Given the current air quality situation in North America, heads up: a lot of ozone generators are billed as “air purifiers.” This is legal/unregulated in the US, I’m not sure about elsewhere.
Inhaling ozone (O3) is extremely harmful, especially for anyone with respiratory issues or comprised immune function etc. It’s also dangerous for pets, particularly birds.
Don’t buy or run any air purifier labeled as an ozone generator or touting anything like “activated oxygen,” “super oxygenated,” "trivalent oxygen," "allotropic oxygen," "saturated oxygen," or “energized oxygen,” and check very carefully if it says “pure air” or “mountain-fresh air.”
It turns out that ozone pollution that is bad for people is also bad for birds. A new study says efforts under the Clean Air Act to reduce that pollutant may have averted the deaths of more than a billion birds over the last 15 years.
Excerpt from this story from Deseret News:
Cutting pollution that is harmful to human health is not only helping people but is helping migratory bird populations in a staggering way.
A new study by Cornell University and the University of Oregon suggests that efforts under the Clean Air Act to cut ozone pollution over the last 40 years may have averted the deaths of 1.5 billion birds, or 20% of bird life in the United States today.
Ground-level ozone is a vexing problem in Utah during the summer and the target of local research and regulatory efforts to tamp it down. Unhealthy ozone concentrations have even shown up in unlikely places like the mountainous region in Summit County.
Dave Livermore, the Utah state director of The Nature Conservancy, said the latest research demonstrates why it is critical to continue to cut emissions.
“The results of this study are very encouraging and show the clear link between human health and the health of our natural world,” he said. “We all benefit from clean air and clean water, and so do the wildlife resources which make so Utah special.”
The probe examined the relationship between bird abundance and air pollution using modeling that combined bird observations from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird program with ground-level pollution data and existing regulations.
Researchers tracked monthly changes in bird abundance, air quality and regulation status for 3,214 U.S. counties over a span of 15 years.
The Environmental Protection Agency has quietly signaled it may allow states to release more ozone air pollution, commonly known as smog, dirtying the air in those states and neighboring ones, but the agency did not review the health impact of such a move.
Excerpt from this CNN story:
The Environmental Protection Agency has quietly signaled it may allow states to release more ozone air pollution, commonly known as smog, dirtying the air in those states and neighboring ones, but the agency did not review the health impact of such a move.
The Trump administration's position is outlined in a highly technical guidance memo about plans states must create and submit for EPA approval under the Clean Air Act's good neighbor requirements. It was sent in August to EPA regional offices and posted on the agency's website, but not announced to the public.
The memo introduces the idea of increasing the threshold for how much smog a state can dump on its neighbors -- known as cross-state pollution -- before taking action to reduce emissions
.Under the Trump administration's new guidance, states that are currently finalizing their plans can consider adopting a looser standard than would have been allowed under the Obama administration. The new one part per billion standard means a state can emit 43% more pollution across state lines than before.
Smog is a byproduct of air pollutants including greenhouse gases, which contribute to climate change. It can originate from sources including power plants, refineries and factories. Smog can reduce the ability of the lungs to function, and especially impacts children, people who are active outside, or those who have respiratory diseases. It is linked to breathing issues and conditions such as asthma.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was ordered by a judge to act on plans to limit the ozone pollution from five states upwind of New York and Connecticut, a victory for the Democratic-led states pressing President Donald Trump’s administration to enforce environmental regulations.
Excerpt:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was ordered by a judge to act on plans to limit the ozone pollution from five states upwind of New York and Connecticut, a victory for the Democratic-led states pressing President Donald Trump’s administration to enforce environmental regulations.
The agency originally published revised air-quality standards for ozone in 2008 and found in July 2015 that 24 states had failed to submit plans to satisfy the requirements. The EPA had until August 2017 to issue plans for the states that defaulted, but failed to meet the deadline.
Connecticut and New York sued the EPA in January seeking a court order requiring the agency to implement plans to limit ozone emissions from Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.
In ordering the agency to come up with plans for the defaulting states by December, U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl in Manhattan found Connecticut and New York have shown that they will continue to be harmed by the failure to implement the plans.
