(VitalNews.org) – A new report that has studied harmful air pollution has said that four in ten Americans are exposed to harmful air pollution. As of now, according to the reports, four of the five most harmful cities are located in California which is where heat, drought, and wildfires can play a role in air pollution.
More than one hundred and thirty million Americans are exposed to unhealthy levels of air pollution. The report, State of the Air Report, which was conducted by the American Lung Association, said that this was an over eleven million person increase from last year.
Paul Billings, senior vice president for advocacy at the American Lung Association said, “Climate change is not remote, it’s not an abstraction. It is a reality impacting the health of millions of people from coast to coast every year.”
The Clean Air Act made a huge difference in air pollution, but since then, the wildfires have reversed the progress made by that act. They looked into the twenty-five most polluted cities which included places like Boise, Idaho, and Fairbanks, Alaska. In the twenty-five most polluted cities, people are exposed to harmful particle pollutants on average for twenty-one days in comparison to the year previously, when they were exposed for an average of two days.
Says Billings, “The number of very unhealthy and hazardous days has skyrocketed.” He continued, “They are signaling the magnitude of wildfires, and the impact they’re having on public health.”
As stated, California is the top state with the most polluted areas, and following this is Nevada, Colorado, and Arizona. It’s said that people of color are also more likely to be exposed because of racist zoning practices that allowed them to place industrial sites and other polluting factories in the neighborhoods of minorities.
Experts have said that combating air pollution isn’t something one person or one state can do, but that the solution is banding together to make a change in our practices that contribute to pollution.
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