Coal miners ‘black lung’ and frackers ‘white lung’ are examples of such ailments

From an Article by Eglė Krištopaitytė, Health News, January 20, 2023

Climate change impacts all aspects of our lives, including our health. From inflammation caused by wildfire smoke to diseases-carrying vectors migrating to new areas, the threats associated with changing climate are here to stay. [It can get worse! See Paul Brown’s challenge.]

This past year 2022 was the world’s 6th-warmest year on record since 1880, according to the latest report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Millions of Americans have experienced the consequences of climate change firsthand, as the country endured 18 separate disasters, including hurricanes and droughts, damages of which exceeded $1 billion. Moreover, these disasters resulted in the deaths of 474 people.

In 2021, an international group of medical professionals suggested that rising temperatures due to climate change was the greatest threat to global public health. Scientists expect temperatures to continue increasing this year. In 2024, they could set a new global record.

In an interview with Healthnews, Juan Aguilera, MD, PhD, MPH, a director of Translational Environmental and Climate Health at Stanford University, explains how climate change damages our mental and physical health.

Wildfire smoke causes inflammation; wildfires also cause public displacement and property damages.

Aguilera says that climate change impacts different aspects of our lives. For example, rising temperatures prolong drought periods, leading to the drying of the forests’ soils. When weeds and bushes are not hydrated enough, the fires tend to expand and cover wider areas.

“Smoke contains many different particles that are harmful to human health, with some being small enough to go into the respiratory system and even to penetrate deeply into the circulation,” he told Healthnews.

Once in blood circulation, particles cause inflammation which, in the long term, could lead to heart diseases, stroke, hardening of the arteries, and even cancer. According to Aguilera, scientists are now learning that wildfire smoke may also affect the immune system, making people weaker against any other types of diseases.

The effects of climate change are also linked to mental health problems. For example, living in an area where wildfires may occur can be a source of anxiety. “You never know when a wildfire will occur, how big and wide it is going to be. You may be in danger and need to evacuate your home. Following the news also might be a source making anybody feel anxious,” Aguilera, MD, added.

Moreover, harmful particles from wildfire smoke may affect neurons and, therefore, mental health.

“As we learn more about how these smaller particles affect our entire bodies, we can also explain issues related to mental health,” he says.

Extreme climate events are more frequent now. Climate change also exacerbates extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and thunderstorms, eventually leading to flooding. This causes more humidity within the homes, which can result in mold, Aguilera explains. For some, mold may cause mild symptoms, such as sore throat, coughing, or wheezing. However, those with asthma or people allergic to mold may have severe reactions, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In 2022, flooding caused by Hurricane Ian led to a spike in potentially deadly infections caused by Vibrio vulnificus, also known as “flesh-eating” bacteria. Over 60 cases of infections and 11 deaths were reported in Florida.

“Mosquitos and other vectors are getting adjusted to conditions where the climate is changing. They reach areas where there usually aren’t mosquitos, ticks, or any other vectors,” Aguilera added. Researcher says that as climate changes, the pollen season is expanding to up to ten months; therefore, pollen allergies will become more frequent.

How to protect yourself from pollution? Air pollution is one of the drivers of climate change. In 2021, about 67 million tons of pollution were emitted into the atmosphere in the U.S. Unsurprisingly, research reveals more or more harm of pollution to human health. For example, a study from last year found that unborn babies have black carbon particles in vital organs, such as the liver, lungs, and brain, as early as the first trimester.

Another study demonstrated that women in their late 40s and early 50s who were exposed long-term to air pollution with nitrogen dioxide and ozone saw increases in their body size and composition measures.

So how to protect ourselves from toxic pollutants? Aguilera says that while not everybody will be able to move out of regions that are exposed to air pollution, we can take some lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the steps is to follow the air quality index, which allows tracking of real-time air pollution conditions on a certain day.

“Vulnerable groups, such as pregnant, elderly people, children, and people with asthma, may want to consider some personal barriers, such as wearing a mask. Depending on your situation, it might be an N95 mask,” he says. In addition, air purifiers may help to trap these particles and reduce the amount of pollution inside the houses.

