60% Of Americans Breathing Unhealthy Air

Despite Green Movement, Tougher Laws, Lung Association Says Most Cities Still Have Too Much Air Pollution

(CBS/AP)  Sixty percent of Americans live in areas with unhealthy air pollution levels, despite a growing green movement and more stringent laws aimed at improving air quality, the American Lung Association said in a report released Wednesday.

The public-health group ranked the pollution levels of U.S. cities and counties based on air quality measurements that state and local agencies reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency between 2005 and 2007.

Overall, the report found that air pollution at times reaches unhealthy levels in almost every major city and that 186.1 million people live in those areas. The number is much higher than last year's figure of about 125 million people because recent changes to the federal ozone standard mean more counties recognize unhealthy levels of pollution.

Health effects from air pollution include changes in lung function, coughing, heart attacks, lung cancer and premature death.

"Six out of 10 Americans right now as we speak live in areas where the air can be dirty enough to send people to the emergency room, dirty enough to shape how kids' lungs develop and even dirty enough to kill," said Janice E. Nolen, the association's assistant vice president on national policy and advocacy.

Cities including Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, Charlotte, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and Baltimore have seen improvements in air quality over the last decade, the report said.

The Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside region of Southern California remained the metropolitan area with the highest levels of ozone pollution, as it has in each of the past 10 reports. Other metropolitan areas considered to have the most ozone pollution included Houston-Baytown-Huntsville and Dallas-Fort Worth in Texas.

The areas with the most short-term particle pollution or soot were Pittsburgh-New Castle, Pa.; and the California areas of Fresno-Madera, Bakersfield and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside.

The cleanest metro area in all categories was Fargo, N.D.

The rankings in the "State of the Air Report" were based on ozone pollution levels produced when heat and sunlight come into contact with pollutants from power plants, cars, refineries and other sources.

The lung association also studied short-term and year-round levels of particle pollution, which is made up of a mix of tiny solid and liquid particles in the air.

On Tuesday, a separate study showed that exposure to air pollution both early and late in pregnancy may have a negative impact on fetal growth.

Air pollution, especially pollution from car exhaust, was linked to smaller birth weight in the study even after researchers controlled for known risk factors.

[ianlou]

ianlou
Maybe Obama and his family should camp out in Detroit so they can experience what has been working so far.
Posted by scottyusa at 2:13 PM : Apr 30, 2009

scottyusa
Maybe Dubya and his family should camp out in Detroit so they can see what they have done.

[onesword]

Now, what is it cigarette smoking or pollution? I knew cigarette smoking was a cover up for the pollution of our cities.

[scottyusa]

ianlou
Maybe Obama and his family should camp out in Detroit so they can experience what has been working so far.

[ianlou]

We've found a solution to air polution in Detroit:
Shut down all the Steel Plants
Shut Down the Auto Plants
Shut down all manufacturing
Most the cars are off the road because everyone is unemployeed.

The Air here is great and everyone has lots of free time to appreciate it.

[rf35]

Posted by scottyusa at 3:48 PM : Apr 29, 2009

What about nuclear? Nuclear technology has matured and is nowhere near as dangerous in terms of both operational safety and waste products as it was in the 20th century. We need this as an energy source until wind/solar/other alternative electricity production technologies are matured enough to handle demand. Of course by then, there may be yet other, better sources available.


Death to OPEC.

[Right_Wing_Extremist]

60% Of Americans Breathing Unhealthy Air

-Must be the air from the 60% of dummies who give Obama a favorable approval rating thus far...

[hagar39]

Rush and some Republicans leaders recommenede that you should hold your breath for 15 minutes every hour to cut down on breathing bad air. I don't think this will work.

[scottyusa]

One would think that all them cars spending lots of time idling would be a major contributer if not the most. How do you fix that? Batteries will create more ozone. Can you imagine what it would be like in a big city with every car being electric? They have multiple batteries all needing a charge quite often. Of course the power grid would not handle this so it would have to be that the only electricity that can be used between say, 12 AM to 6 AM can only be for battery charging use. Bye bye electric car idea unless we want to spend trillions upgrading the power grid. That power, by the way, cannot come from coal plants either or that would be hypocritical. It must come from wind or solar sources. Welcome to the new "green" world.

[whitemale08]

Another failure of boom/bust speculative economy so Wall Street//City of London can enrich themselves through speculatiion.

Had our industries been protected from the hedge funds, vulture and loot funds like Cerebrus Capital LLC, corporations might've had a chance to improve air quality, cities would have mag-lev transportation by now.

Naw naw naw, Donald Trump and George Soros are American heroes.

[billpl-2009]

"Glad i live in ND, low crime, low unemployment very little air pollution. The state government has money."-- Posted by love2ridend

.....and you fix your own problems when things get too wet rather than crying to FEMA and Feds.

I couldn't handle that place...too cold and no drama LOL