How healthy is the air you are breathing? You may be surprised to find out that the answer depends, in part, on which side of the Mississippi River you live.
The American Lung Association’s State of the Air: 2007 finds that America’s air quality picture is clearly split East-West. This is actually the first time we’ve seen a geographic split in the eight years that we have been sending out an annual air quality report card. Particle pollution (soot)—the most dangerous pollutant—increased in the East but decreased in the West. Ozone (smog) levels, on the other hand, dropped across the country from peaks reported in 2002. You can learn more about your own area’s air quality grades by checking out the report.
Why the split? Like most topics related to air quality, the complex answer revolves around sound science and federal policies intended to control pollution.
This year’s State of the Air reinforces our life-and-death need for more protective federal standards so that every community in the United States—East or West—can have truly healthy air to breathe. The report finds that 136 million Americans are breathing air that’s not safe. That’s unacceptable.
Every day, air pollution is affecting people’s health all over the United States. The air you’re breathing is cleaner than it was 30 years ago, but it’s still not healthy air!
Breathing ozone (smog) and particle pollution (soot) can literally shorten life, create life-and-death emergencies, and send our most vulnerable Americans to emergency rooms. We must protect them.
With all the research showing how harmful these pollutants are to the health of so many Americans, you’d think it would be simple to decide to clean up the air. But it’s not. Unfortunately, clear scientific evidence can get tangled up in politics.
Right now, we’re in the midst of a critical debate over how much pollution it too much. We at the the American Lung Association and our colleagues at most other health organizations are at odds with the federal government’s definition of what safe levels of smog and soot truly are.
And it’s that definition of “safe levels” of smog and soot that sets official limits on how much air pollution your community can have.
Understanding outdoor air pollution and how it affects human health is complex and can be overwhelming. The most basic piece of the puzzle to understand is that our lungs simply weren’t made to breathe the levels of air pollution Americans continue to have to inhale.
Here are some specifics about how our bodies can react to smog and soot:
First and foremost, breathing particle pollution can kill. Someone can die on the very day that particle levels are high, or within one to two months afterward. Breathing particle pollution year-round can shorten life by one to three years. It causes many other health effects, premature births to serious respiratory disorders, even when the particle levels are very low. It makes asthma worse and causes wheezing, coughing and respiratory irritation in anyone with sensitive airways. It also triggers heart attacks, strokes, irregular heartbeat, and premature death.
Ozone reacts chemically (“oxidizes”) with internal body tissues that it comes in contact with, such as those in the lung. When that irritates the respiratory tract, like getting a sunburn or rubbing sandpaper on a wound.
Smog can cause health problems the day you breathe in high levels of smog, or after long-term exposure. It’s particularly dangerous for people with asthma and other chronic lung diseases, senior citizens, and children and teens.
Smog can cause asthma attacks, coughing and wheezing, shortness of breath, chest pain when inhaling deeply, and even premature death. Breathing high levels of smog repeatedly over the long term may also lead to reduced lung function, inflamed lung lining, and increased breathing problems.
Particle pollution is too small to really see—you can see the haze it creates when the sunlight hits it. Particles can be so microscopic that they’re one-seventh to one-thirtieth the diameter of a single human hair—or smaller.
The body’s natural defenses help to cough or sneeze larger particles out of our bodies. But those defenses don’t keep out smaller particles, and they get lodged deep in the lungs, where they stay and can cause major damage. Some of the particles are so tiny that they can pass through the lungs into the blood stream and travel throughout your body like oxygen.
When it comes to air pollution, children and teens are more vulnerable than you might realize. Their lungs are still developing, so they can be easily damaged. Because kids are so active and outdoors more often, they can end up breathing more air pollution per pound than adults.
Many others are vulnerable as well, including probably someone in your family. Not only children and teens, but adults over 65, adults who work or exercise outdoors, anyone with a chronic lung disease like asthma or COPD, anyone with cardiovascular diseases or diabetes—all these people face much higher risk of harm from air pollution.
The bottom line is that too many people are breathing dirty air. America deserves air pollution standards that protect the health of the public—that’s what the law requires.
Why do air pollution standards matter? States and the U.S. EPA must enforce the Clean Air Act to reduce air pollution to protect health. To do that, EPA sets standards that every community is required to meet. Local communities and states are legally required to control pollution in their areas so that air is as clean as federal standard says it must be.
Standards drive nearly everything the American Lung Association does to clean up air pollution. The tighter the standards are set, the less people will suffer. Right now, we have the rare chance to get EPA to make them tighter—and we have the evidence we need. The last time EPA looked at ozone standards was 1997. It turns out that what EPA thought was safe then, isn’t. We’re calling on EPA to set new standards for ozone at levels that would protect public health as the Clean Air Act requires.
You can let policymakers know you want them to protect the air you breathe. Sign up to join our e-advocacy team.