Aguilera explains that in the United States, some low-income communities live closer to freeways and roads, meaning that there are higher levels of air pollution coming from the traffic.

“Some homes don’t have proper insulation, and because of impending climate change, people who live there may suffer from heat stress or heat stroke. Measures to protect themselves, such as better cooling devices or air purifiers, cost money and are not necessarily accessible to everybody,” he adds.

Researcher says that the first step in achieving health equity is an awareness that our actions do affect not only ourselves but also people in other countries. “In Africa, they deal with severe droughts and shortages of food because of how climate changes make soils less fertile in some areas,” he says.

References & Sources ~

1. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 2022 was world’s 6th-warmest year on record.

2. The New England Journal of Medicine. Call for Emergency Action to Limit Global Temperature Increases, Restore Biodiversity, and Protect Health.

3. The University of Aberdeen. Babies have air pollution in their lungs and brains before they take their first breath.

4. The University of Michigan. Air pollution tips the scale for obesity in women.

5. Kaiser Family Foundation. Climate Change and Health Equity: Key Questions and Answers.

Veterinarian Gundi Rhoades lives in Inverell, NSW, Australia

From an Article by Gundi Rhoades, Sydney Morning Herald, December 26, 2019

Bulls cannot breed at Inverell. They are becoming infertile from their testicles overheating. Mares are not falling pregnant, and through the heat, piglets and calves are aborting.

My work as a veterinarian has changed so much. While I would normally test bulls for fertility, or herds of cattle for pregnancy, I no longer do, because the livestock has been sold. A client’s stud stock in Inverell has reduced from 2000 breeders to zero.

I once assisted farmers who have spent their lives developing breeding programs, with historic bloodlines that go back 80 years. These stud farmers are now left with a handful of breeders that they can’t bear to part with, spending thousands keeping them fed, and going broke doing it.

Cattle that sold for thousands are now in the sale yards at $70 a head. Those classed as too skinny for sale are costing the farmer $130 to be destroyed. They are all gone and it was all for nothing. The paddocks are bare, the dams dry, the grass crispy and brown. The whole region has been completely destocked and is devoid of life.

For 22 years, I have been the vet in this once-thriving town in northern NSW, which, as climate change continues to fuel extreme heat, drought and bushfires, has become hell on Earth.

Here, we are seeing extreme weather events like never before. The other day we had about eight centimetres of rain in 20 minutes. These downpours are like rain bombs. They are so ferocious that a farmer lost all of his fences, and all it did was silt up the dam so he had to use a machine to excavate the mud.

Most farmers in my district have not a blade of grass remaining on their properties. Topsoil has been blown away by the terrible, strong winds this spring and summer. We have experienced the hottest days that I can remember, and right now I can’t even open any windows because my eyes sting and lungs hurt from bushfire smoke.

For days, I have watched as the bushland around us went up like a tinderbox. I just waited for the next day when my clinic would be flooded with evacuated dogs, cats, goats and horses in desperate need of water and food.

The impact of the drought on wildlife is devastating to watch, too. Members of the public are bringing us koalas, sugar gliders, possums, galahs, cockatoos and kangaroos on a daily basis.

The koalas affect me the most. To see these gorgeous, iconic animals dying from thirst is too hard to bear. We save some, but we lose just as many.

The whole town is devastated. My business has halved. But with no horses to breed, no cattle to test and care for, what am I going to do? I have worked day and night to build a future for my family, but who would want to buy our property out here? Who would want to buy a vet clinic in a town where there are no animals to treat because it’s too hot and dry? Where the cattle become infertile from the 40-degree heat. All this on black, baked ground.

I am 53 years old. Can I start again?

Climate change for us is every day, and I am not suffering on the same level as my friends, my clients and the helpless animals I treat. As a veterinarian I am becoming more and more distressed, not just about the state of my town, but the whole world.

Bushfire smoke moves over Inverell.

