Stop Breathing! It’s bad for your health

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Posted on May 30, 2007
Filed Under Greenhouse gas emissions, Environmental disasters

Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:

Relax and take a deep breath. Or don’t because it may be very bad for you.

The American Lung Association issued its annual report card on US air quality and there’s some good news and some bad news. Ozone levels are down from their 2002 peak across the country, and the West has seen reductions in particulate pollution. The East didn’t fair so well. Our particulate pollution is on the rise.

CNN reported this storya few weeks ago, but I just discovered it and thought it worth sharing. We talk a lot about CO2 and global warming these days, but we forget that the air is full of all sorts of other pollution that makes us sick, or that can even kill us.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Los Angeles wins the prize as smoggiest city in the country. Lucky for all you folks out there!

I think about the coal-fired power plants again, perhaps the single worst violator in terms of the yuck in the air that we breathe. In other places, like Gary and Chicago, or Houston, you can add oil refineries or steel mills to the mix. Or , in Virginia, for example, paper plants, or…. take your pick.

After all this time, we haven’t yet forced companies to stop fouling our air. You gotta tell me how it is that death and illness by pollution — shortened lives, increased asthma and heart attacks, and more — is less important than the corporate bottom line. We do not have our priorities straight in this crazed society.

So, until we figure out how to do this, for your health, just stop breathing, okay?

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From the Am. Lung Association May 1 press release:

“The increased particle pollution in the East is a particularly troubling trend, because exposure to particle pollution can not only take years off your life, it can threaten your life immediately,” said Terri E. Weaver, PhD, RN, American Lung Association Chair. “Even in many areas EPA currently considers safe, the science clearly shows that the air is too often dangerous to breathe, particularly for those with lung disease. Protecting Americans from potentially deadly air pollution means we need more protective federal standards, so that every community in the United States can have truly clean air.”


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