Environment
When Cleaner Air Is Just a Fluke
Madrid has taken several steps to address its brown cloud, but that’s not the main reason air pollution decreased last year.
Madrid’s terrible air quality has long been a kind of sick joke. Located on a high plateau where atmospheric conditions routinely trap dirty air close to ground level in winter, the Spanish capital’s cap of daily smog is such a fixture that it even has its own quasi-affectionate nickname: La Boina, or “the beret.”
To the city’s credit, it has been pushing hard in recent years to cut car-use as a way of clearing the atmosphere. And this week, some good news finally arrived. According to new figures produced by activist group Ecologistas en acción, the Spanish capital’s air quality improved last year, giving the lungs of Madrid residents some degree of respite. But was the improvement just a fluke?