This Air is Not Safe

I've been working with air pollution experts and purification engineers for over a year now, this is what I learned. 

San Francisco is deep orange from fires hard to keep under control. The air is visibly polluted, it's raining ash. Growing up in Germany I never thought much about the air surrounding me. It seemed clean. Now, when I look at the city that became home for me years ago I am terrified. Without exaggeration, this air is killing you. 

On a regular day our bodies are already fighting small airborne particles from burning fossil fuels, cars and heavy industry. These particles in our air cause allergies, respiratory diseases and asthma. Ultra-fine dust particles though (less than 1 micron in diameter called PM1.0) penetrate deeper into the lungs and cause heart attacks, strokes and cancer. Now add a pandemic and fires into the mix and it is just a matter of time until some of us will experience severe health consequences.

At the beginning of the year I said in a Forbes interview that if you don't have an air purifier, you are an air purifier. Small particles stay in your body, they enter your bloodstream and make their way to your brain. The consequences of poor air quality (particularly indoors) are life threatening. 

We now have to handle aerosols that carry viruses like Covid-19. We are facing more raging fires due to climate change. And the number of diseases caused by pollution is on the rise without a concentrated effort to stop it. 

Be safe, California. Stay indoors, keep your windows closed and ventilate filtered air only. And for the rest of the world, even if you can't see everything in your air there is a lot that can harm you. 

Stay safe. And healthy.

/// all the best from me, Christoph Burkhardt, CEO of OneLife, published from Europe, with my heart in San Francsico. To learn more about your air and how to keep safe, connect with us here.