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While the COVID-19 pandemic has dominated headlines, another invisible and insidious health threat continues to rage, causing lost workdays, emergency room visits and hospitalizations. Fine particle air pollution (PM2.5) is the sixth-highest risk factor for deaths globally, accounting for nearly four million deaths in 2019 alone, according to the Health Effects Institute’s (HEI) State of …

This blog was co-authored by Jeremy Proville, Director: Office of the Chief Economist, and Ananya Roy, Senior Health Scientist at EDF. New analysis finds that prevalent methods of assessing impacts of air pollution underestimate pollution’s health impacts on people of color. Everyone has the right to breathe clean air. Yet communities of color, falsely labeled …

Ugbaad Ali, Community Environmental Health Tom Graff Fellow We all deserve to live in a healthy and vibrant community, yet many residents of Flint, Michigan, are overburdened by a lifetime of toxic exposures and environmental injustice. Recently, a coalition of environmental justice groups and community organizers in Flint used their combined power to organize against …

Jennifer McPartland, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist, and Lariah Edwards, Ph.D., is an EDF-George Washington University Postdoctoral Fellow EPA Administrator Michael Regan recently completed a five-day “journey to justice” tour, highlighting communities across three US states that have been adversely affected by decades of chemical and air pollution. EPA’s focus on protecting those whose health is …

Supreme Court Asked to Limit EPA’s Long-Standing Authority to Protect America from Climate Pollution

Kaushik Raj Hazarika is an advisor for EDF’s air quality work in India and a Project Manager for Clean Air Catalyst in Indore. Clean Air Catalyst is a flagship program launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development and a global consortium of organizations led by World Resources Institute and Environmental Defense Fund. With a …

After working with EDF and partners to map hyperlocal pollution in Oakland, CA using Google Street View vehicles, researchers Dr. Joshua Apte (University of California, Berkeley) and Dr. Sarah Chambliss (University of Texas at Austin) collected additional mobile data across the San Francisco Bay Area to expand understanding of street-level air quality and disparities in …

EDF Statement from Alex DeGolia, Director, U.S. Climate

With the Build Back Better Act, Congress has the opportunity to make an unprecedented investment in public health and the climate, particularly in the reduction of harmful air pollution, which disproportionately harms low-income residents and communities of color.  While many cities across the country have experienced an overall improvement in air quality, residents in neighborhoods …

Road transportation is a major source of air pollution in London, with heavy goods vehicles one of the top contributors of pollutants that harm people’s health. The thinktank, Centre for London, has been conducting research this year to look “at how we can create smarter, fairer and more sustainable freight and logistics ecosystems.” Centre for …

EPA Will Reconsider Strengthening Smog Standard to Better Protect Americans’ Health

When the World Health Organization (WHO) released its new Global Air Quality guidelines earlier this month for the first time since 2005, it cited an overwhelming body of evidence showing how air pollution severely impacts health at even lower concentrations than previously understood. And while concentrations still largely exceed levels published by the WHO in …

My children’s daycare, which is on a commercial strip between supermarkets and restaurants, often has three refrigerated trucks idling outside the front door. These diesel trucks can emit harmful pollution, even when they aren’t moving. The impact of transportation pollution on vulnerable populations is often striking. In downtown Oakland, where more than 70% of the …

Statement of EDF Senior Director of Climate and Health Elena Craft – October 13, 2021

Over the past 30 years, numerous scientific reports have highlighted the health impacts of climate change, starting with the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report in 1990. The report included a short summary on heat stress, vector and water borne diseases and air pollution health effects like asthma and heart attacks. Yet health impacts …

By Timothy O’Connor and Aileen Nowlan SunPower, a solar power and energy services provider, is starting to ship solar panels in electric heavy-duty trucks powered by — you guessed it — solar energy. The question that communities and investors are starting to ask is, why isn’t everybody? How long can a company go without a …

Rodolfo Lacy Tamayo is the Director of the Environmental Directorate at the OECD, where he studies the intersection of land use change, housing and urban planning. Lacy and his colleagues are determining how the development of cities can change to reduce the burden of air pollution from vehicles. How did you get involved in clean …

Over the past 30 years, numerous scientific reports have highlighted the health impacts of climate change, starting with the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report in 1990. The report included a short summary on heat stress, vector and water borne diseases and air pollution health effects like asthma and heart attacks. Yet health impacts …

The World Health Organization’s update of the global Air Quality Guidelines is an important step forward.

Statement from Mary Barber, Director, Regulatory and Legislative Affairs at Environmental Defense Fund

By publishing a guide on hyperlocal air quality monitoring in Spanish, EDF is helping pioneer worldwide solutions that will promote air quality innovation in regions that are key to tackling the air pollution crisis. The post EDF unveils Spanish version of its flagship How-to Guide for mapping hyperlocal air pollution first appeared on Global Clean Air.

Ever wonder where air pollution in your neighbourhood is coming from? We’ve been working on a new Greater London map that displays detailed information on the sources of health-harming air pollution. Search for or click anywhere on the map to get a breakdown of pollution sources – for both nitrogen oxides (NOx) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5)

Ernesto Sánchez-Triana is the Global Lead for Pollution Management and Circular Economy for the World Bank, where he manages the Program on Pollution Management and Environmental Health and the Program on Pollution Management and Circular Economy. He recently shared his thoughts on the fight for clean air with Sergio Sanchez, EDF’s Senior Policy Director, Global …

Today the Houston METRO Board of Directors voted to approve a transformational goal to fully electrify the transit agency’s fleet of over 1,300 buses by 2030, in addition to signing off on the development of a Climate Action Plan.

By Elizabeth Moses and Ananya Roy We are seeing the beginnings of the impact of unchecked emissions globally. Extreme rainfall and flooding in India, China and Germany have destroyed infrastructure and homes. Heat waves have sent temperatures soaring above 100o F (40 o C) for weeks, causing heat exhaustion and mortality. Wildfires ravage forests and …