Air Pollution

EPA Finds Black Americans Face More Health-Threatening Air Pollution

March 3, 2018 Phil McKenna, Insideclimatenews.org Educate! Air Pollution, Environmental racism, EPA, Racism

Black Americans are subjected to higher levels of air pollution than white Americans regardless of their wealth, researchers with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency conclude. Researchers at the EPA's National Center for Environmental Assessment looked at facilities emitting air pollution, as well as at the racial and economic profiles of surrounding communities. They found that black Americans were exposed to significantly more of the small pollution particles known as PM 2.5, which have been associated with lung disease, heart disease, and premature death. Most such sooty pollution comes from burning fossil fuels. Blacks were exposed to 1.54 times more of this form of pollution—particles no larger than 2.5 microns, that lodge in lung tissue—than the population at large. Poor people were exposed to 1.35 times more, and all non-whites to 1.28 times more, according to the study, published in the American Journal of Public Health.

Dominion Cove Point Allowed To Emit More Air Pollutants

February 9, 2018 Anne Meador, Dcmediagroup.us Educate! Air Pollution, Cove Point, Dominion

The Maryland Public Service Commission will allow higher levels of certain air pollutants from the power plant at Dominion Energy’s Cove Point LNG export terminal. The Commission approved Dominion’s request for a permit amendment, clearing the way for it to begin operations. Dominion asked the PSC for fugitive emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at the power plant to be exempted from numeric limits, claiming there was no good way to measure them. The Commission agreed, calling numeric limits “practically unenforceable due to the lack of available technology.” “Removing the numeric limit will neither alter the operation of the Project nor impact the surrounding environment,” the PSC order says.

Air Pollution: Black, Hispanic And Poor Students Most At Risk From Toxins

February 3, 2018 Oliver Milman, Theguardian.com Educate! Air Pollution, Youth

Schoolchildren across the US are plagued by air pollution that’s linked to multiple brain-related problems, with black, Hispanic and low-income students most likely to be exposed to a fug of harmful toxins at school, scientists and educators have warned. The warnings come after widespread exposure to toxins was found in new research using EPA and census data to map out the air pollution exposure for nearly 90,000 public schools across the US. “This could well be impacting an entire generation of our society,” said Dr Sara Grineski, an academic who has authored the first national study, published in the journal Environmental Research, on air pollution and schools.

Citizens In Cancer Alley Ramp Up Battle Against Industrial Pollution

January 11, 2018 By Julie Dermansky, Desmogblog.com Resist! Air Pollution, Cancer, Louisiana, pollution

This past year in Louisiana’s St. John the Baptist Parish, a small group of residents began organizing their community to compel the state to protect them against an invisible menace: the air they breathe. Their parish, the Louisiana equivalent of a county, is situated in what’s known as Cancer Alley, an industrial corridor between Baton Rouge and New Orleans that hosts more than 100 petrochemical factories. At the helm of the battle is the Concerned Citizens of St. John, a diverse group of parish residents pushing back against the area’s historically bad — and worsening — industrial pollution. “One thing we all have in common is a desire for clean air,” the group’s founder, Robert Taylor, told me. Next year, the burgeoning group plans to get political and broaden its reach by banding together with similar groups in the region.

Study Shows Limits Of Cap-And-Trade In California

November 29, 2017 Larry Buhl, capitalandmain.com Educate! Air Pollution, California, greenhouse gases, New Economy

By Larry Buhl for Capital and Main - On November 11, shortly after he began his speech at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, California Governor Jerry Brown encountered jeers and chants from Native American and climate justice activists who denounced fracking and the state’s market-based solutions to greenhouse gas emissions by yelling, “Keep it in the ground.” A visibly rattled Brown snapped at the protesters, saying “Let’s put you in the ground so we can get on with the show here,” before he softened and thanked them for “bringing the diversity of dissent.” Brown has been hailed as a climate hero for signing the ambitious California Senate Bill 32, which mandates the statewide reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as his public opposition to the regressive climate policies of the Trump administration. But he’s also drawn scorn for his lack of opposition to fracking, his refusal to close the Aliso Canyon gas storage facility, and for his ardent support of cap-and-trade, which some environmentalists say shouldn’t be the lynchpin of progressive climate policy. In an email, Jean Su, associate conservation director at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups organizing the Bonn protest, countered Brown’s assertion that cutting oil demand is more urgent than cutting oil supply. “California can’t be a model of climate leadership while oil companies continue to produce millions of barrels per year of some of the dirtiest crude on the planet,” Su said. Coinciding with the Bonn protest comes a new study examining cap-and-trade, Brown’s signature greenhouse gas trading program.

