• Air

New Report Finds One-Third of Americans Breathe Dirty Air At Least 3 Months A Year

• air pollution
• air quality
• asthma
• life expectancy
• particulate matter

In 2018, nearly 110 million Americans lived in areas with air quality that was unhealthy for more than 100 days of the year, according to a new report published on Tuesday by Environment America Research & Policy Center, USPIRG Education Fund and Frontier Group.

Why This Matters:  Dirty air negatively impacts’ people’s health and even their life expectancy — as we have often reported here in Our Daily Planet, and air quality in the U.S. is not good enough, despite what the current administration may try to claim.

• Air

PTI – In 2020, Let’s Talk More About Air Pollution

• air pollution
• clean air
• Clean Air Act
• electric vehicles
• Tesla

By Miro Korenha and Monica Medina Pardon the interruption from the constant conversation about the stock market, impeachment and conflict in the Middle East.  We’d like to talk about something completely different.  2020 is the 50th anniversary of the passage of one of our nation’s bedrock environmental laws — the Clean Air Act.  This week […]

• Air

Ships To Become LA’s Biggest Polluters

Ships visiting Southern California’s bustling ports are poised to become the region’s largest source of smog-causing pollutants in the coming years and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) wants to tackle this looming problem.

• Air

Top Stories of 2019: Car Wars and Federalism

• air pollution
• California cars
• carbon emissions
• electric vehicles

News about electric vehicles — both cars and trucks — and particularly the efforts of California and other states to elevate their standards on tailpipe emissions to both reduce carbon and toxic air emissions made headlines throughout the year in Our Daily Planet.

Why This Matters: The future of cars is electric — if only we can get out of our own way to speed them to the finish line.

• Air

Making Plastic From Fracked Natural Gas Could Replace Coal and Steel in Ohio Valley

• air pollution
• ethane cracking
• fracking
• greenhouse gasses

Here in Madrid, the Mayor of Pittsburgh, Bill Peduto, touted his city as a green Phoenix, rising from the ashes of the failed steel and coal industries, with a growing economy based on high tech and health care companies and improved air and water quality — the city is turning a corner.  But he pointed out that just up the road Royal Dutch Shell is building a giant, greenhouse gas-spewing plant near Pittsburgh that will (using a process called “ethane cracking”) make tiny plastic pellets that can be turned into items like phone cases, auto parts, and food packaging according to The New York Times.

Why This Matters:  The Pittsburgh plant will be allowed to emit each year 2.25 million tons of carbon dioxide, 522 tons of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and 160 tons of particulate pollution or soot, according to local NGO the Breathe Project.

• Air

Unprecedented Air Pollution Chokes Sarajevo

• air pollution
• Bosnia

As the Washington Post reported, “authorities say air pollution in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo has reached dangerous levels in recent days, prompting officials to ban freight vehicles from the roads, cancel all outdoor public events and warn citizens to remain indoors.” The air is virtually unbreathable which has led city officials to reduce coal-fueled […]