The particulate matter air pollution quiz
By 2010, The Clean Air Act of 1970 caused the USA to reduce total emissions of six principal air pollutants by more than 41 percent (while GDP increased by more than 64 percent). Today the Environmental Protection Agency enforces
the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for those six common air pollutants: ground-level ozone, carbon monoxide, lead, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter. We will look at each of these over time, but today let’s take a closer look at the last of those pollutants, PM.
Last week we mentioned that Harvard researchers had shown that a reduction in short-term exposure to PM from coalburning power plants could avoid 20,000 deaths a year (some sources say 30,000).
All it would take, they stated, is to install scrubbers on coal-burning power plants that don’t have them. But it’s not getting done!
We’re glad, however, that the EPA does set standards for various types of PM and monitors the air over the course of days, months and years to see that safe levels are maintained. We just wish those standards were even stricter. Why?