Right around this time last year, I put up the “Need to further reduce smog, soot, world-warming pollution in new report emphasized” post.
Not good was the air-quality picture in the U.S. then.
So, some of what I had conveyed in writing supporting that premise at that time was: “According to Environment America, people in 72 metropolitan areas located across the U.S. were exposed to unhealthy particulate matter levels in 2015 on 100 days or more, information brought to bear in the concern’s new report: ‘Our Health at Risk: Why Are Millions of Americans Still Breathing Unhealthy Air?’
“In an April 5, 2017 news release, Environment America writes: ‘In 2015, people living in 72 different metropolitan areas across America experienced at least 100 days with unhealthy levels of soot pollution, increasing the risk of premature death, asthma attacks and other adverse health impacts.’”
And, the country’s bad-air situation in 2016, it would seem, isn’t any better.
In “Trouble in the Air: Americans’ health at risk: Millions of Americans still breathe polluted air,” an Environment America news release dated Jun. 27, 2018, the organization writes: “As the Trump administration considers weakening federal air quality and global warming emissions standards, air pollution remains a threat to public health. According to a new report by Environment America Research & Policy Center, Frontier Group and U.S. PIRG [Public Interest Research Group] Education Fund, 73 million Americans experienced over 100 days — or more than three months — of degraded air quality in 2016, increasing the risk of premature death, asthma attacks and other adverse health impacts.”
Christy Leavitt, meanwhile, the Environment America Research & Policy Center’s Senior Campaign Director and a report co-author, in effect wrote in the release that no American should have to breathe polluted air and that to rid the air of contaminants it is not enough to just “‘strengthen existing air quality protections’” but, that “‘global warming pollution’” must be reduced.
In the release as well it was pointed out that “For the report, Trouble in the Air: Millions of Americans Breathe Polluted Air, the authors reviewed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) records of air pollution levels across the country, focusing on smog (ground level ozone) and particulate pollution — harmful pollutants that come from burning fossil fuels such as coal, diesel, gasoline and natural gas.”
Report findings are unsettling and “come at a time when the Trump administration prepares to weaken the federal clean car standards, a critical program to cut global warming emissions and increase fuel efficiency,” Environment America observed.
“The report’s authors called on the federal government to strengthen, not weaken, the clean car standards and continue to allow states to adopt stronger vehicle pollution standards. The authors also called on EPA to strengthen ozone and particulate pollution standards.”
Air troubles is right!
For more, see: “Trouble in the Air: Americans’ health at risk: Millions of Americans still breathe polluted air” here.
Image above: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
This post was last revised on May 21, 2020 @ 8:10 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time.
– Alan Kandel
Except for the W. R. Grace issue in Libby I always viewed Western MT as a clean air/water locale. This chart pretty well dispels that myth.
On the map, Western Montana shows green and blue which equates to non-attainment for one (represented by green) and two (represented by blue) pollutants. I would be interested in knowing what pollutants in the western part of the state present an issue, what the sources of these pollutants are (fracking, power plant, factory, etc.) and what it is going to take to bring the areas identified into compliance.
Air pollution is not a problem of large metropolises alone, even though they have traditionally been the focus of mitigation efforts. Such wide variations in data quality exist across the world. Most importantly, policies to curb pollution have to be initiated.
http://www.newswoof.com/