Category:Air Quality

SJS / Siterunner: Years ago the smog in LA was so thick and so persistant that the city was regarded as one of the worst cases of air pollution in the world. Out of that mix of environmental disaster, and damage to a generation of kids whose lungs were affected, came the beginnings of the modern environmental movement. Los Angeles and California were at the forefront of the first set of environmental laws, incl air quality. George E Brown, a mentor and friend for over 30 yrs, was a drafter of the original EPA legis and many other key initiatives that are now at the center of green politics. George would have had strong opinions about the latest moves in the US Congress (circa 2014-2017) to move away from the roll of science and roll back the EPA, environmental protections, the responses to climate change, and the leadership role of the United States that's critically important in today's world...

See a snapshot of the 'modern environmental movement' and first-gen environmental laws

https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Environmental_movement

The first generation of Air Quality / Air Pollution laws and regulations have, over the past fifty plus years, served as a green political model in the United States and globally. Countries and cities have adopted forward-looking actions to bring energy, transportation, housing and each key sector of their economies into alignment with 'best practices' in clean-up technologies. Much progress remains to be planned and accomplished, but the foundations for action are in place and the scientific monitoring is now being conducted worldwide. The global atmospheric conditions connect all nations and the work to be done is international.

Air Quality Maps / Global

● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkY5oFQD2cc

● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtAd4p22NRo

● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ezG7qbh784

···············································································

See "Air Pollution" -- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Air_Pollution

"Air Quality Index"

○

Join the environmental movement, make a difference

Even an app can change the world ...

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/with-wearable-devices-that-monitor-air-quality-scientists-can-crowdsource-pollution-maps-180954556/

○

(In the US) economic health and public health haven't been locked in a zero-sum battle. The air is indisputably cleaner today, even after decades of economic growth. As the Obama administration tries to apply the Clean Air Act to a new environmental problem — climate change — it's worth wondering if past performance ever guarantees future results.

An annual report on air quality from the American Lung Association includes a revealing chart that tracks the percentage change in air pollution, gross domestic product, vehicle-miles traveled, population, energy consumption, and carbon dioxide emissions since 1970, when President Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act into law.

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/i7QZmZEjTodU/v1/-1x-1.png

The question before the world is whether we can send climate-warming pollutants in the same direction while unlinking carbon emissions from economic growth. At the heart of the economic argument against Obama's Clean Power Plan, which uses the EPA's authority to phase out the most polluting coal plants, is that we just can't afford it. An analysis commissioned by America's Power, a group representing the coal industry, predicts that Obama's plan would cause electricity prices to spike by double digits and could cost the economy up to $39 billion a year.

"I’ve doing this over 25 years," said Paul Billings, senior vice president of advocacy for the American Lung Association. "I’ve heard this from industry every single time EPA has tried to tighten a standard."

Early evidence from carbon-cutting programs suggests that economies are not left in ruins. Nine northeastern states would have produced 24 percent more emissions if they hadn't formed the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in 2009. From 2009 to 2014, their combined GDP grew by about 8 percent. British Columbia enacted a carbon tax in 2008. Emissions per capita fell 12.9 percent below its pre-tax years—3.5 times larger than the overall decline in Canadian per capita emissions—and the province has not become an economic basket case.

The EPA has studied the effects of the Clean Air Act repeatedly. A first major review came in the 1990s, when researchers found that from 1970 to 1990, cumulative benefits—which include reductions in deaths and illnesses from asthma, heart attacks, and stroke — outweighed costs by an average ranging from $22.2 trillion to $563 billion... it's possible to reduce pollution without crimping economic growth, defying doomsayers' predictions.

○