Latest news with #LauraKateBender
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
NYC air quality: Live map as Canadian wildfires smoke set to invade Tri-State
The Brief Smoke from a series of Canadian wildfires could reach New York City by Tuesday. Wildfire smoke is a complex mixture of gases, particles and water vapor that contains multiple pollutants that can get into the lungs and bloodstream. Back on June 7, 2023, the Big Apple had the world's worst air quality of any major city in the world. NEW YORK CITY - Smoke from a series of wildfires burning across central Canada is expected to reach New York City on Tuesday after invading other parts of the United States over the past several days. JUMP TO: AIR QUALITY MAP l HEALTH IMPACTS l WHO SHOULD BE CAREFUL? The smoke from the wildfires is primarily aloft, resulting in a milky sky and vivid sunrises and sunsets. Air quality levels remain mostly in the moderate range, posing health risks to mainly those with respiratory ailments. The smoke plume will be moving east into the region – hazy conditions are anticipated. With few signs that the blazes will subside anytime soon, here's what you need to know this week about wildfires and their impact on you. This map from shows the current air quality in the New York City area. Click HERE if you're having trouble viewing the embedded map. The numbers show how clean or polluted the air is and stands as a guideline for outdoor activities that day, especially for sensitive groups. 0-50: Good, with little to no risk of pollution. 51-100: Moderate and really is not a risk to anyone unless they're unusually sensitive to poor air quality. The national weather service will often still issue an air quality alert when we're in this range. 101-150: This is a risk for sensitive groups and people with asthma. 151-200: A risk for everyone and people who are sensitive are at risk for more severe complications. 201-300: Very unhealthy and a risk for everyone. 301+: Emergency conditions. Why you should care Wildfire smoke is a complex mixture of gases, particles and water vapor that contains multiple pollutants that can get into the lungs and bloodstream. There is no evidence of a safe level of exposure to some of the pollutants, meaning that smoke can impact your health even at very low levels. Inhaling smoke from wildfires can cause headaches, sore and watery eyes, nose, throat, and sinus irritation, chest pains, heart palpitations and more. What you can do Exposure to elevated fine particle pollution levels can affect the lungs and heart. The air quality alerts caution "sensitive groups," a big category that includes children, older adults, and people with lung diseases, such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Kids, who often are encouraged to go out and play, "are more susceptible to smoke for a number of reasons," said Laura Kate Bender, the lung association's National Assistant Vice President, healthy air. "Their lungs are still developing, they breathe in more air per unit of body weight." No one is immune. Back in June2023, winds blew smoke from unchecked Canadian wildfires into the region, which led the Department of Environmental Conservation to issue an Air Quality Health Advisory for all five boroughs. According to New York City had the world's worst air quality of any major city in the world back on June 7, 2023, with an AQI rating over 350, more than twice as high as Dubai.
CBS News
24-04-2025
- Health
- CBS News
Almost half of U.S. residents are exposed to unhealthy levels of air pollution, new report says. These are the areas that got an "F"
A new report on air quality across the United States offered a cloudy prognosis on the long-term health of about 156 million residents who live in areas that received an "F" in smog and soot pollution. The American Lung Association's annual State of the Air report, which looked at the latest air quality data from 2021 to 2023, concluded that 25 million more people are breathing "unhealthy levels of air pollution" compared to last year. According to the report, around 46% of people in the U.S. live in an area that received a failing grade in at least one of the three measures that were studied: short-term particle pollution, year-round particle pollution and ozone pollution. Since the Clean Air Act was signed into law in 1970, emissions of the six most common air pollutants have fallen by 78%, according to the Environmental Protection Agency — but recent analyses show air pollution has been on the rise in recent years. "Since the act passed, the air pollution has gone down overall," Laura Kate Bender, an assistant vice president at the American Lung Association, told CBS News. "The challenge is that over the last few years, we're starting to see it tick back up again and that's because of climate change, in part. Climate change is making some of those conditions for wildfires and extreme heat that drive ozone pollution worse for a lot of the country." The most polluted and cleanest U.S. cities For the sixth year in a row, Bakersfield, California, remained the city with the worst year-round particle pollution and short-term particle pollution, according to the report. The industrial city — known for agriculture, mining and oil refineries — also ranked third for worst high ozone days. Conversely, the city ranked first in the American Lung Association's top 25 cleanest U.S. cities by year-round particle is Casper, Wyoming, which has less than 80,000 residents compared to Bakersfield's nearly 914,000 population. Here's the American Lung Association's latest list of the top 10 cities with the worst year-round particle pollution: Climate change and regulations roll back Prior years of reporting found that the worst of the nation's air quality was concentrated in western states, but the new report released Wednesday said the concentration of poor air has started to shift east. Extreme heat, lack of precipitation and wildfires associated with climate change continue to play a growing part in worsening the air quality across the U.S. and exposing a growing proportion of Americans to pollutants, the report said. It cited a 2023 deadly heat wave and smoke from Canada's worst wildfire season as contributors to worsened levels of air pollution in central and eastern states. "I think we knew that the wildfire smoke would have an impact on air quality in the United States," Kevin Stewart, the American Lung Association's environmental health director, told CBS Philadelphia. "I think we were surprised at the Lung Association by how strong the effect was, especially in the northeastern quadrant of the continental United States." Last month, the EPA announced it will roll back or change 31 environmental rules and regulations, including revisions of national air quality standards for particulate matter, emission standards for industrial air pollutants and regulations restricting vehicle emissions. The proposed cuts are putting more than five decades of progress at risk, Kate Bender said. "Unfortunately, we see that everything that makes our air quality better is at risk," she said. "The EPA is at risk — the agency that is protecting our health — through staff cuts, funding cuts. The regulations that have cleaned up our air over time are at risk of being cut. If we see all those cuts become reality, it's gonna have a real impact on people's health by making the air they breathe dirtier." EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin argued that the deregulation will instead drive "a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more." Zeldin told senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang on "Face the Nation" that he can "absolutely" guarantee that Trump administration deregulations won't have adverse health impacts on people and the environment. What are the health effects of air pollution? Both ozone and particle pollution can cause a wide range of health problems that lead to premature death, according to the American Lung Association. The effects of bad air quality have been extensively studied and shown to cause asthma and heart attacks, strokes, lung cancer and impaired cognitive function later in life. "The air pollutants covered in this report are widespread and can impact anyone's health," Kezia Ofosu Atta, advocacy director for the Lung Association in Michigan, told CBS Detroit. "This air pollution is causing kids to have asthma attacks, making people who work outdoors sick and unable to work, and leading to low birth weight in babies," Ofosu Atta said, who urged lawmakers to take action to improve the city's air, which ranked sixth in the nation for year-round pollution. The American Lung Association's report noted that Black people are more like to suffer the serious health effects of air pollution due to the long history of systemic racism in the U.S., including segregation and decision-makers finding it easier to place sources of pollution such as power plants, industrial facilities, landfills and highways in economically disadvantaged communities of color. Jerod Dabne contributed reporting.
