public health

The New Particulate Standard and the Courts

The tough new air quality standard is sure to be challenged in court. Winning the challenges will be tougher.

EPA has just issued a rule tightening the air quality standard for PM2.5 — the tiny particles most dangerous to health — from an annual average of 12 μg/m³  (micrograms per cubic meter) down to 9 μg/m³. EPA estimates that, by the time the rule goes into effect in 2032, it will avoid 4500 premature …

CONTINUE READING

Inequality Today: Unfinished Work

The first step in addressing the problem is to be clear about the facts.

More than a half century after Martin Luther King’s death, his work is still unfinished.  Sadly, despite his efforts and those of many others, inequality remains a reality along multiple, interrelated dimensions: race, income, and geography.   Inequality is not merely economic; it involves differences in health and life expectancy — and in exposure to pollution …

CONTINUE READING

Centering Public Health at the UN Climate Talks

A pollution pod at COP28

Guest Contributor Meleana Chun-Moy reflects on COP28 and the growing recognition of the intersection between the climate crisis and human health.

The climate crisis is a public health crisis, and it finally seems global leaders have recognized that fact. With the backdrop of the first-ever Health Day at the annual UN climate conference, air quality in Dubai soared, as PM2.5 pollution reached 155 micrograms per cubic unit. The World Health Organization states the annual average concentrations …

CONTINUE READING

State Air Regulations Can Go Above and Beyond National Standards 

State and local regulators can and should work to reduce particulate matter, ozone, and NOx emissions even when national standards are met. 

States and local air quality regulators have the legal authority to set particulate matter (PM), ozone, and nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions standards and adopt regulations for these pollutants when they are already in attainment of the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the federal Clean Air …

CONTINUE READING

How Garden-Variety Air Pollution Regulation Promotes Environmental Justice

Cleaning up our nation’s air benefits the disadvantaged most of all.

Evidence is mounting that air pollution regulation is an effective way of reducing  health disparities between disadvantaged communities and the population as a whole. The basic reason is simple: Air pollution is the biggest environmental threat to poor communities and communities of color.  As the American Lung Association has said: “The burden of air pollution …

CONTINUE READING

Why the Bay Area’s Zero-Emission Appliance Rule is a Big Deal

BAAQMD’s trailblazing rule will ban the sale of new gas furnaces and water heaters to combat nitrogen oxide pollution. It marks a big victory for public health and the planet.

Air quality officials in the San Francisco Bay Area just made history by moving to adopt the nation’s first rules phasing out new gas-fueled water heaters and furnaces in homes and businesses within about eight years. This action serves as a major step in the effort to curb health-harming and planet-warming emissions from buildings. Several cities …

CONTINUE READING

Deregulation, Normal Accidents, and the Airborne Toxic Event

What can we learn from the East Palestine train wreck?

Source: Wikimedia Commons The East Palestine train derailment is the story that won’t go away.  Images of enraged residents shouting at company executives and government officials about the inadequacy of the response remind us all that across our vast industrial economy accidents of one sort or another are always waiting to happen while private firms …

CONTINUE READING

The Obesity Pandemic

It’s a global phenomenon, with poorly understood causes. But there’s no point in blaming the victims.

I’ve written in the past about the American obesity epidemic. Obesity rates have continued to climb in the United States, though the rate of increase has leveled out. But obesity is also on the rise globally. The obesity rate has increased everywhere. In nine countries, at least one out of five people is now obese: …

CONTINUE READING

Does Ideology Kill?

Interpreting the association between conservatism and COVID death rates.

There is mounting evidence of an association between conservative politics and COVID impacts. Indeed, the higher death rate among Republicans may even have swung some close elections. A recent study sheds light on how ideology and death rates interact. As the Washington Post reports, the results were striking:  “Covid death rates were 11 percent higher …

CONTINUE READING

Pollution Control as Climate Policy

Tightening air quality standards will also reduce carbon emissions.

The Biden Administration is slowly grinding away at an important regulatory task: reconsidering the air quality standards for particulates and ozone.  Setting those standards is an arduous and time-consuming process, requiring consideration of reams of technical data. For instance, a preliminary staff report on fine particulates (PM2.5) is over 600 pages long. When the process …

CONTINUE READING

TRENDING