Personally, I have had weeks when I just cry. It just bloody hurts me. I also have times when I get really angry and I start to swear, which I have never done in my life.

I also have times when I think about the potential this country has to create a renewable future with clean, green energy, and end our reliance on fossil fuels.

You only have to look at how resilient our farmers are in the face of devastating, extreme weather conditions to understand that we can make a powerful, meaningful difference to our future.

The government has no idea what it’s like for us. It has no empathy. Its members don’t know how much it hurts when they just say yes to another coal mine.

I would invite Scott Morrison (Prime Minister) to come and see what life in Inverell is like. In case he chooses not to, I’ll paint this picture for the country and hope people can start to realise and understand the devastating impact climate change is having. I hope they will take a stand for the people, the places and the animals whose voices are too small for him to hear.

>>> Gundi Rhoades is a veterinarian, scientist, mother, beef cattle farmer and member of Veterinarians for Climate Action.

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See also: ‘The Darling River will die’: Scientists say mass fish kill due to over-extraction and drought | The Guardian, February 18, 2019

Smoke From California Wildfires Is Reaching the East Coast

From an Article by Jennifer Calfas, Time Magazine, August 10, 2018

Smoke billowing from the destructive fires burning through California this summer has spread far beyond the Golden State — reaching the East Coast.

The National Weather Service says smoke from the raging fires out West has impacted cities thousands of miles away — and the atmosphere above them. Residents in states like Missouri, Ohio, Mississippi, Virginia and even New York and Massachusetts can see the smoke manifest itself through grey skies and vibrant sunsets, the National Weather Service says. And those in fewer states throughout the Midwest, South and East Coast are breathing in air that has been impacted by the smoke as well.

But how exactly does smoke travel this far? Andy Edman, chief of the science technology infusion division at the National Weather Service, says small particles of smoke that come from the fires can stay in the air and move through the Earth’s atmosphere — all the way to the East Coast. The smoke sits more than a mile above the Earth’s surface, but can move down through strong winds called jet streams and have an impact on air quality.

“Where the smoke is in the atmosphere will make a difference on the impact a human being will receive,” Edman says. For example, with the smoke far from the Earth’s surface, Edman says, “if you’re in D.C. or New York, if you walk outside, it will all seem sunny but if you look up at the sky, it will be grey.”

The National Weather Service has two relevant maps that explores the issue. One below shows the path of “vertically integrated smoke” — that is, the smoke that sits far above Earth’s surface in the atmosphere and impacts the sky you see above you.

The other map below shows the movement of “near-surface smoke,” which, as its name suggests, shows the levels of smoke near the Earth’s surface that have an impact on air quality.

Particles from smoke near the Earth’s surface can cause a range of health issues, including respiratory problems, and aggravate lung and heart issues. Officials advise people living in areas impacted by the smoke to take safety measures by staying in doors and running air conditioning units.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station captured images of smoke from these fires from space earlier this week, showing the smoke’s eastward shift and massive reach. Edman, of the National Weather Service, says not all fires can create this long-ranging stream of smoke, but the cumulation of fire after fire after fire in the state has made it possible this time around.

“When you have that many fires, it’s not uncommon for that smoke to go fairly long ways downstream,” Edman says.

Smoke particles from fires in California traveled far last year, too, when satellite images from NASA showed the smoke traveling over to the East Coast. Thanks to new technology, Edman says, the National Weather Service has been better able to track the movement of smoke across the U.S. from fires based in California, capturing it in visualizations and maps for just a few years now.

Meanwhile, in California, 15 active wildfires are burning throughout the state as a destructive and record-breaking fire season rages on. The Mendocino Complex fire just north of San Francisco became the largest fire in state history earlier this week, scorching through 307,447 acres and destroying 119 homes as of Friday morning. Other fires have blazed through tens of thousands of acres across the state. That includes the 181,000-acre Carr fire, which has destroyed more than 1,000 homes in Redding, Calif., and taken at least eight lives. The Ferguson fire blazing near Yosemite National Park prompted park officials to close popular sections of itfor the first time in 20 years (and during peak season), and the Holy fire down in Orange County forced tens of thousands of residents to evacuate their homes.

