It wasn’t like that Long ago that few people controlled the air – not the government, not its citizens. Today, weather programs provide estimates of outdoor air quality, and the government’s own airline monitoring, AirNowhave an easy -to -use postcode portal and Map of Fire and Smoke.
Are true health benefits to own Air quality monitor. Each US state is responsible for developing its own monitoring Plan. Even in densely populated urban areas, outdoor air monitors owned by federal, state, and local jurisdictions could be geographically widespread, leaving monitoring deficiencies, which do not exactly capture the air quality beyond one’s door.
Photo: Lisa Wood Shapiro
Outdoor air quality monitors not only to understand the air quality when the smell of smoke fills your home – an outdoor monitor can inform you. America has been in the air quality monitoring for less than a century. In the not so far past, citizens died of unregulated and uncontrolled air.
Once more, Trump’s EPA seeks to weaken current AIR -Quality Index Standards, the numbers that decide what is good, moderate or sick air, along with pushing for greenhouse gas emissions regulations. These actions will lead to more dirty air and less reliable data. As face masks And airlingsOutdoor air quality monitor is no longer a niche device but an electronic canary in the modern coal mine of a bad air world.
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Photo: Lisa Wood Shapiro
In January, I woke up to find my Purpleair Zen outdoor air quality monitor glittering bright red. This happened for several days, and I was confused because the numbers surpassed more than 100 and yet there was no attention to the area.
The annual AQI for my Neighborhood There are less than 50 – considered good air. For context, AQI of 100 or more is sick for sensitive groups, and AQI of 150 is sick for everyone. I mentioned the sick air to a friend who reminded me that New York had just installed a Concrete recycling center A few blocks from my home. The literal dust The center caused, including failure to inform the neighborhood of its existence, could be the culprit for the recent ascent in bad air, of the Concrete dust Created by the Recycling Center. At that moment the recycling center still had to implement irrigation to mitigate the dust feathers. The data from my outdoor monitor has entered into Purpleair’s many times Map. On the map, I could see other near PurpleAir monitors, and the closest to the concrete recycling center tended to have worse air quality.
Invisible danger
In July, after one year of mounting protests and political pressure, the city announced it to relocate the concrete recycling center. What would happen if residents didn’t see the dust clouds or notice the gray movie collecting in their cars? What if they couldn’t see what was around them? Pm 2.5 There are the invisible solids and liquids that are in the air. The smallest form can enter the deepest parts of the lungs, passing into the bloodstream. There, they can cause a lot of Diseasesrespiratory misery, and cardiovascular disease.
Photo: Lisa Wood Shapiro
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Outdoor air quality monitor
At the beginning of 2024, the Biden management strengthened the National Atvated Air Quality Health Standards (NAAQS) for particle matter, a move that set “the level of the primary (health-based) annual PM 2.5 standard at 9.0 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m3) Reflect a new science of damage caused by particle contamination. “This has changed the window of what is considered ‘good’ air on the Air quality index.
These EPA guidelines are almost double those of the World Health Organization Guidelineswhich are tighter 5 pm 2.5. EPA from Trump It is to reconsider the PM 2.5 standards of the Biden administration. To quote EPA administrator Zeldin, “All Americans deserve to breathe clean air while pursuing the US dream. Under President Trump, we will ensure air quality standards for particle matter are protective of human health and the environment as we trigger the golden age of US prosperity.”
The Trump administration also wants Remove emissions from greenhouse gases Regulations. According to an EPA statement, “the EPA further proposes to note that GHG emissions from fossil fuels do not contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution.” Scientific research states otherwise. And so, as outdoor air becomes less regulated, it has the potential more dirty and do people sick.
Too close to home
This past spring, the smell of fire filled my home. I looked at my fourth floor window to see the illegal fiery pit of my neighbor three yards. I watched the colors on my PurpleAir Zen’s Subiel Monitor change from green to yellow to a criminal for one hour. When I logged in the crowd of PurpleAir’s real-time map, I could see that my outdoor air quality was sick 160 pm 2.5 and that a few blocks away, air quality was good at less than 30 pm 2.5. There is nothing surprising about fire cavity generating air pollution, but I didn’t realize how intense and localized that air pollution could be, although I was four stories in a semi-city block-size area. This is air quality on microscal.
Photo: Lisa Wood Shapiro
