This summer season has been a scorching one right here in Texas. And whereas the recent temperatures current their very own dangers, it’s not simply the warmth that’s inflicting concern. Dozens of air high quality warnings have been issued this summer season, and many individuals surprise concerning the connection between warmth and air high quality. Right here, we’ll present solutions.
Warmth + Smog = Air Air pollution
This summer season has been the most popular on document for a lot of the state of Texas. The numerous consecutive days of temperatures over 100 levels current security considerations like warmth stroke and dehydration.
Smog, which ends up from car and industrial emissions, isn’t any higher. It reduces air high quality, irritates the lungs, and makes respiratory laborious, particularly for folks with bronchial asthma, bronchitis, and lung illnesses.
When smog combines with daylight and excessive temperatures, reactions between unstable natural compounds and nitrogen oxides are accelerated, creating extra ozone.
What Impact Does It Have?
Floor-level ozone, a element of smog, irritates and inflames the lungs, making it tough to breathe. Ozone can exacerbate lung illnesses, trigger bronchial asthma assaults, and irritate power bronchitis. When mixed with excessive warmth, ozone turns into much more of a well being danger.
The Texas Fee on Environmental High quality (TCEQ) displays air high quality and has reported that ozone concentrations reached unhealthy ranges on over 40 days (up to now) this yr — twice as many as final yr.
That is no small drawback. In truth, smog ranges are the worst they’ve been in a decade. Houston has had essentially the most days with unsafe ozone ranges, adopted by Dallas-Fort Value and Austin. The EPA estimates that over 12 million Texans reside in a county that doesn’t meet the 2008 federal ozone requirements.
What’s the Resolution?
Fixing the air high quality drawback is a fancy problem. There’s not a lot we will do about summer season temperatures with out getting a deal with on local weather change. And whereas there have been proposals on the federal stage to chop ozone air pollution, the TCEQ, the Public Utility Fee of Texas, and the Electrical Reliability Council of Texas take difficulty, saying such efforts would affect the state’s electrical grid by forcing energy vegetation to change from pure gasoline or coal to renewable vitality.
Whether or not or not Texas lawmakers, legislators, and regulators will discover widespread floor with the EPA is tough to evaluate. Houston and Dallas areas have struggled to fulfill federal thresholds in recent times after many years of progress. And the EPA has thought-about redesignating elements of West Texas to require the state to cut back ozone ranges – transfer that would have an effect on oil manufacturing within the space and even prompted Governor Greg Abbott to ask President Joe Biden to cease the EPA from continuing.
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