Darya Minovi was mapping pollution from medical sterilization plants across the country when many of the communities she was speaking to began asking the same question. The facilities emit ethylene oxide, a potent carcinogen, and those who lived nearby wanted to know how much the emissions were increasing their cancer risk. She turned to data compiled by the Environmental Protection Agency to find…
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In 1965, a presidential advisory panel issued a report warning that pervasive chemical and carbon pollution was harming environmental health and changing the climate. Five years later, President Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act. Since that 1970 law and its amendments were passed, combined emissions of a half dozen harmful air pollutants from vehicles and industrial sources have…
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Air quality around the Washington, D.C. area declined dramatically on Sunday, one day after a massive fireworks display was put on for the United States’ 250th birthday celebration. The worst air quality ratings were recorded near neighborhoods with the highest populations of Black people, one reporter noted. In an attempt to create a record-breaking performance…
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If you’re lucky, your family is still using great‑grandma’s red beans and rice, black‑eyed peas, and potato salad recipes. And if you’re extremely fortunate, those meals might still taste like home, even without her hands. But climate pollution has quietly made sure that the food on your plates is not the same food she was eating. Rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is stripping nutrients…
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced proposed changes Monday that would allow gas power plants, data centers and factories to begin construction on non-polluting components such as piping, wiring, cement pads and other support structures before obtaining air-emission permits. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a news release that the “proposal works to provide solutions to…
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Nearly half the nation’s children live in places with dangerous levels of air pollution, according to a report released Wednesday by the American Lung Association. That’s 33.5 million children — 46 percent of the country’s kids — living in areas with failing grades for at least one measure of air pollution that is particularly harmful to developing lungs. The report also found that…
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