Fueled by extremely dry vegetation, record-setting temperatures and the aftermath of a years-long drought, fire seasons in California have grown more intense in recent years and death and destruction has become the norm.

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See also: “Colorado wildfire update: Smoke and haze continue to cloak the state.” By Anna Staver, August 20, 2018

Smoke and haze will be visible throughout Colorado on Monday as firefighters across the west continue to work to put out dozens of wildfires. It’s been a difficult season for wildland firefighters around the county. In Colorado, five fires that started this season grew large enough to make the state’s top 20 list. Presently, 12 wildfires are burning in the Centennial State, but most are at 90 percent containment. Here’s a roundup of major wildfires around Colorado.

Remains of IEI Warehouse as PLASTICS burn in Ohio River valley

From an Article by Chris D’Angelo, Huffington Post News, October 26, 2017

WASHINGTON, WV — A fire continued to smolder at a plastics warehouse in Parkersburg, West Virginia, on Thursday evening, nearly six days after it erupted. Local officials have yet to pinpoint what types of chemicals and materials went up in the flames.

The 420,000-square-foot facility, formerly the Ames Tool Plant, is owned by Intercontinental Export Import Inc. and was being used to store various plastics and other items, according to state officials. The building caught fire early Saturday morning, and firefighters have been working to put it out ever since.

The state’s Department of Environmental Protection on Thursday ordered the owner of the facility to “immediately” provide a detailed inventory of all materials that had been stored there, as well as at its other facilities.

The 27-page order details numerous violations at the warehouse in recent years. In 2008, two volunteer firefighters warned in a report about the potential for a fire at the facility, saying they had “extreme concerns,” the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported Thursday.

State officials say air samples have detected pollutants “at levels comparable to or lower than what is typically seen in urban areas.” “We have done multiple, multiple, multiple testings of the air and all. So far, the multiple testings are OK,” Republican Gov. Jim Justice said at a news conference Tuesday.

Local residents, however, are concerned about potential threats to their health.

David Wright told HuffPost that “the smell of burnt plastic comes and goes with the wind.” And like his neighbors, he’s worried about what may have made it into the air. “Now that it’s died down a little bit,” he said of the blaze, “I wonder who is going to pay for all the firefighting efforts.”

Jessica Scritchfield Wooten, a medical field employee who had a baby in Parkersburg while the warehouse was burning, said the stench was “awful.” “The air was so bad we had to open our door to ventilate the smell out of our [hospital] room,” she wrote via Facebook.

On Monday, Justice declared a state of emergency in response to the inferno. And at a news conference the following day, he said he was concerned about potential long-term pollution. “We need all the king’s horses and all the king’s men — the experts from the federal government,” in case they might know something that state officials have missed, he said.

It is unclear what role, if any, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has had in the response. As of Thursday evening, the agency had not put out a public statement on the situation. According to state officials, however, the EPA is involved in ongoing air quality monitoring.

The EPA and Intercontinental Export Import did not respond to HuffPost’s requests for comment Thursday. See a survey video of this fire here.

Eric Engle, who lives just north of town and is chairman of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action, said area schools have been closed all week. State workers have been told to stay home. And residents of Parkersburg and the surrounding counties are anxiously awaiting answers, he said.

“The majority of the people I know have left town,” many to stay with family and friends away from the smoke, he said.

On Thursday, the Mid-Ohio Valley Health Department warned people to “avoid contact with the smoke and remain indoors if possible with windows and doors closed until the smell is no longer detectable.”

Parkersburg, whose population is about 31,000, is no stranger to industrial pollution. The town was the focus of a lengthy 2015 piece in HuffPost Highline.

PM-2.5 and smaller are extremely dangerous

From an Article by Robert Ferris, CNBC, September 21, 2017

Add kidney disease to the list of health problems associated with air pollution.

