How healthy is the air you are breathing?
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.