NBC News
About 46% of those who live in the United States – 156 million people – inhabit areas where air quality is unhealthy and, for that reason, they obtained the ‘F’ qualification on the scale of the American Association of the lung, which measures the presence of pollutants such as ozone and other particles.
This is stated in the twenty -sixth annual analysis of data on the quality of the air that the body performs, which shows that the country is going back in the measures to achieve a cleaner air.
The analysis – which analyzed the data from the 2021 to 2023 – saw an increase of around 25 million people living with unhealthy air compared to last year’s survey.
The report shows how the effects of the climatic crisis – heat, drought and a greater presence of forest fire smoke – are promoting changes in air quality throughout the country.
“This year we really surprised us, in the first place, the great increase in the number of people throughout the country that breathe unhealthy air, and how much of the increase was driven by the worsening of the ozone,” said Katherine Pruitt, senior national director of clean air policy of the American lung association, who added that the warm and sunny climate “makes the formation of the ozone more propitious.”
In 2023, the last year of the entity’s analysis, global temperatures were the warmest registered to date, according to the Oceanic and Atmospheric National Administration (NOAA). Temperatures in the United States were the highest fifths in the country’s history. That record has already been overcome: in 2024, NASA scientists estimated that the Earth was about 2.65 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1.47 degrees Celsius, hotter than the historical average from 1850 to 1900.
Pruitt, the main author of the report, indicated that her study shows that ozone, also known as Esmog, shot in places like Texas, a state that lived a scorching heat wave in 2023.
“In 2023, Ozone levels in Texas shot up,” said Pruitt. “There was a long heat streak day after day.”
Temperatures in cities such as Del Rio exceeded 100 degrees for more than two weeks in a row that year.
The intense smoke of forest fires also contributed to so many regions receiving reprobative qualifications. In 2023, the smoke of the intense Canadian forest fires extended by cities of the Northeast, causing the greatest exposure to smoke per person in the modern history of the United States.
The increase in the smoke of forest fires, which creates small particles that can penetrate the lungs and circulate through the bloodstream of people, is diminishing the advances achieved in air quality since Congress approved the Clean Air Law in 1963.
In 2023, Marshall Burke, associate professor at Stanford University, published a study according to which the increase in the smoke of forest fires had annulled about 25% of the advances achieved with the Clean Air Law.
Lung association reports show a similar turn in progress, as of 2016.
“Approximately in 2016, we began to see that the trend was reversed,” said Pruitt. “The weather is changing and the risk of these extreme weather conditions that are worsening the breathing of millions throughout the United States is increasing. Until we control the sources of emissions that are leading to the degradation of the environment, we will suffer the consequences.”
Last month, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lee Zeldin, outlined plans for an aggressive reduction in environmental protection standards, and the agency plans to reconsider some programs authorized by the Clean Air Law, including the rules that set the emissions of vehicles and the regulations of the electrical plants.
The lung association report found that Bakersfield, California, had the most contaminated air in the country of 2021-2023. It occupied the first place in short -term particles contamination, when the air reaches “unhealthy” or “very unhealthy” levels, according to the air quality index, the third place in particle contamination throughout the year and the first place in ozone pollution.
