country, they have almost no choice but to adapt and even perpetuate these conditions; however, their role acts a positive feedback loop for more air pollution. Furthermore, there is the perspective of the cooperate and government stakeholders, who believes that the profit off of selling the sulfuric oil is cheap and easy to transport, while neglecting regulations- which then comes to a full circle to risk the health of customers, employees and the entire