We get more everything under Donald Trump: more tariffs (a.k.a. taxes), more cheap insults, more right-wing terrorism, and now, contrary to the claims of the Trump Administration, more air pollution:
…Six types of dangerous air pollutants qualify as “criteria” pollutants under the Clean Air Act, and all are toxic in some form to human health. At least three of them—ozone, nitrous oxide, and particulate matter—are more prevalent now than they were in 2016, before Trump took office, according to EPA data released this week.
The number of “unhealthy-air days” across the country is also increasing. An unhealthy-air day is a day when ozone or particulate matter poses a threat to at least some of the population, such as children, the elderly, or people with lung conditions. Particulate matter is one of the deadliest environmental toxins, and it still kills tens of thousands of Americans every year. Across 35 major American cities, there were nearly 14 percent more of these days in 2018 (799) than in 2016 (702), according to the EPA. The record for the fewest-ever number of unhealthy-air days was set in 2014, during the Obama administration, when there were only 598 [Robinson Meyer, “The Air Really Was Cleaner Under Obama,” The Atlantic, 2019.07.09].
Make America breathable again: elect Joe Biden, or Jay Inslee, or anybody else from the Democratic pack who appreciates that we aren’t all rich enough to buy bottled oxygen and who won’t lie to our faces on a daily basis about the real threats facing our health and welfare.
Or Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren or Amy Klobuchar.
Those graphs tell part of the story. There has been a vast improvement in air quality since federal laws kicked in to mandate improvements. In the first 10 or 15 years of the air quality act, efforts were bi-partisan. Since the 1980s, efforts to improve air quality have largely been a Democratic Party effort with Republican administrations having to be sued by environmental groups to make any progress. Without constant lawsuits and periodic Democratic administrations all of those decreasing lines would be horizontal or going up. I’m most familiar with the PM 2.5 fight, where industry and Republican failure to accept science resulted in years of delay. That happened also with SOx and NOx. That meant deaths of many susceptible individuals, including one of my friends in Rapid City.
Many of the same fake scientists who have been involved in delaying air quality improvements are now involved in the climate denial industry.