With Elevated Levels of Air Pollution We Must Question How it Disproportionately Impacts our Racialized Communities
July 24, 2023
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“Toronto has the worst air quality in the world.” This was the headline that inadvertently popped up on my cellphone a few weeks ago as I hurriedly grabbed my water bottle and backpack to head to the gym. I didn’t pay the headline any mind because I didn’t intend to be outside for long, particularly because I realized from the days prior that the air had this horrid smell and harshness that irritated my sinuses and made it harder to breathe. Nonetheless, I figured a my brief walk outside to and from my car weren’t significant enough to cause concern.
As I walked outside the potent stench of the air struck me in the face. I winced and looked up to see a thick haze that cloaked the sun. It was almost identical to the pictures and videos I saw of New York weeks prior. I decided to quickly get in my car. As I drove to the gym, I noticed some things. I realized the usual car driver that would cruise with their windows down and music thumping had their windows locked. I saw flooded school parking lots with vehicles and masked parents and parks devoid of the common stroller because the quality of our air forced everyone to temporarily alter their usual patterns, similar to the way the COVID-19 pandemic did. And the more I observed, the more I began to realize the gravity of what we were experiencing, and what could be in the future.
As wildfires across Canada continue to cloud our skies and compromise our air quality, we’re confronted with an uncomfortable truth that may become an unfortunate and permanent reality for many of us. Today we’re seeing that increasing temperatures and shifts in weather patterns are having blanket effects on entire cities and regions. Here in Toronto, all residents are subject to poor air quality—the worst it has ever been in the city. However, it’s also the case that some regions have even higher levels of air pollution, having disproportionate impacts on our low-income, racialized, and Black communities, leading to a larger conversation on environmental racism. Writ large, the wildfires have contributed to poor air quality; however, the disparate impacts on our low-income and Black communities has always been a problem in Toronto—our current challenge has simply made this reality of environmental racism worse.
Environmental racism occurs when infrastructural development, policies, or procedures knowingly or unknowingly create more pollution or health risks in racialized communities. One of the core elements of environmental racism is the impact of pollution on air quality. Given the extent of climate change, to varying degrees all humans are subject to compromised air quality because all countries (some more than others) rely on energy resources that produce vast amounts of pollution.
The impact of these energy sources is the production of particulate matter, a form of particle pollution which, unless extreme levels are detected, is virtually invisible. For particulate matter the World Health Organization’s (WHO) guidelines indicate that anything above an average 10 micrograms per cubic meter over a year is polluted. With this measurement, WHO has estimated that approximately 90% of people around the world breathe polluted air.
There are a number of negative implications to poor air quality. Studies suggest that the average person is living 2.2 years less than people who live in areas that comply with WHO standards. Researchers have also suggested that the cognitive abilities of children who grow up in polluted areas are negatively impacted as it leads to worse outcomes in education, health, and income, even if they were to move later in life. To make matters worse, researchers have found that regions with lower test scores and higher crime rates have historically had higher levels of pollution. This is because pollution can directly affect the functioning of neurons in the brain, or stimulate inflammatory responses.
Along these lines, a study by Michael Gilrainea and Angela Zheng looked at data from over 10,000 school districts in the U.S. and found that each increase in particulate matter led to a decrease in student test scores. This isn’t a suggestion that higher air pollution directly leads to worse outcomes in income, health, and education; but lower cognitive abilities can lead to a snowball effect of negative consequences such as living environment, income, and more.
Particulate matter in Toronto varies in a single day. Data from Air Quality Ontario suggests that it has roughly ranged from 3 to 32 in the month of May. Notably, this range is dependent on the area of the city. For example the downtown core may range anywhere from 4 to 21 throughout the day, while Northern Toronto may be anywhere from 4 to 18. But if we look to East and West we see higher thresholds. In the East we see as high as 25 on any given day, and in the West, as high as 32. The reason why this is striking is because the bulk of the Black population lives in the Northeast and Northwest ends of Toronto. Respectively, 28% of the city’s Black population lives in Scarborough (in the wards of Scarborough-Rouge Park, Scarborough Guildwood, Scarborough North, Scarborough Agincourt, Scarborough Centre, and Scarborough Southwest), and 33% reside in the wards of Humber River-Black Creek, Etobicoke North, and York South-Weston. The following maps listed below can help visualize this (link, link).
In comparison to WHO guidelines, the overall averages across Toronto exceed the safe pollution threshold at its worst, indicating the entire city is at risk. However, the regions where most of the Black population has settled are 7-13 points higher than the downtown core and the North region. Given this fact, we can draw the conclusion that cognitive (and thus income) consequences will have larger effects on Black communities. With the recent wildfire fires we’re seeing an exasperated effect. Still, particulate matter in the Toronto downtown are lower than the East and West Regions, ranging from 13 to 72 on June 6th. In the East this range was 18 to 98, and 20 to 109 in the West. This is significant as we’re also seeing that the gaps between polluted and unpolluted neighbourhoods becomes larger as they get richer or poorer.
From this data, some may question, why is a greater portion of the Black community settled towards the outer-skirts of the city? The answer is that proximity to downtown leads to increased housing costs and less affordable lifestyles. As such, income primarily determines the residential patterns of Black communities. The data on the income-class of Black people reinforces this point. It’s reported that 12.4% of Black Canadians lived in poverty despite accounting for 3.5% of Canada’s total population, while in Toronto, 13% of Black Canadians lived in low-income neighbourhoods despite accounting for 9% of the population. Although the spread between the Black population in Toronto and the low-income neighbourhoods they live in is only 4%, consider that in 2018 Black people only made up 3% of residents in high-income neighbourhoods, while 73% of these residents are white.
The cost of housing (and overall building space) in the downtown core and the desire for a cleaner environment for business purposes thus leaves our poorest communities as the best option to situate factories. This is conveyed in a study by PollutionWatch that showed many of Toronto’s poorest residents live near areas that have high levels of toxic chemicals and pollutants in the air. Other studies also find that that air pollution disproportionately impacts poor and racialized people, and that the pollution burden falls on immigrant and low-income residents in Toronto. Considering that 66.3% of Black Canadians are immigrants, this adds another layer of complexity.
The effects of proximity to industries with high levels of toxic waste in Black communities is compounded by the lack of green spaces in Black and racialized communities. Consider the data compiled in this dashboard on environmental racism in Toronto. Again we see that the closer we move to the outer-skirts of the city where Black people reside, the less green spaces there are. The significance here is that green spaces have myriad positive effects that help human health. This includes noise reduction, shade and cooling, and reduced chances of flooding and air pollution.
The conversation on environmental racism with respect to pollution leads us to question what our future will look like as environmental pressures will continue to widen the gap between our most marginalized and resourced communities. And this isn’t a question exclusive to Toronto. Much of our developed world will have to act now to confront these disparities before we’re left with dire consequences.