Climate change is making it more dangerous for kids to play outside, report finds

Severe heat waves and frequent wildfires are reversing America’s gains in clean air for a generation, a new study finds.

peer reviewed the study Climate analysis firm First Street Foundation predicts that increasing levels of microscopic soot particles and ozone molecules entering Americans’ lungs will, by midcentury, be at levels as high as 2004, before decades of federal environmental cleanup campaigns. I predicted that it would return. air.

Co-author Jeremy Porter said climate change is causing the U.S. to break away from a pattern in which the average bad air day “goes from being unhealthy for some to unhealthy for everyone.” -Told Hill.

Porter said federal regulations consistently improved air quality from 1963 to about 2016, when the negative impacts of climate change outweighed the positive pressures from clean air regulations.

“We’re seeing the biggest increases in the most dangerous situations.” [air] Mr Porter said the frequency of unhealthy air in all categories was “increasing”.

“We are about to wipe out 20 years of air quality rise,” he added.

Research shows that these changes are already having subtle but far-reaching effects.

For example, the number of days children in the western United States are unable to play safely outdoors has increased nearly fivefold since 2000 due to declining air quality.

Additionally, approximately 14 million U.S. households (approximately 10%) are expected to experience at least one week each year of “unhealthy” air quality as designated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

In some hotspots, the numbers are even worse. Approximately 6 million of these households, located in hotspots on the West Coast, Midwest, and Northeast, can expect to experience poor air quality for two weeks a year.

These declines in air quality will occur across the country, but will be especially pronounced on the West Coast, where ozone from asphalt baking combines with toxic particulates from wildfires and fossil fuel combustion, First Street researchers say. found out through a survey.

Research shows that over the next 30 years (the average length of a mortgage), the number of bad air days will increase significantly in this region. For example, there are currently 47 days a year in Los Angeles where the air is not at least safe for children and people with chronic conditions. According to data from First Street, by 2054, Angelenos will face an additional week of unhealthy conditions outdoors each year.

In California, “sensitive” groups make up a large portion of the population. Approximately 28 million people are elderly, young, or have heart disease or diabetes, making up more than 70% of the population.

And it’s not just California. First Street researchers predict that by 2054, most American cities, led by New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, Philadelphia, and Jacksonville, will see a dramatic increase in the number of households living in areas with poor air quality for at least one and a half weeks. It was found that there was an increase in per year.

These changes are already occurring, driven by PM2.5 and ozone, two very different pollutants each linked to climate change.

PM2.5 is the official abbreviation for particulate matter less than or equal to 2.5 microns in diameter. Approximately 1/30th the width of a human hair.

These airborne particles are small enough to enter the bloodstream and interfere with various physical systems. But most of them are products of combustion, either fossil fuels, agricultural waste, car exhaust, or airborne smoke from forest fires.

As the incidence of large and destructive forest fires has increased throughout the 21st century, PM2.5 levels have also increased, First Street researchers said. I have written It was published in Fire magazine last year.

The study found that “mass emissions” of PM2.5 from wildfires were sufficient to predict days of air pollution in nearby municipalities “without significant computational burden.”

Nationwide, more than 83 million people, about a quarter of the population, are experiencing “unhealthy” air quality due to rising PM2.5 levels from forest fires and rising ozone levels from increased heat, according to First Street. They say they are being exposed.

Of those, about 10 million people are suffering from “very unhealthy” air quality and 1.5 million are “hazardous” as wildfires burn out of control across Canada, turning the Northeast and upper Midwest red. It was characterized by a haze that made my nose bleed. Summer of 2023.

In some places, the risk is particularly concentrated. Most West Coast counties are expected to experience three weeks of poor air quality each year, according to First Street research. \

It found that in some hotspots, such as the San Francisco metropolitan area, California’s Central Valley, and Southern California, air conditions are too unhealthy for sensitive groups such as children, the elderly, and people with diabetes or heart disease to venture out. is expected to last for three months.

This pollution is already taking a huge toll on human life. According to 2021 study In nature, PM2.5 kills approximately 47,000 Americans annually. By some estimates, improvements in air quality have saved 250,000 American lives since the regulations were introduced, but those improvements are now disappearing.

Further exacerbating the public health situation, rising heat is causing a spike in the number of forest fires and increasing PM2.5 levels, which also increases the impact on the people who breathe it. Both heat and PM2 are the culprits. 5 burden circulatory system Together, these systems cause more deaths from heart attacks than either alone (2020) study found.

The effects of PM2.5 are the main cause of air quality deterioration, but it is not the only one.According to First Street the study Atmospheric Quality: According to a paper published in

In contrast to its role in the atmosphere in blocking carcinogenic UV rays, ground-level ozone has a more insidious effect. Ozone is formed when heat and sunlight force a reaction between two pollutants (volatile organic compounds and nitrous oxide) that are characteristic of agricultural and fossil fuel pollution.

Once you inhale ozone bypass the body’s first line of defense According to an EPA fact sheet, it fights pollution in the nose and mouth and reacts with the lining cells of the lungs, damaging them and causing food-lytic enzymes to leak into the airways. Ozone alsoseries of events Causes lung inflammation. ”

“The statistical signal is clear: After decades of legislation to reduce pollution, air pollutants are rapidly increasing,” said First Street CEO Matthew Eby. said in a statement.

Eby added that after decades of improvement, “the concern going forward is that climate is much harder to regulate than industry.”