PennEast Pipeline Emissions Equals 14 Coal Plants/10 Million Vehicles

April 27, 2017 Lorne Stockman, www.priceofoil.org Educate! Air Pollution, Pipelines

By Lorne Stockman for Oil Change International - A study released today finds that, if built, the controversial PennEast Pipeline for fracked gas could contribute as much greenhouse gas pollution as 14 coal-fired power plants or 10 million passenger vehicles — some 49 million metric tons per year. The analysis, conducted by Oil Change International, shows that federal regulators are poised to rubber-stamp the PennEast Pipeline based on a woefully inadequate climate review that ignores the significant impact of methane leaks and wrongly assumes that gas supplied by the project will replace coal. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is facing a growing backlash across the country over its routine approval of gas pipeline projects that endanger communities and the climate. Today’s study comes on the heels of a federal court hearing in which a judge slammed FERC’s shallow and dismissive review of the climate impact of the Sabal Trail gas pipeline in the Southeast. The new analysis counters FERC’s final environmental impact statement (FEIS) for the PennEast project released in early April. It applies a methodology recently developed by Oil Change International to calculate the climate impact of gas pipelines from the Appalachian Basin.

Despite 2017 Odds, Afghan Friends Hope For Healing

January 1, 2017 Dr. Wee Teck Young, www.ourjourneytosmile.com Educate! Afghanistan, Air Pollution, Peace, Wars and Militarism

By Dr. Wee Teck Young Hakim) and the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers for Our Journey to Smile. During particularly stressful moments in 2016, I had felt that the year was one long, hard Afghan night. A few evenings ago, my eyes had smarted from the dense irritant pollutants that enshroud Kabul streets and invade breaths and dreams in winter. Mansoor, determined to do well in his college entrance exams next year, laughed sarcastically at the burnt air which smelled of soot and survival scraps, holding his hand to his mouth and nose as a mask, saying, “Of course our lives are shortened by this smoke.” At least, someone had told me, T.V. ‘commercials’ warn us, “Stay in, or else…” I dashed back to my room, already coughing reflexively, feeling like the human masses have been cornered into prisons within prisons, elaborately presided over by an Afghan President, his CEO and the U.S./NATO/UN corporate machine, watched by an unquestioning, approving world.

‘Threat Map’ Aims To Highlight Worst Of Oil And Gas Air Pollution

June 17, 2016 Zahra Hirji, www.insideclimatenews.org Educate! Air Pollution, Oil and Gas

By Zahra Hirji for Inside Climate Change - Environmentalists have launched a new mapping tool that allows people in the U.S. to see whether they live and work in areas at risk of harmful air pollution from nearby oil and gas activities. According to the map, which was published online Wednesday by the advocacy groups Earthworks and the Clean Air Task Force, a lot of people do: about 12.4 million people live within a half-mile of active oil and gas wells and related facilities that could release harmful pollutants such as benzene and formaldehyde into the air.

Is Coal Ash Killing This Oklahoma Town?

June 14, 2016 Staff, www.insideclimatenews.org Educate! Air Pollution, Coal ash, Oklahoma

By Staff of Inside Climate News - The wind that blows through Bokoshe, Okla. is an ominous one. A small, low-income town near the Arkansas border, Bokoshe sits in the shadow of a coal power plant. Its toxic byproduct, coal ash, is trucked daily to a nearby dump, and when the wind blows through town, that ash rains down on its residents. They believe it is to blame for the asthma and cancer that runs rampant there. For six years, one photographer has documented the story, and struggles, of the people of Bokoshe.

Year In Pollution: The Nastiest Cases Of Toxic Discharge In 2015

January 8, 2016 Zoe Schlanger, www.newsweek.com Educate! Air Pollution, Environment, Water Pollution

By Zoe Schlanger for News Week - There’s no subtle way to say this: 2015 was a garbage year for our air and water. A river in Colorado turned a bright mac-and-cheese orange with mining waste. Photos of the streets of Beijing, thick with air pollution, looked downright apocalyptic. Parents in Flint, Michigan can look forward to a 2016 living in fear for their children’s brain development after learning their water is full of too much lead. One of the biggest automakers in the world admitted to rigging its vehicles to pass emissions tests, even when they were spewing out as much as 40 times the legal limit of the harmful pollutant NOx. It’s a mess out there, fam.

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