MadridDaily

Madrid, Spain

Monday, March 19, 2015

2 pages
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Air Pollution Party in Spain!

Pollution is an issue that everyone in the
world has been struggling with, but its hard
to believe that Spain might actually be on
top of Air Pollution percentages. The World
Health Organization said Monday that 2010
saw Madrid's air contamination levels higher
than they have ever been in the history of
1
Spain.
Spain has a high record breaking air
Pollution, specifically in the capital of Spain,
Madrid, the air contamination levels in 2010
were the highest they had ever been in the
history of Spain. The air pollution is so bad
that some days you can see a brown cloud
that sits on top of the city, due to so much
air pollution the cases for Asthma are as
well raising, people are suffering from
asthma more towards the center of Madrid
compared to the suburbs of Madrid.

In October of 2014, 16.8 million Spaniards

were breathing polluted air, 95% of the
population are considered to be exposed to
dangerous air pollution levels. Nitrogen
Dioxide, sulphurdioxide, tropospheric ozone
and particulate matter are the most common
2
spread pollutants in the air of Spain.
The
more compact the city the more levels of
pollutants, thats why Madrid and Barcelona
have a very high level of pollution. In
Barcelona this pollution is partly from
industry and partly from traffic, whereas in
3
Madrid, traffic is the main problem.
Pollution is very harmful, it shortens lives, air
pollutants shorten lives by 8.6 months all
around the world and the people who live
closer have an around 6% higher chance of
dying due to certain cancers compared to
those who live more further away.
Some residents from Madrid offered some
ideas to reduce these high levels of air
pollution. One of them said that we need to
reduce traffic and produce cars that use a
different sort of fuels. Another resident said
that public transportation should be
promoted more and that there should be a
4
fee for cars that enter certain zones.

Another idea to try to help fix this

important issue of air pollution in
Madrid, and overall the whole world,
is using bicycles more often. In
Madrid they have a new cross town
bicycle lane, but it is rarely actually
being used, but the rows of honking
traffic next to it never decrease and
people still complain about there
being too many cars when they arent
taking the first step to helping solve
the problem. In the hope that the
pollution will go down, Madrileos
can cross their fingers, but they can't
5
hold their breath.

Spain on top of Unemployment

The country of Spain has the
highest unemployment rate in Europe at
25%, 55% for students graduating from
colleges. Many citizens from Spain are
leaving the country either due to low
salaries, unemployment and not being
able to provide and succeed in Spain. The
education isnt helping either, education is
the issue and the first step to lowering this
high unemployment percentage is
education. As stated in the article from
The Spain Report,
The nation has an
urgent education problem and is failing to
1
prepare young Spaniards.
If we can
educate these young Spaniards better and
set them on the right track for life, job
employments will follow and Spain will be
back on top, a place again where you
could successfully plan a future and be
successful.
The number of young spaniards
deciding to take some form of professional
training course between the ages of 16-18
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is just 9%...
Not only do we need to find a
way to fix the education, but we also need
to look for a way for the students to be
excited and have confidence in themselves
for their future and know that they can be
successful in the world. Fixing this
education problem will help open up the
paths for more jobs.

The problem also is that there is a lot of

funding
provided
for
multinational
business, but for the smaller/self ran
businesses there is no funding which then
leads to businesses closing which ultimately
leads to fewer jobs and since these younger
citizens arent being placed on the right
track to succeed they cant help the
situation.
The construction industry, which lost about
2 million jobs in 2008-2013, created 40,000
new jobs in 2014, a relatively small amount
but signals the worst may be over for the
3
sector.
If we can continue to strive for
fixing education we can continue creating
new jobs and make Spain the place to
succeed for the younger and older citizens. If
we as a country dont do something towards
fixing
the
education
issue,
the
unemployment rate will still be where its at
right now and citizens young and old will
continue to leave the country and Spain will
just be known as that one place that won the
FIFA World Cup in 2010.

Cover Story:

1.
Madrid Has Record-breaking Air
Pollution | ZDNet."
ZDNet
. N.p., n.d. Web. 18
Mar. 2015.
2.
Madrid Air Pollution Reaches Alarming
Levels | Environment | DW.DE | 12.04.2013."
DW.DE
. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2015.
3.
16.8 Million Spaniards Breathe Polluted
Air."
- The Local
. The Local, 09 Oct. 2014. Web. 18
Mar. 2015.
Op Ed:
1.
"Spain's Urgent Global Economic
Education Problem | The Spain Report." The
Spain Report. The Spain Report, 16 Sept. 2014.
Web. 12 Mar. 2015.
2.
"Spain's Urgent Global Economic
Education Problem | The Spain Report." The
Spain Report. The Spain Report, 16 Sept. 2014.
Web. 12 Mar. 2015.
3.
Roman, David. "Spanish Unemployment
Unchanged in the Fourth Quarter." WSJ. WSJ, 22
Jan. 2015. Web. 12 Mar. 2015.