In India, the season for celebration has arrived. Diwali, or the Festival of Lights, began this week. That means lots of firecrackers for the people who live in the northern part of the country. But sadly, in recent years celebratory smoke isn’t the only thing filling the sky. So is smog.
There are plenty of reasons to be worried about air quality these days, from the Environmental Protection Agency killing an expert panel on dangerous particulate matter to the Trump administration’s plan to scrap mercury regulations. But today, we got some good news to remind everyone about the value of environmental…
The Environmental Protection Agency killed a panel responsible for providing scientific expertise on particulate matter Thursday, according to an internal email the agency sent former panel members, which Earther obtained. This class of pollutants isn’t always on the public’s mind, but it should be.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration took the long-anticipated step of reversing an Obama-era rule that would’ve helped prevent leaking, venting, and flaring of methane from oil and gas operations. The rollback doesn’t just kill the final piece of Obama’s climate legacy—it could mean more air pollution entering…
The idea that air pollution can hurt developing fetuses in the womb is not controversial. But new preliminary research presented this week seems to provide direct evidence of how this damage can happen, via the placenta.
California is burning. The state’s wild-ass wildfires are becoming the norm, but this change is something many communities in California can’t afford. These wildfires degrade the air quality—and towns near and far are feeling it.
Boy, is it hot? The gnarly heat wave we’ve been dealing with since last week isn’t quite over yet—and it doesn’t just cause us to sweat and complain. Events like these usually bring awful ozone pollution, too. And that’s stuff people need to worry about, especially as they’re outside enjoying their Fourth of July.
It’s no secret that New Delhi has a serious air pollution problem. But this week, things went from regular bad to real life is now the Upside Down.
When volcanoes ooze lava, people know to get the hell out of the way. They know the fiery red stuff threatens their homes and lives. But what about when eruptions produce lots of ash and gas? That stuff can be deadly, too.
Here we go again: The Environmental Protection Agency wants to sacrifice clean air for—you guessed it—money.
Pictures of the air pollution in developing countries have gone viral, and stories about toxic fog have proliferated for years. Yet they can feel unreal and divorced from the everyday experience in Western countries, where huge strides have been made to clean up the air (for wealthy people anyways). A new art…
Just about every human on this planet is breathing unhealthy air, according to a new report from the Health Effects Institute, a nonprofit independent research organization. While the report’s central claim—that 95 percent of the world’s population is exposed to air that doesn’t meet the World Health Organization’s…
People living below the poverty line, blacks, Latinos, and non-white people, in general, are more likely to live in areas with high particulate matter pollution, according to a study published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health.
The Bureau of Land Management knows what it wants the Methane Waste and Prevention Rule to look like, but the courts have something else in mind.
Since at least 2014, satellites have been showing odd holes in the fog over Indian cities. Scientists didn’t know why until they published a paper about it earlier this year in Geophysical Research Letters.
For years, the war against smog and bad air quality has been waged through regulations on tail pipes, refineries, and other obvious sources of pollution. Those regulations have targeted a host of volatile organic compounds and other gases that directly or indirectly cause air pollution, one of the biggest risks to…
EPA chief Scott Pruitt may garner a lot of headlines as he attempts to dismantle the agency from within. But his underlings are doing a lot of the heavy lifting behind the scenes, and many are cut from the same cloth as the man at the top.
When parents send their kids to school, the last worry on their mind should be whether their children are safe. And I don’t mean from the stereotypical culprits like bullies, peer pressure, or gun violence. I’m talking about air pollution.