A team of scientists from Washington University in St. Louis and the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System found an association between tiny particulate matter and kidney disease in two different data sets.

The scientists compared Veteran Affairs data on kidney disease with data on air pollution from two separate sets: satellite data from NASA and information from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Their study consistently found that risk of kidney disease rose along with air pollution levels across the continental United States.

As might be expected, many of the areas of the U.S. at greatest risk tend to be more heavily populated. The part of the country with the lowest risk overall is a section that runs roughly from Montana through West Texas. There are pockets of lower-risk areas in other places, but much of California and the Eastern half of the United States are more vulnerable.

The scientists published their results in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

It is important to note that this only found an association with air pollution — the study did not conclusively determine pollution to be the cause of kidney disease.

But the fact that the study found the association in both the EPA data set and the NASA data set is compelling, said Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, a senior author on the study and an assistant professor of medicine at Washington University, in a statement.

“The beauty of using both EPA and NASA data is that the agencies used two distinct techniques for collecting data, yet the results were similar,” he said. “This constellation of findings suggests that chronic exposure to air pollution is a significant risk factor for the development and progression of kidney disease.”

The study focused on a type of pollution called PM 2.5, which is particulate matter up to 2.5 microns in size. This particular form of pollution can come from myriad sources, including vehicle emissions, fossil fuel power plants, wildfires or even campfires.

Scientists say the particles can enter the bloodstream once they are breathed into the lungs.

Air pollution has been linked to health problems as varied as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and weight gain. The study’s authors say that one of those conditions could be responsible for kidney damage, rather than the pollution itself.

They also noted that the population they studied was mostly older white male military veterans, so the results might not apply to other populations. The scientists tried to account for confounding factors, but there could still be additional variables, such as diet or genetics, or even other environmental factors such as exposure to heavy metals.

But the data show a clear association.

“In our analyses, the risk of chronic kidney disease and its progression was most pronounced at the highest levels of fine particulate matter concentration,” Al-Aly said in the release. “This suggests further study is needed for a broader assessment of the global burden of kidney disease attributable to air pollution.”

Air quality has improved in the United States in recent decades, but Al-Aly pointed out that there is no safe level of exposure to PM 2.5; even low levels can increase risk.

Other parts of the world have serious problems with hazes of pollution. China has even had to essentially shut down entire cities for days at a time. Just breathing Beijing’s air might be as bad as smoking 40 cigarettes a day.

Antarctic Sea Ice Rapidly Disappearing

World faces narrow window to cut carbon emissions

From an Article by Amanda Reilly, E & E News, February 9, 2016

Humans have only a small window to zero out carbon dioxide emissions that could lead to changes affecting the globe for tens of thousands of years, according to new research published today.

The study in the journal Nature Climate Change warned that the climate change debate has focused on time frames that are too short, largely ignoring long-term changes to the ecology and geology of the world.

The only way to avert these long-term changes, the authors wrote, is by shaping a new energy system with net-zero or net-negative carbon dioxide emissions within the next few decades.

“Much of the carbon we are putting in the air from burning fossil fuels will stay there for thousands of years — and some of it will be there for more than 100,000 years,” Peter Clark, an Oregon State University paleo-climatologist and lead author, said today in a statement. “People need to understand that the effects of climate change on the planet won’t go away, at least not for thousands of generations.”

Researchers from the United States, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, France, Australia and the United Kingdom participated in the study.

The authors contend that researchers and policymakers have overwhelmingly focused on relatively short-term shifts linked to climate change, changes in the last 150 years and their effects up to the year 2100. Using computer models, the research team projected how human actions will affect the globe over the next 10,000 years.

It found that humans have only a few decades to halt “potentially catastrophic climate change that will extend longer than the entire history of human civilization thus far.”

“Our greenhouse gas emissions today produce climate-change commitments for many centuries to millennia. It is high time that this essential irreversibility is placed into the focus of policymakers,” said Thomas Stocker, a climate modeler at the University of Bern in Switzerland. “The long-term view sends the chilling message [about] what the real risks and consequences are of the fossil fuel era.”