The judge said New York and Connecticut are attempting to "protect their citizens from the harmful effects of the high level of dangerous pollutants in their states caused by the pollutants coming from the defaulting states."
The EPA said it intends to propose an action by the end of June that will address any remaining "good neighbor" obligations related to the 2008 ozone standard for these and other states and finalize it by December.
2026 में अमेरिका के किन शहरों में वायु प्रदूषण सबसे खराब है? पूरी लिस्ट सामने आ गई
एक नई रिपोर्ट संयुक्त राज्य भर में वायु गुणवत्ता की स्थिति को दर्शाती है, जिसमें 2026 में सबसे गंभीर प्रदूषण चुनौतियों का सामना करने वाले मेट्रो क्षेत्रों की पहचान की गई है।
बच्चों, बुजुर्गों और श्वसन संबंधी समस्याओं वाले लोगों सहित कमजोर समूहों को सबसे अधिक जोखिम का सामना करना पड़ता है। (अनप्लैश/प्रतिनिधित्वात्मक)
अमेरिकन लंग एसोसिएशन की 27वीं वार्षिक “स्टेट ऑफ द एयर” रिपोर्ट काउंटी, राज्यों…
Several conservative justices were skeptical of the administration’s “good neighbor” rule on cross-state pollution, meant to protect downwin
Excerpt from this New York Times story:
Members of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed inclined on Wednesday to again limit the Biden administration’s ability to protect the environment by temporarily stopping an effort by the Environmental Protection Agency to curtail air pollution that drifts across state lines.
Such a decision, expected by June, would be in keeping with recent rulings by the court, which has chipped away at the agency’s authority to address climate change and water pollution.
The new cases concerned the administration’s “good neighbor” plan. Under the proposal, which initially applied to 23 states, factories and power plants in Western and Midwestern states must cut ozone pollution that drifts into Eastern states.
The justices appeared to be divided along familiar lines on whether to block the plan, which directs states to take measures meant to reduce emissions that cause smog and are linked to asthma, lung disease and premature death.
A ruling halting the plan would be provisional, as a challenge to it will continue to be litigated in an appeals court and could then return to the Supreme Court. The question for the justices was what should happen in the meantime. Even a temporary loss for the administration could suspend the plan for many months and maybe longer.
The Clean Air Act gives states an opportunity to devise their own plans, subject to approval by the E.P.A. Last February, the agency concluded that 23 states had failed to produce adequate plans to comply with its revised ozone standards. The agency then issued its own plan.
A wave of litigation followed, and seven federal appeals courts blocked the agency’s disapproval of plans submitted by a dozen states, leaving 11 states subject to the federal rule.
Three states — Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia, along with energy companies and trade groups — challenged the federal plan directly in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. When a divided three-judge panel of that court refused to put the rule on hold while the litigation moved forward, the challengers asked the Supreme Court to step in.
An international study led by scientists at the Yale School of Public Health warns that ozone-related deaths will rise significantly in many
An international study led by scientists at the Yale School of Public Health warns that ozone-related deaths will rise significantly in many parts of the world over the next two decades unless current climate and air quality regulations are strengthened.
The complete study is published in One Earth.
The findings are based on an examination of short-term exposure to ground-level ozone and daily mortality in 406 cities in 20 countries and regions. It is believed to be the geographically largest and most comprehensive investigation of this issue to date.
Poor air quality is the single largest environmental risk to human health. Ground-level ozone, a highly reactive gas that is the primary component of smog, makes breathing difficult. It has been linked to respiratory problems and cardiovascular disease and can lead to illness and premature death.
In conducting their study, researchers gathered epidemiological data from cities in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Africa. They then used state-of-the-art CMIP6 climate model projections to calculate future ozone-related deaths under four different climate and air quality scenarios.
The study found that ozone-related deaths would increase by 45 to 6,200 people a year in those cities between 2010–2014 and 2050–2054. The projections varied based on the impact of different climate and regulatory scenarios as well as region-specific factors for different cities such as local climate, population size, mortality rates, and pollutant emissions.
