Extreme Air Pollution from US Wildfires Now Affects Millions of People.

 

Matthew McSherry

01/09/22

Chem:Ippolito 

Current Event 9

Works Cited

Vaughan, Adam. “Extreme Air Pollution from US Wildfires Now Affects Millions of People.” New Scientist, New Scientist, 6 Jan. 2022, www.newscientist.com/article/2303420-extreme-air-pollution-from-us-wildfires-now-affects-millions-of-people/.

The article “Extreme Air Pollution from US Wildfires Now Affects Million of People” from New Scientist writer Adam Vaughan, as the amount and severity of US wildfires are occurring it is creating a major risk for the US’ health. Daniel Swain is a researcher at the University of California and is doing a study of the effects of these wildfires. Wildfires release pollutants, there are two types of pollutants in our air, tiny particulate matter called PM2.5 and ozone; both of which are bad for our health. Usually these pollutants peak at different times in the year, but when they overlap they become a lot more volatile to our health. In Swain's 20+ year study in which he divided an area on the West coast into 111 kilometer wide squares to study the effects of wildfires. He found that the co-occurence of both PM2.5 and Ozone doubled from 18.9% to 44.6%. In other words, the times where there was a co-occurrence in pollutants in a kilometer square doubled. In swain's words “It’s a public health crisis, in the sense that the likelihood of direct harm to an individual is somewhat low but the cumulative harm to the millions and millions of people who are exposed repeatedly is very high,”. His study and past research indicates that causes of these increased fires are because of an increase in atmospheric ridges of high pressure. The high pressure leads to really dry land and thus fires start easier. We all live on the west coast so it might not be our biggest problem but it is still of great importance especially if you have friends or family living around the west coast because “Most of the people exposed to these dangerous air pollution episodes are not living in places directly threatened by the flames themselves. People who are ‘safe’ from fires are not safe from the effects of air pollution even if they live hundreds or thousands of miles away,” according to Swain. So you need to be ever aware of the fires. I really liked how this article read because it simplified most of the facts and made it so someone who isn't like a scientist can understand. I do however wish it was longer and they made a bigger emphasis on this problem because its a very big deal but no one thinks or talks about it.