A Step in the Right Direction for Clean Air.
America’s power plants are the biggest industrial polluters. Each year they pump more than two billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air. Carbon pollution is causing climate change that drives dangerous heat waves and worsening smog pollution, which causes asthma attacks and other serious respiratory illnesses.
Thus climate change looms as one of our most serious public health threats; yet few people are aware of the many dangers posed by a warming planet.
Figure 1: Climate Change Heat Deaths in Top U.S. Cities (Source: nrdc.org.com)
- Air Pollution: Warming temperatures worsen smog pollution, which triggers asthma attacks and permanently damages and reduces the function of children’s lungs. Higher smog levels even contribute to premature deaths.
- Heat-related Disease and Illness: As temperatures rise, so do deaths and illnesses related to heat stress, heatstroke, cardiovascular disease, and kidney disease.
- Infectious Disease: Climate change affects patterns of diseases such as dengue fever, West Nile virus, and Lyme disease. Increasing temperatures and rainfall have been associated with increased occurrence and transmission of insect-borne diseases like West Nile virus. Higher temperatures can lead to more rapid development of dangerous pathogens within insect carriers and allow these diseases to expand their range into new, once cooler, regions. Approximately 173 million Americans in at least 28 states live in counties with mosquitoes that can carry dengue fever, a painful viral illness that has increased globally 30-fold in the last 50 years.
- Floods: Warmer air holds more moisture, so when it rains it’s more likely to pour, increasing the risk of flooding. Warmer ocean temperatures have also been linked to more powerful hurricanes and other storms.
The potential health impacts are also expensive. In 2011, NRDC studied six types of climate change-related types of events in the U.S. between 2002 and 2009 -- episodes of ozone air pollution, heat waves, hurricanes, outbreaks of infectious disease, river flooding, and wildfires. All are projected to increase in severity, frequency, or extent with climate change. We found that associated health costs exceeded $14 billion. That included deaths, illnesses, and more than 760,000 visits to the doctor, hospital, emergency room or other health care facilities.
What would happen if all the lobbyists for polluters were replaced with asthmatic children?
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to propose standards that limit carbon pollution from new power plants soon. Americans rely on EPA to protect our health from dangerous air pollution and that’s what these standards along with related standards EPA needs to issue to reduce carbon pollution from existing plants will do.
Gasping for Air: Toxic Pollutants Continue to Make Millions Sick and Shorten Lives.
Figure 2: Carbon pollution (Source: current.com)
Forty years of Clean Air Act programs have brought steady and life-saving improvements to our air quality. Despite this important progress, however, many fossil fuel power plants, boilers, and cement plants continue to treat our skies like sewers. From soot to toxic heavy metals, dirty coal and fossil fuel smoke stacks emit vast quantities of dangerous pollutants that are well known to cause disease and death. The total cost of these health impacts is more than $100 billion per year. Until stronger standards to reduce toxic emissions from coal and fossil fuel burning industries are implemented, harmful toxic chemicals will continue to be released into the air of our communities, threatening public health.
Coal is Dirty and Dangerous
Figure 3: A home in eastern Tennesse is partially buried in toxic waste from a coal-fired power plant. A spill on Dec. 22, 2008, sent a billion gallons of toxic sludge sloshing across 400 acres of countryside. Courtesy: United Mountain Defense. (Source: nrdc.org.com)
Coal is the world dirtiest energy source -- and the country's leading source of global warming pollution.Coal mining destroys land, pollutes thousands of miles of streams and brings massive environmental damage to mountain communities.
Pollution from coal plants produces dirty air, acid rain and contaminated land and water. Health problems associated with coal pollution include childhood asthma, birth defects and respiratory diseases that take nearly 25,000 lives each year.
The better solution is to re power America by investing in clean energy. Green technologies and renewable fuels will create millions of good-paying jobs, lift our poorest communities out of poverty, reduce dangerous pollution and help fight global warming.
Air Pollution: Smog, Smoke and Pollen
Figure 4: Air Pollution (Source: nrdc.org.com)
Rising temperatures can make smog pollution worse and increase the number of "bad air days" when it's hard to breathe. This puts many of us at risk for irritated eyes, noses, and lungs -- but it is particularly dangerous for people with respiratory diseases like asthma. As the climate changes, unhealthy air pollution will get worse.
Ozone smog forms when pollution from vehicles, factories, and other sources reacts with sunlight and heat. Increasing temperatures speed this process and result in more smog. Added to the mix are ragweed and other allergens in the air -- which are expected to worsen as rising carbon dioxide levels cause plants to produce more pollen. Also, as dry areas get dryer, wildfire risks go up and smoke from burning landscapes intensifies poor air quality.
Kim and her family talked with us about dealing with asthma and air pollution.
Exposure to increased smog, pollen pollution, and wildfire smoke puts a wide range of people at risk for irritated eyes, throats and lung damage (the U.S. EPA likened breathing ozone to getting a sunburn on your lungs). This includes outdoor workers, children, the elderly, and those who exercise outside.
But people with asthma, allergies, and other respiratory diseases face the most serious threats, since exposure to increased pollution heightens sensitivity to allergens, impairs lungs, triggers asthma attacks, sends people to the hospital, and even results in death. In 2010, the American Lung Association estimated that about 23 million Americans suffered from asthma.
Conclusion
Amy and her 10-year-old son, mother and grandmother all suffer from asthma. Her grandmother died with a nebulizer in her hand. Her mother has had breast cancer, kidney cancer and lymphoma, and beat them all, but "It's the asthma that's killing her." As a child, Amy missed over 180 days of primary school due to asthma attacks. She spends between $10-15,000 a year out of pocket on asthma medications and treatment.
Communities must take steps to improve air quality, but everyone should know the risks that climate change poses and learn how to best protect themselves when bad air days get worse.
REFERENCE LIST
Natural Resources Defense Council. (2012). Clean Air Saves Lives. Retrieved from http://www.nrdc.org/air/asthma-stories/
Carbonpollution, climate, EPA, globalwarming, mercury, powerplants,powerplantstandards. (2012). Retrieved from http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/dlashof/what_would_happen_if_all_the_l.html
(2012). Asthma stories: Amy S. from Detroit, MI. [VIDEO]. NRDC flix. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=91SyWVmY5t4
(2012). Asthma stories: Kim C. from Detroit, MI. [VIDEO]. NRDC flix. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DkDD-qt-mRU#!
(2012). Capital Kids-NRDC. [VIDEO]. NRDC flix. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GbrNZjRqfmQ
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