- About 137 million Americans continue to live with unhealthy levels of air pollution, according to a new report from the American Lung Association.
- Western cities, mainly in California, again dominated the list of the most polluted metropolitan areas.
The nation’s air remains at unhealthy levels for millions of Americans, in part due to wildfires triggered by climate change, according to a report released Thursday by the American Lung Association.
The report, called State of the Air 2022, “shows that an unacceptable number of Americans still live in areas with poor air quality that could affect their health,” Harold Wimmer, the association’s national president and CEO, said in a statement. .
The 23rd annual report also shows that there were more days with “very unhealthy” and “dangerous” air quality than ever before in the report’s two-decade history.
In fact, despite some improvements in air quality over the past 50 years, about 137 million Americans continue to live with unhealthy levels of air pollution, according to the report. “There are still too many days where too many people are breathing polluted air,” Paul Billings, national senior vice president for public policy at the lung association, told USA TODAY.
The report deals with the two main types of air pollution: smog (also known as tropospheric ozone) and soot (technically known as “particulate matter”).
Smog forms on hot, sunny days and is made worse by chemicals that come out of vehicle exhaust pipes and industrial and power plant smokestacks. Warmer temperatures make ozone more likely to form. Ground-level ozone pollution is a powerful respiratory irritant whose effects have been compared to a “sunburn of the lungs.”
Soot pollution is deadlier and more dangerous to health than smog, causing more premature deaths and lung cancer, the lung association said.
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The report, which was based on data from the US Environmental Protection Agency, covers the years 2018, 2019 and 2020. The lung association said that regardless of pandemic-related closures in early 2020, there were no a noticeable improvement in air quality during that period. weather.
Although there has been a long-term improvement in the nation’s air quality thanks to decades of work to reduce emissions, it has been offset in part by warmer, drier conditions caused by climate change, the lung association said.
Wildfires, made worse in part by climate change, were responsible for a sharp increase in particulate pollution spikes in several western US states. Overall, the report finds that 2.1 million more Americans live in counties with unhealthy air compared to the deadly soot has worsened.
“Furthermore, communities of color are disproportionately exposed to unhealthy air,” Wimmer said. “The report found that people of color were 61% more likely than white people to live in a county with a failing grade for at least one pollutant.”
Western cities, mainly in California, again dominated the list of the most polluted metropolitan areas: the US city with the most smog was Los Angeles, and the cities with the worst soot pollution included Bakersfield (particulate pollution throughout the year). year) and Fresno (short-term contamination). particulate contamination).
What is the solution to improve air quality?
“We need to get serious about moving away from burning fossil fuels,” Billings said, adding that climate change remains the most serious threat to the nation’s air quality.
