Toxic air pollution levels in the United States have reached their worst levels in the past 25 years, raising health concerns for more than a third of Americans.
The American Lung Association (ALA) revealed in a new report that 39 percent of Americans live in areas with unhealthy air pollution levels.
To identify high pollution levels, the ALA looked at daily and annual averages of particulate matter and ozone pollution emitted by factories and refineries.
It turns out that California has six of the top 10 cities ranked as having the worst air quality — and more than 33.2 million people live in those locations.
The report cited climate change as the cause of wildfires and drought, but also pointed to sources of combustion such as cars and manufacturing facilities.
The American Lung Association tops the cities with the worst air quality in the U.S. — affecting nearly 131 million Americans.
Last year, the United States saw its highest levels of air pollution in 25 years. The report said the reason is most likely due to climate change, which has led to higher temperatures and the spread of forest fires. Pictured: San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge was covered in smog in 2020 due to ongoing wildfires
The Clean Air Act allows the EPA to impose limits on the amount of emissions that can be produced in the United States. Pictured: Climate change activists protest outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. in 2022
Air pollution causes tens of thousands of deaths every year, and short-term exposure can cause respiratory problems such as asthma, but long-term exposure may lead to an increased risk of heart attack, stroke or lung cancer.
“When we started preparing State of the Air in 2000, I never imagined that in the 25th edition we would announce that more than 100 million people were still breathing unhealthy air.” “It is unacceptable,” said Paul Billings, senior vice president for public policy at ALA.
The association’s report showed that the problem is becoming more serious despite efforts to step up efforts to clean up air pollution, with more than 131 million people living in hot spots suffering from unhealthy particle pollution in 2023 – that is, 11.7 million more people than the previous year.
Particulate pollution is made up of tiny particles that are individually too small to see, but when pollution levels are higher, the air can appear thick and hazy – also known as smog.
People living in low-income areas are most at risk from particulate matter pollution due to their proximity to pollution sources, such as industrial sites or mines.
The ALA used a rating system to define particulate pollution, and rated 112 counties across 19 U.S. states with an “F” for their daily particulate pollution, affecting 65 million people.
“There is no safe level of particulate pollution,” Dr. Cary Nadeau, professor of climate and population studies at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told USA TODAY.
“We weren’t supposed to breathe this as humans.”
The amount of air pollution people are exposed to has risen dramatically over the past decade with wildfires in the West Coast region
Bakersfield, California has been reported to be the worst metro area for air pollution, followed by the Visalia and Fresno, California areas.
Nearly 2.6 million Californians currently suffer from adult-onset asthma, a big jump from East Coast states like Massachusetts where 660,000 people have been diagnosed with the respiratory disease.
In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that more than 18,000 Californians died from stroke compared to 2,200 in Massachusetts.
Other affected areas include Fairbanks, Alaska, Phoenix and Springfield, Oregon, home to more than five million people.
The report marks the fifth year in a row that air pollution levels have risen despite the six national standards for ambient air quality falling 78 percent since 1970, with the EPA attributing this to the amount of smog and wildfire smoke in the air.
Pollution in the United States decreased by about 40 percent between 1990 and 2020, but the improvement was primarily in the East Coast states.
Meanwhile, the West Coast is experiencing some of the worst air quality days in recorded history.
“The severity of the pollution is unprecedented,” Katherine Pruitt, ALA’s national policy director, told NPR.
“We pretty much looked at the easiest ways to reduce pollution,” she said. “So we have catalytic converters in our cars, we have diesel particulate filters on our trucks, we have scrubbers in our power plants.”
Forest fires cause air pollution levels to rise as smoke spreads, causing people to develop major respiratory problems and can cause heart attack, stroke and lung cancer. Pictured: The 2020 Bobcat Fire spread through the Angeles National Forest in California
Smoke from wildfires can spread to neighboring states and cities, covering the area in smog. Pictured: New York City in June 2023 after wildfires erupt in Canada, sending smoke south
“We pretty much looked at the easiest ways to reduce pollution,” she said. “So we have catalytic converters in our cars, we have diesel particulate filters on our trucks, we have scrubbers in our power plants.”
She stressed that climate change has become the main issue, adding that this shows that we need to address both problems simultaneously.
“It really underscores that we need to do both at the same time,” Annenberg told the outlet.
“We need to limit the carbon emissions that cause human-induced climate change, and we need to continue to follow strict regulations on air pollution emissions.”
Lawmakers’ back-and-forth response to address air pollution makes it difficult for the EPA to enforce regulations and it appears poised to block a policy that would reduce the amount of air pollution that moves from state to state — the so-called “good neighbor” rule.
If implemented, the rule would put a limit on the amount of stack emissions that power plants and other industrial sources in downwind areas could transmit to other states.
However, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority was skeptical of approving the rule in February, calling it costly and ineffective.
The proposed legislative efforts to reduce air pollution come after a decades-long battle to protect people from harmful smog.
In 1948, the Donora Smog disaster fueled the movement to take action against air pollution.
Donora smog killed 20 people when the temperature flip – which traps cold air at lower elevations with warmer air above – in Donora and Webster, Pennsylvania, flipped, causing major respiratory problems for 6,000 of a population of 14,000. .
“Clean Air Started Here,” says a sign on a storefront in Donora, as he launched a revolution and an ongoing fight to make the air safer to breathe.
Despite the number of people affected, attempts to enforce air regulations in the 1950s failed, and it was not until the mid-1960s that then-President John F. Kennedy called for action.
“In light of the known harms polluted air causes, both to our health and our economy, it is necessary to focus more on air pollution control by communities, states, and the federal government,” Kennedy said. the time.
However, 60 years later, Americans are still experiencing the highest levels of air pollution in 25 years.
“A lot of people at this point feel like there’s not much they can do to address it or change it,” Sarah Sharp, a Fresno resident and deputy executive director of the cooperative, told USA TODAY.
“It’s just a situation where we either have to live, or we choose to live.”