The team predicted that sea levels will rise by 25 meters with warming of 2 degrees Celsius and 50 meters with warming of 7 C, over a time frame of the next several centuries to millennia. On the low end, 122 countries will see at least a tenth of their population affected by higher sea levels.

The latest report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that sea levels could rise by 1 meter by 2100.

“It takes sea-level rise a very long time to react — on the order of centuries,” Clark said. “It’s like heating a pot of water on the stove; it doesn’t boil for quite a while after the heat is turned on — but then it will continue to boil as long as the heat persists.”

According to the authors, studies that focus only on near-term risks, as well as the economic practice of discounting future climate impacts, tend to play down the future, more severe impacts.

While short-term emission reduction targets — such as the ones nations committed to in the recent Paris climate deal — are “important,” the authors said, only a “complete transformation” of the globe’s energy system within the next few decades will halt severe impacts. They called for a “fourth industrial revolution” entailing changes in energy, land use and agriculture.

“We are making choices that will affect our grandchildren’s grandchildren,” said Harvard University geology professor Daniel Schrag, a co-author of the study. “We need to think carefully about the long-term scales of what we are unleashing.”

>>> See also:  www.FrackCheckWV.net

Diesel Trucks on WV Country Road

Nanotoxicology: An Emerging Discipline Evolving from Studies of Ultrafine Particles (2005)

From a Scientific Article by Günter Oberdörster (Dept. of Env. Medicine, Univ. of Rochester), Eva Oberdörster (Dept. of Biology, So. Methodist Univ.) and Jan Oberdörster (Toxicology Dept. at Bayer CropScience, Research Triangle Park, NC) in 2005

ABSTRACT — Although humans have been exposed to airborne nanosized particles (NSPs; < 100 nm) through-out their evolutionary stages, such exposure has increased dramatically over the last century due to anthropogenic sources. The rapidly developing field of nanotechnology is likely to become yet another source through inhalation, ingestion, skin uptake, and injection of engineered nano-materials. Information about safety and potential hazards is urgently needed.

Results of older bio-kinetic studies with NSPs and newer epidemiologic and toxicologic studies with airborne ultrafine particles can be viewed as the basis for the expanding field of nanotoxicology, which can be defined as safety evaluation of engineered nanostructures and nanodevices. Collectively, some emerging concepts of nanotoxicology can be identified from the results of these studies. When inhaled, specific sizes of NSPs are efficiently deposited by diffusional mechanisms in all regions of the respiratory tract.

The small size facilitates uptake into cells and transcytosis across epithelial and endothelial cells into the blood and lymph circulation to reach potentially sensitive target sites such as bone marrow, lymph nodes, spleen, and heart. Access to the central nervous system and ganglia via translocation along axons and dendrites of neurons has also been observed. NSPs penetrating the skin distribute via uptake into lymphatic channels.

Endocytosis and biokinetics are largely dependent on NSP surface chemistry (coating) and in vivo surface modifications. The greater surface area per mass compared with larger-sized particles of the same chemistry renders NSPs more active biologically. This activity includes a potential for inflammatory and pro-oxidant, but also antioxidant, activity, which can explain early findings showing mixed results in terms of toxicity of NSPs to environmentally relevant species.

Evidence of mitochondrial distribution and oxidative stress response after NSP endocytosis points to a need for basic research on their interactions with subcellular structures. Additional considerations for assessing safety of engineered NSPs include careful selections of appropriate and relevant doses/concentrations, the likelihood of increased effects in a compromised organism, and also the benefits of possible desirable effects.

An interdisciplinary team approach (e.g., toxicology, materials science, medicine, molecular biology, and bioinformatics, to name a few) is mandatory for nanotoxicology research to arrive at an appropriate risk assessment.

