What an alarming report. Especially hard for the kids. A good case for using electric cars... however, practical (or impractical) it is. Or moving out to the country. Fresh air!
https://gothamist.com/news/new-york-...content=202228
Every person, rich or poor, has to breathe the air, and in New York City this cocktail has long been known to be polluted enough to cause premature death.
Two studies published in the Lancet last month reiterate this unfortunate truth by analyzing the past two decades worth of satellite photos of air pollution caused by burning fossil fuels over 13,000 cities worldwide — and the corresponding local health data.
New York City and some other metropolitan areas have significantly lowered their emissions through more stringent air quality regulations, but it isn’t low enough, experts said, to prevent severe health consequences such as asthma, especially for city kids.
“Just to reiterate, these are preventable cases of asthma,” said Susan Anenberg, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health at George Washington University who co-authored both air pollution studies. “So these are cases of asthma among children that will affect them through the course of their lives and their parents, and they are preventable by reducing transportation-related air pollution.”
The first study focused on the most dangerous of these pollutants, according to Anenberg: particulate matter that’s smaller than 2.5 millionths of a meter, known as PM2.5. The designation is a catch-all for solid or liquid particles of this size that are released in the air, which happens anytime fuel is burned.
They are so small, they can only be seen with a microscope. It’s mostly made up of sulfate, nitrates, ammonia and black carbon, all of which negatively affect human health – from causing burning eyes to exacerbating blindness and cancer.
The biggest urban source for this pollutant is traffic, especially big diesel trucks and buses. People who live near New York City airports are often exposed to high levels of PM2.5 due to cars moving around travelers as well as emissions from planes.
“We even have increasing evidence for
associations with early birth, preterm birth and low birth weight, as well as cognitive decline,” Anenberg said. “It’s a pollutant that affects every organ, and I think we're probably only scratching the surface with the health outcomes that we considered.”
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