Environmental organizations present an image of Poland as a terribly polluted country, but new satellite data shows that this is false, especially when Poland is compared to other Western European countries.
European Commission data coming from the Sentinel-5P satellite from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Copernicus project shows that smog levels are centered around those areas where industry and people are most concentrated.
In fact, the most polluted cities are actually the one most likely to contain the environmental activists pointing their finger at Poland, with cities and regions like London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Moscow and the Ruhr, featuring some of the highest emission levels of nitrogen dioxide
Poland does not have the traffic density to generate the highest levels of smog, with some of Europe’s major cities producing high emission levels from the massive amount of cars on the road.
And smog generated by transport is particularly harmful to breathing and cardiovascular systems. It remains a major contributing factor in causing heart attacks, asthma and strokes.
Areas like China feature the highest smog levels in the world, according to the new satellite data.
With this new data, Poland actually has a better chance of avoiding the levels of smog experienced in cities such as London, Paris and Moscow.
Poland does not yet feature the population densities of those areas, but it can now learn from experience and introduce measures that reduce the number of cars entering city centers, thereby improving air quality.