Reference: Environ Health Perspect 113:823–839 (2005). doi:10.1289/ehp.7339 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 22 March 2005]

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NOTE: Diesel exhaust contains toxic air contaminants and is listed as carcinogenic for humans by the International Agency for Research on Cancer ( IARC ) in group 1. Diesel exhaust contains fine particles which are harmful. Diesel exhaust pollution was thought to account for around one quarter of the pollution in the air in previous decades, and a high share of sickness caused by vehicle pollution.

The American Lung Association’s State of the Air 2012 report released on April 25 finds that in America’s most polluted cities, air quality was at its cleanest since the organization’s annual report began 13 years ago. This year’s report details the trend that standards set under the Clean Air Act to cleanup major air pollution sources—including coal-fired power plants, diesel engines and SUVs—are working to drastically cut ozone (smog) and particle pollution (soot) from the air we breathe. Despite this progress, unhealthy levels of air pollution still exist and in some parts of the country worsened.

The job of cleaning the air is not finished. More than 40 percent of people in the U.S. live in areas where air pollution continues to threaten their health. That means more than 127 million people are living in counties with dangerous levels of either ozone or particle pollution that can cause wheezing and coughing, asthma attacks, heart attacks and premature death. Those at greatest risk from air pollution include infants, children, older adults, anyone with lung diseases like asthma, people with heart disease or diabetes, people with low incomes and anyone who works or exercises outdoors.

The Lung Association’s annual air quality report grades cities and counties based, in part, on the color-coded Air Quality Index developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to alert the public to daily unhealthy air conditions. The 13th annual report uses the most recent, quality-controlled EPA data collected from 2008 through 2010 from official monitors for ozone and particle pollution, the two most widespread types of air pollution. Counties are graded for ozone, year-round particle pollution and short-term particle pollution levels. The report also uses EPA’s calculations for year-round particle levels.

Major improvements were seen in 18 of the 25 cities most polluted by ozone, including Los Angeles, which had the lowest smog levels since the report was first published in 2000. Los Angeles, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati were among 17 of the 25 cities most polluted by annual particle pollution that experienced their cleanest years yet. Four cities—Pittsburgh, San Diego, Philadelphia and Visalia, Calif., had their lowest-ever, short-term particle pollution level. For the first time, Birmingham, Ala., Detroit, Mich., and York, Pa., dropped completely off the report’s 25 most-polluted cities lists. Santa Fe, N.M., ranked as the cleanest city in the nation.

Meanwhile, State of the Air 2012 finds that nearly four out of 10 people in the U.S. live in counties that received an F for air quality because of unhealthy levels of ozone air pollution, which can cause health problems that day, and even days after. When inhaled, ozone irritates the lungs, like a bad sunburn, and can cause wheezing, coughing, asthma attacks and can shorten life.

The report also finds that nearly 50 million Americans live in counties with too many unhealthy spikes in particle pollution levels, and nearly six million people live in areas with unhealthy year-round levels of particle pollution. Particle pollution is the most dangerous and deadly widespread air pollutant in America. This noxious mix of microscopic bits of ash, soot, diesel exhaust, chemicals, metals and aerosols can lead to early death, heart attacks, strokes and emergency room visits. Only eight counties received a failing grade for year-round particle pollution, further evidence of the continuing improvement even since last year’s report.

Although these air quality improvements clearly result from standards put into place under the Clean Air Act, big polluters and some members of Congress continue to propose to dismantle the law. Recent proposals in the Congress have included delaying implementation and blocking enforcement of parts of the law, and limiting EPA’s ability to consider all of the scientific evidence regarding the harm to public health. These challenges come despite EPA’s estimate that cutting air pollution through the Clean Air Act will prevent at least 230,000 deaths and save $2 trillion annually by 2020.

In the list of the Nation’s Most Polluted Cities, the Pittsburgh area ranks 6^th in most polluted year-round by “particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns” and 6^th most polluted short-term (24-hour) by “particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns.”

To see how your community ranks in State of the Air 2012, to learn how to protect yourself and your family from air pollution, and to join the fight for healthy air, visit www.stateoftheair.org.

For more information, click here.

Source: American Lung Association