Of course, Climate Change is a big news item. How can it not be? The entire scientific community is in agreement that mechanisms are in place that will cause drastic changes to our climate and, therefore, our whole economy and way of life in a relatively short time. And President Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement has heightened the concern. Many in the media, when addressing Climate Change, show pictures of people walking around with masks over the faces and or stacks with large quantities of colored smoke escaping into the atmosphere. That has little to do with Climate Change. In fact, what it represents is a different, serious problem, and that is emissions of toxic air pollutants which can affect the health of people downwind of a source. While the U.S. has made great strides in the last 40 years of bringing down the ambient levels of many toxic compounds, a June 2017 study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that toxic air pollution is still a major problem, and leads to the premature deaths of thousands of Americans each year. See: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1702747. This is particularly true for the pollutants ozone and PM-10 (fine particulate matter).
The study estimates that about 12,000 lives can be prolonged annually by reducing the ambient level of fine particulate matter by 1 microgram per cubic meter below the current USEPA standards. The Clean Air Act requires the USEPA to revisit emission standards of criteria pollutants every 5 years, and adjust them accordingly based on the latest scientific knowledge. A House Committee recently passed a bill slowing down the oversight to once every 10 years.
A recent article in Scientific American (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-other-reason-to-shift-away-from-coal-air-pollution-that-kills-thousands-every-year/) discusses this in detail, and recommends continuing the movement to shift away from coal-fired power plants to natural gas. This trend has been touted as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, thus, addressing Climate Change. However, the article points out that these benefits are actually minor because increased digging for natural gas and other leaks leads to greater methane emissions, which is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The article points out that replacing coal-fired with natural gas-fired power plants would be more effective extending live, reducing hospitalizations, which would save the US economy tens of billions of dollars each year in hospital costs and productivity gains.
Yes, let’s focus on Climate Change because of the extreme, irreversible changes that are likely to occur if not properly addressed. But let’s remember that while the U.S. has made progress, there is still a ways to go to further protect public health in the U.S. and worldwide due to toxic compounds that are emitted from the same sources.
CCES has the experience to assess your emissions inventory and to develop a cost-effective plan to reduce emissions to meet regulatory requirements and improve your impacts. Contact us today at 914-584-6720 or at karell@CCESworld.com.