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News Articles: air pollution

Tagged as: 

  • Global Health

Superbugs catch a ride on air pollution particles. Is that bad news for people?

Antibiotic resistant microbes from the soil, from aquaculture, from sewage and from hospitals can hook onto air pollution particles. A new study looks at the implications.

September 08, 2023
|
By:
  • Gabriel Spitzer
Poor indoor air quality can contribute to health problems. Letting in fresh air, keeping air filters changed and using air purifiers can help.

Tagged as: 

  • Health

Indoor pollution can make you sick. Here's how to keep your home's air clean

Poor air quality can drive you indoors, but do you know what you're breathing inside your home? Here's the latest on optimizing ventilation and other air-clearing strategies.

August 18, 2023
|
By:
  • Ari Daniel
Pockets of Code Red air quality levels peppered the U.S. and lingered above Macon as smoke from Canadian wildfires continued last week.

Tagged as: 

  • Weather

Macon had Georgia’s worst air quality last week, thanks to Canadian wildfires, ‘heat dome’

Smoke from a record-setting season of Canadian wildfires has floated across the United States all summer, and last week, Georgia experienced the consequences.

July 26, 2023
|
By:
  • Gautama Mehta
David Jones dusts his house almost daily because the air in his neighborhood is so polluted. "You wake up in the morning and your throat hurts," he says. He is one of millions of people in the United States who live with dangerous air pollution, including gasses and particulates so small that they can worm their way deep into one's lungs and even cross into the brain.

Tagged as: 

  • Climate

A new satellite could help clean up the air in America's most polluted neighborhoods

A new satellite will take continuous measurements of dangerous air pollution in the U.S. That has scientists, and residents, warily optimistic about undoing decades of environmental injustice.

June 21, 2023
|
By:
  • Seyma Bayram and
  • Rebecca Hersher
Christina Lamoureux and her fiancé, Brian Fritzsche, have been planning their wedding since January 2021. Now they may have to scramble to avoid the wildfire smoke from Canada that's drifted into the U.S. across the Northeast and Midwest.

Tagged as: 

  • Weather

Blankets of orange haze may be unwelcomed guests at weddings this weekend in the U.S.

Christina Lamoureux planned a perfect wedding. Now she is among the unlucky set of soon-to-be married couples frantically making contingency plans as clouds of polluted air linger over their nuptials.

June 09, 2023
|
By:
  • Vanessa Romo
A general view showing buildings shrouded by polluted air in Seoul on April 12, 2023.

Tagged as: 

  • World

Here's how NPR reporters around the world are dealing with air pollution

As Canada and parts of the U.S. confront declines in air quality due to smoke from Canadian wildfires, NPR reporters in Asia, Latin America and Africa share their experiences.

June 09, 2023
|
By:
  • Anthony Kuhn,
  • Shalu Yadav,
  • and 2 more
The Los Angeles skyline is seen above the Union Pacific LATC Intermodal Terminal on Tuesday.

Tagged as: 

  • Climate

California becomes the first state to adopt emission rules for trains

California approved a rule limiting rail pollution to aggressively cut greenhouse gas emissions in the state's latest move to establish itself as a global leader in the fight against climate change.

April 27, 2023
|
By:
  • The Associated Press
A smokestack stands at a coal plant on June 22, 2022, in Delta, Utah. The Environmental Protection Agency issued a final rule Wednesday to restrict smokestack emissions from power plants and other industrial sources that burden downwind areas with smog-causing pollution they can't control. (

Tagged as: 

  • Environment

The EPA's new 'good neighbor' rule targets downwind pollution by power plants

Nearly two-dozen states will have to cut harmful industrial emissions of nitrogen oxide and other pollutants, improving air quality for millions of people living in downwind communities.

March 15, 2023
|
By:
  • The Associated Press
A line of petrochemical facilities in St. Charles Parish, La., in 2018. Many people who live near industrial sites, and who are exposed to dangerous pollution, fear that the Inflation Reduction Act will deepen existing environmental inequalities.

Tagged as: 

  • Climate

The spending bill will cut emissions, but marginalized groups feel they were sold out

The Inflation Reduction Act is the biggest ever investment to tackle climate change. But there are signs that it could reinforce existing environmental inequalities.

August 17, 2022
|
By:
  • Rebecca Hersher
Traffic on a hazy evening in Fresno, Calif. A new study estimates that about 50,000 lives could be saved each year if the U.S. eliminated small particles of pollution that are released from the tailpipes of cars and trucks, among other sources.

Tagged as: 

  • Climate

Eliminating fossil fuel air pollution would save about 50,000 lives, study finds

Burning oil, coal and other fossil fuels releases plumes of tiny, dangerous particles. A new study estimates that eliminating that pollution would save about 50,000 lives in the U.S. each year.

May 17, 2022
|
By:
  • Rebecca Hersher
A recent study by the American Lung Association found that more Americans are living in areas with increased levels of air pollution. Los Angeles has recorded the worst levels of ozone for all but one of the past 23 years.

Tagged as: 

  • Health

More than 137 million Americans live in areas with poor air quality, report finds

The rising number of fires hamper decades of environmental efforts, and over 40% of Americans — more than 137 million people — live in places with poor air quality, a new report says.

April 21, 2022
|
By:
  • Dustin Jones
Interstate 405 cuts through neighborhoods near the Los Angeles International Airport, seen here in 2017. A new study found links between modern urban air pollution and historical redlining at the national level.

Tagged as: 

  • Health

Even many decades later, redlined areas see higher levels of air pollution

"We see a really clear association between how these maps were drawn in the '30s and the air pollution disparities today," says an author of a study on the effects of the discriminatory policy.

March 10, 2022
|
By:
  • Laurel Wamsley
A woman cycles along a street during a sandstorm in Beijing on Monday.

Tagged as: 

  • Asia

Desert Dust Sweeps Into Beijing, Causing China's Worst Sandstorm In 10 Years

Residents in the capital woke up to a choking orange hue in the air on Monday, as airborne dust from the Gobi Desert sent the air-quality index to hazardous levels and forced flight cancelations.

March 15, 2021
|
By:
  • Scott Neuman
In early September 2020, Seattle, Wash., had some of the worst air quality in the world because of wildfire smoke. The city was among the first to create smoke shelters for the most vulnerable.

Tagged as: 

  • Health

Study Finds Wildfire Smoke More Harmful To Humans Than Pollution From Cars

In Southern California, pollutants from wildfire smoke caused up to a 10% increase in hospital admissions. Researchers say there's a need for better air monitoring and public health programs.

March 05, 2021
|
By:
  • Nathan Rott
Protesters attempt to block the delivery of toxic PCB waste to a landfill in Warren County, N.C., in 1982. It was in response to the state's decision to locate a hazardous waste landfill in a low-income, predominantly Black area of Warren County that the term "environmental racism" was first used by the Rev. Ben Chavis.

Tagged as: 

  • Science

Hope And Skepticism As Biden Promises To Address Environmental Racism

People of color experience more air and water pollution than white people and suffer the health impacts. It has long been an underaddressed issue in the federal government.

January 30, 2021
|
By:
  • Rebecca Hersher
  • Load More

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