Nadja Popovich covered this study back in October:
New data reveals that damaging air pollution has increased nationally since 2016, reversing a decades-long trend toward cleaner air.
The New York Times
The air you breathe used to get cleaner and cleaner every year. Now every year air quality is getting worse, doing more and more damage to people’s health. Plus, since research shows that air pollution makes you stupid, we are now becoming increasingly stupid every year. Great job America!
An analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data published this week by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that fine particulate pollution increased 5.5 percent on average across the country between 2016 and 2018, after decreasing nearly 25 percent over the previous seven years.
“After a decade or so of reductions,” said Nick Muller, a professor of economics, engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon, and one of the study’s co-authors, “this increase is a real about-face.”
The New York Times
Make the air polluted again?
Researchers also suggested that a decrease in enforcement of the Clean Air Act may have contributed to the recent rise in pollution. That law and its subsequent updates put in place strict air pollution standards for power plants, factories, vehicles and other sources, and has been credited with dramatically improving air quality across the country and saving hundreds of thousands of lives.
The New York Times
I mean come on, the Clean Air act? Who has time to enforce that? We need to put the coal miners back to work!
Fine particulate pollution – known as PM2.5 because the particles are less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, or one-thirtieth the size of a human hair – has been linked to a range of health problems including asthma and respiratory inflammation, lung cancer, heart attack and stroke. A recent study found a significant link between air pollution and the risk of miscarriage.
The New York Times
Air pollution is destroying people’s lives. Because we can’t see it, nobody is doing anything about it. That needs to change.
America’s air quality is now getting worse, after years of continued improvements.
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Read the full story at the New York Times
Thanks, Trump et al. He cares so deeply about clean air and clean water, don’t ya know.
This study is BS. Well, unless there is a glass dome over America. NO, thought so. The reason for increasing air pollution over America after years of decline is the ever-increasing number of coal-fired power plants in middle and East Asian countries, primarily India, China and Malaysia, et al. At one point ~10-20 years ago, China began bringing 2 coal fired power plants a week online, resulting in all those pictures of Beijing looking like 1800’s London and many cities in India look the same (~1 to 2 plants/mo) for the same reason as those in China. It’s not America’s fault for the rising pollution, go fight the other countries for building such prodigious pollution generators, which BTW, unlike in the US, don’t have ANY pollution control equipment built in nor do they burn “cleaner” grades (read more expensive) of coal.
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This study is BS. Well, unless there is a glass dome over America. NO, thought so. The reason for increasing air pollution over America after years of decline is the ever-increasing number of coal-fired power plants in middle and East Asian countries, primarily India, China and Malaysia, et al. At one point ~10-20 years ago, China began bringing 2 coal fired power plants a week online, resulting in all those pictures of Beijing looking like 1800’s London and many cities in India look the same (~1 to 2 plants/mo) for the same reason as those in China. It’s not America’s fault for the rising pollution, go fight the other countries for building such prodigious pollution generators, which BTW, unlike in the US, don’t have ANY pollution control equipment built in nor do they burn “cleaner” grades (read more expensive) of coal.