Category: Air Pollution

To protect the air we breathe, we have to stop emitting CO2 and methane and other pollutants into the atmosphere, and we need to be socially just in siting polluting plants in areas that affect no one, not the rich or poor.

Study: Air pollution from farms leads to 17,900 U.S. deaths per year

Washington Post: Air pollution from farms leads to 17,900 U.S. deaths per year, study finds. A first-of-its-kind study shows that lung-irritating particles from fertilizer, feed lots and manure cause thousands of premature deaths — even more than coal power plants. But using more sustainable farming practices and eating less meat could save lives.

“The odor is so offensive that we start gagging, we start coughing,” she told a congressional committee in November 2019. Herring, who died last week, said she and other residents developed headaches, breathing problems and heart conditions from the fumes.

Now, a first-of-its-kind study shows that air pollution from Duplin County farms is linked to roughly 98 premature deaths per year, 89 of which are linked to emissions directly caused by hogs. Those losses are among more than 17,000 annual deaths attributable to pollution from farms across the United States, according to research published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Study: Greenhouse Emissions Are Messing With the Stratosphere

Mother Jones: Greenhouse Emissions Are Messing With the Stratosphere, a New Study Reveals. It raises the worrisome question of atmospheric effects yet to be discovered.

Humanity’s enormous emissions of greenhouse gases are shrinking the stratosphere, a new study has revealed.

The thickness of the atmospheric layer has contracted by 400 meters since the 1980s, the researchers found and will thin by about another kilometer by 2080 without major cuts in emissions. The changes have the potential to affect satellite operations, the GPS navigation system and radio communications.

The discovery is the latest to show the profound impact of humans on the planet. In April, scientists showed that the climate crisis had shifted the Earth’s axis as the massive melting of glaciers redistributes weight around the globe.

The study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, reached its conclusions using the small set of satellite observations taken since the 1980s in combination with multiple climate models, which included the complex chemical interactions that occur in the atmosphere.

DeSmogBlog, May 8, 2021

Articles include: Oregon Utility Using Greenwashing and ‘Renewable Natural Gas’ To Push Back on Potential Gas Bans; New Government Report Highlights Federal Failures to Oversee Offshore Drilling [report is here]; New Lawsuit Challenges ‘Fast-Track’ Permits Used for Oil and Gas Pipelines Nationwide; Over a Half-million Americans Live Near Oil Refineries With High Levels of a Cancer-causing Air Pollutant, Report Finds [report is here]; Ugandan Farmers Whose Land Will Soon Become a Crude Oil Pipeline Pathway Lose Years of Livelihood;  Climate Disinformation Database: Energy4US

Yale Climate Connections, April 30, 2021

Articles include: Major parties’ climate programs are miles apart; With seas rising, stalled research budgets must also rise; Cities’ notable efforts on climate change; Citrus farming and geothermal energy; Sea-level rise could submerge fiber optic cables, a key component of internet infrastructure; Air pollution from fossil fuels caused 8.7 million premature deaths in 2018, study finds [No study link]; Four electric cargo cycles deliver packages in Miami.

Study: Deadly air pollutant ‘disproportionately and systematically’ harms Americans of color

Washington Post: Deadly air pollutant ‘disproportionately and systematically’ harms Americans of color, study finds. Black, Latino and Asian Americans face higher levels of exposure to fine particulate matter from traffic, construction and other sources.

Nearly every source of the nation’s most pervasive and deadly air pollutant disproportionately affects Americans of color, regardless of their state or income level, according to a study published Wednesday. The analysis of fine-particle matter, which includes soot, shows how decisions made decades ago about where to build highways and industrial plants continue to harm the health of Black, Latino and Asian Americans today.

The findings of researchers from five universities, published in the online journal Science Advances, provide the most detailed evidence to date of how Americans of color have not reaped the same benefits as White Americans, even though the country has made major strides in curbing pollution from cars, trucks, factories and other sources.

Study: Natural Gas Is Now More Deadly Than Coal in 19 States

Gizmodo: Natural Gas Is Now More Deadly Than Coal in 19 States. Unhealthy air pollution generally brings to mind coal-fired plants spewing black soot from a smokestack. But that image may quickly be becoming outdated. A study published on Wednesday in Environmental Research Letters found that using natural gas and biomass in sources like buildings and industrial boilers actually caused more deaths in 19 states as a result of air pollution than burning coal.

Blowing up mountains to mine coal

Salon.com: We still blow up mountains to mine coal: Time to end the war on Appalachia. The dying coal industry’s last gasp is “mountaintop removal” mining — and it’s even worse than it sounds.

On Earth Day this year, as President Biden assembled world leaders to a climate summit to focus on a “clean energy future,” retired coal miner Chuck Nelson hunkered down in the green hills of West Virginia, recovering from a recent stroke and with one remaining kidney, as thousands of tons of explosives from mountaintop removal strip mining operations detonated nearby with a toxic haze of coal dust.

Yes, Greta (Thunberg), we still blow up mountains in the United States to mine deadly coal.

While coal mining has decreased dramatically in recent years, state permits for reckless mountaintop removal operations by absentee corporations, which involve only small numbers of non-union heavy equipment operators and explosives, in contrast to labor-intensive underground mines, continue to be doled out in central Appalachia in a desperate attempt to shake down the region for a final coal tattoo.

Study: Tiny air pollutants may come from different sources, but they all show a similar biased trend

Popular Science: Tiny air pollutants may come from different sources, but they all show a similar biased trend. The study found that unequal exposures to fine particulate matter air pollution aren’t driven by a single source.

Air pollution from fine particulate matter—extremely small bits of material like soot that can enter the nose and throat while breathing—can have deadly health consequences. One 2019 study of 4.5 million U.S. veterans estimated that nearly 200,000 people, of whom a disproportionate number were Black, died of causes associated with fine particulate matter (also known as PM2.5) exposure. Although particulate matter pollution in the U.S. has gone down overall, unequal exposures have not, and systemic racism continues to guide who does and does not get to breathe clean air.

Researchers and impacted communities have known for a long time that these disparities, rooted in discriminatory housing policies and other drivers, exist. A new study, published on April 28 in the journal Science Advances, aimed to tease out which emission sources—ranging from industrial pollution to agriculture and road dust—are the most relevant drivers of racial and ethnic PM2.5 exposure disparities across the US.