The American Lung Association’s State of the Air: 2007 finds that America’s air quality picture is clearly split East-West. This is actually the first time we’ve seen a geographic split in the eight years that we have been sending out an annual air quality report card. Particle pollution (soot)—the most dangerous pollutant—increased in the East but decreased in the West. Ozone (smog) levels, on the other hand, dropped across the country from peaks reported in 2002. You can learn more about your own area’s air quality grades by checking out the report.
Why the split? Like most topics related to air quality, the complex answer revolves around sound science and federal policies intended to control pollution.
This year’s State of the Air reinforces our life-and-death need for more protective federal standards so that every community in the United States—East or West—can have truly healthy air to breathe. The report finds that 136 million Americans are breathing air that’s not safe. That’s unacceptable.
Every day, air pollution is affecting people’s health all over the United States. The air you’re breathing is cleaner than it was 30 years ago, but it’s still not healthy air!
Breathing ozone (smog) and particle pollution (soot) can literally shorten life, create life-and-death emergencies, and send our most vulnerable Americans to emergency rooms. We must protect them.
With all the research showing how harmful these pollutants are to the health of so many Americans, you’d think it would be simple to decide to clean up the air. But it’s not. Unfortunately, clear scientific evidence can get tangled up in politics.
Right now, we’re in the midst of a critical debate over how much pollution it too much. We at the the American Lung Association and our colleagues at most other health organizations are at odds with the federal government’s definition of what safe levels of smog and soot truly are.
And it’s that definition of “safe levels” of smog and soot that sets official limits on how much air pollution your community can have.
Understanding outdoor air pollution and how it affects human health is complex and can be overwhelming. The most basic piece of the puzzle to understand is that our lungs simply weren’t made to breathe the levels of air pollution Americans continue to have to inhale.
Here are some specifics about how our bodies can react to smog and soot:
First and foremost, breathing particle pollution can kill. Someone can die on the very day that particle levels are high, or within one to two months afterward. Breathing particle pollution year-round can shorten life by one to three years. It causes many other health effects, premature births to serious respiratory disorders, even when the particle levels are very low. It makes asthma worse and causes wheezing, coughing and respiratory irritation in anyone with sensitive airways. It also triggers heart attacks, strokes, irregular heartbeat, and premature death.
Ozone reacts chemically (“oxidizes”) with internal body tissues that it comes in contact with, such as those in the lung. When that irritates the respiratory tract, like getting a sunburn or rubbing sandpaper on a wound.
Smog can cause health problems the day you breathe in high levels of smog, or after long-term exposure. It’s particularly dangerous for people with asthma and other chronic lung diseases, senior citizens, and children and teens.
Smog can cause asthma attacks, coughing and wheezing, shortness of breath, chest pain when inhaling deeply, and even premature death. Breathing high levels of smog repeatedly over the long term may also lead to reduced lung function, inflamed lung lining, and increased breathing problems.
Particle pollution is too small to really see—you can see the haze it creates when the sunlight hits it. Particles can be so microscopic that they’re one-seventh to one-thirtieth the diameter of a single human hair—or smaller.
The body’s natural defenses help to cough or sneeze larger particles out of our bodies. But those defenses don’t keep out smaller particles, and they get lodged deep in the lungs, where they stay and can cause major damage. Some of the particles are so tiny that they can pass through the lungs into the blood stream and travel throughout your body like oxygen.
When it comes to air pollution, children and teens are more vulnerable than you might realize. Their lungs are still developing, so they can be easily damaged. Because kids are so active and outdoors more often, they can end up breathing more air pollution per pound than adults.
Many others are vulnerable as well, including probably someone in your family. Not only children and teens, but adults over 65, adults who work or exercise outdoors, anyone with a chronic lung disease like asthma or COPD, anyone with cardiovascular diseases or diabetes—all these people face much higher risk of harm from air pollution.
The bottom line is that too many people are breathing dirty air. America deserves air pollution standards that protect the health of the public—that’s what the law requires.
Why do air pollution standards matter? States and the U.S. EPA must enforce the Clean Air Act to reduce air pollution to protect health. To do that, EPA sets standards that every community is required to meet. Local communities and states are legally required to control pollution in their areas so that air is as clean as federal standard says it must be.
Standards drive nearly everything the American Lung Association does to clean up air pollution. The tighter the standards are set, the less people will suffer. Right now, we have the rare chance to get EPA to make them tighter—and we have the evidence we need. The last time EPA looked at ozone standards was 1997. It turns out that what EPA thought was safe then, isn’t. We’re calling on EPA to set new standards for ozone at levels that would protect public health as the Clean Air Act requires.
You can let policymakers know you want them to protect the air you breathe. Sign up to join our e-advocacy team.
RSS Feed (xml)
No comments:
Post a Comment