UNHEALTHY CITIES: CITY'S PROBLEMS

1) Do you think that you're exposed to one or more of these pollutants? Which and how? Do you suffer any symptom?

It depends, when I'm in Ayamonte, I'm not exposed to these pollutants gases, because here there aren't any factories or zones like the Chemical Zone in Huelva, that creates a lot of pollutant gases. 

When I go to Huelva, I'm exposed to some pollutants gases, like the particles of gases that creates the cars and the factories.

Obviously, I don't suffer any sympton because I think that the cars which are in Ayamonte are not enough to create too much pollutant gases.

In fact, we don't need go to China to find some cities too pollutes. For example, Madrid, it's surrounded by mountains, and the pollutants gases of the cars creates a "pollution dome" that cover the city. 

2) Why are small particles more dangerous than the bigger ones?

Because the small particles, PM2,5 because they can pass through filters and are difficult to block. For this reason, there are more small particles than big particles.

Unfortunately we don't live in Northern Europe. In this map we can watch perfectly where are the natural parks, like the Pyrenees, le Massif Central  or the Austrian Alpes. I don't understand very well this map, because I read in the official european webpag that the pollutest european country is Bulgaria, but right now I must to think that the pollutest zones are Northern Italy and Southern Poland.

3) We've been talking about effects of these pollutants on humans but do you think they can affect other living beings? Which and how?

The urban contamination can also affect to plants. For example, if there's a lot of light pollution the plants are confused and it don't know when is daytime or nightime.

Light pollution in the world: In this map we can see different types of countries. For example, countries which are too polluted, like Germany, semi - polluted, like USA, (with a big difference between the east coast and the western coast), or Russia, (with a big difference between the European Russia and the Asiatic Russia). Also we can see countries without light contamination, like The Congo Democratic Republic or Madagascar.

It's a bit funny to see the light contamination difference between the two Koreas.

4) Which pollutants can affect sleeping patterns?

The noise pollution. It can causes sleep disturbances, and also high blood pressure or heart problems. An average human need to sleep without disturbances 7 hours to be awake and don't be tired the next day. At 45 decibels of noise, the average person cannot sleep.

5) Think about different ways to stop or reduce these pollutants and write at least two ideas

PARTICULATE MATTER:

I don't think that it's a good idea to forbidden the Diesel Cars on the cities. But NOT in all of the city, only in the downtown.

NOISE:

This is a bad problem, because the cars need to throw away the city centre, and they cause a lot of noise. For example, in the London City Centre there a lot of buildings with more of 5 floors. I think that the councils must to forbid live in those buildings under, the 3rd floor.

Evidently, if you live on the upper floors, you will hear the city noise, but if you live on 1st floor, you will hear too much noise.

LIGHT:

I don't think that is a good idea to use street lights which only operate if there's a car or a person under it. We can use it on the residential zones, but not in the city centre, because in the centre always there are people.

But I think that is a good idea to forbid some advertising signs because some of them are too gleaming.