The fallacies of global ineptness are on stark display this morning, as the most-shared news story is a BBC article titled “Amazon forest felled to build road for climate summit.” The stupidity of it all has climate watchers everywhere reeling. A new four-lane highway cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest is being built for the COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém. Lives have been disrupted. Old growth critical to the environment has been removed. Animals, such as everyone’s photo-favorite sloth, have been put in danger.
Despite all the rhetoric, the entire world is largely ignorant to the severity of the atmosphere in which we are trying to survive. According to new data released this week, only seven countries in the world met safe air pollution levels in 2023, according to a report by Swiss air quality technology company IQAir. No, the US is not one of them.
Disqualified countries were found to breach safe levels of PM2.5 (fine particulate matter), according to World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. These microscopic particles, measuring less than 2.5 microns in diameter, can be inhaled deep into our lungs and even reach our bloodstreams. They have been linked to heart and lung disease, high blood pressure, increased asthma risk, depression and anxiety, and premature death. It doesn’t matter that the US no longer participates in WHO. The air is still unbreathable.
The seven countries that met the safe guideline of five micrograms per cubic meter of air (µg/m3) or less were Australia, Estonia, Finland, Grenada, Iceland, Mauritius, and New Zealand. Close runner-ups include Puerto Rico, Bermuda, and French Polynesia. The most polluted countries were Chad, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and India. PM2.5 levels in all five countries were at least 10 times higher than guideline limits in 2024, the report found, stretching as much as 18 times higher than recommended levels in Chad.
Those who were alive and traveling in the 1960s and 70s remember skylines completely shrouded by smog. A brown haze hung over every city of any size. Going outside could cause one’s eyes to sting and begin to water. A lot of restrictive regulations were put in place to address the issue. By the 1990s, the color of the air had largely returned to a more pleasant blue. Regulations worked.
The fine particulate matter ruining our lives now is different. We are less likely to see a disturbing haze over our cities. Coastal areas with their ‘fresh’ sea air are just as polluted as the largest cities. Camping in the middle of a forest in the US doesn’t provide significantly cleaner air than camping in downtown Chicago. Yet, over and over again, we’ve continued to ignore a problem that is consuming increasingly larger parts of our planet.
On Monday, The Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit from Republican attorneys general in 19 states aimed at blocking climate change suits against the oil and gas industry from Democratic-led states. The states’ attorneys general, led by Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, were caught by surprise. They thought that surely the conservative-leaning court would support them. But SCOTUS has repeatedly denied attempts by oil companies and others looking to dismantle existing air quality laws.
Part of the issue is that air quality and climate change are best buddies. The more severe the climate becomes, the more filled the air is with nasty fine particulate matter. Conservatives don’t like to hear about climate change because it forces them to take responsibility for their actions. The White House has even put ‘climate change’ on a list of words and phrases to be deleted from all government websites.
Putting our heads in the sand and pretending the matter doesn’t exist only makes us more vulnerable to the dangers in our air. Doctors say there are no safe levels of PM2.5, which is small enough to slip into the bloodstream and damage organs throughout the body but have estimated millions of lives could be saved each year by following their guidelines. Dirty air is the second-biggest risk factor for dying after high blood pressure.
Yet, politicians will stand on the steps of whatever government building is handy, breathe deeply, thump their chests, and declare that the air is just fine. Because they can’t see the pollution, these idiots don’t think it exists. “Air pollution doesn’t kill us immediately – it takes maybe two to three decades before we see the impacts on health unless it’s very extreme,” said Frank Hammes, CEO of IQAir. “[Avoiding it] is one of those preventative things people don’t think about till too late in their lives.”
This is the reason rates of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome are on the rise. According to the most recent data, it is the reason that as much as 25% of all people require mechanical ventilation in some settings. Portable and almost fashionable oxygen and breathing apparatus use has exploded as simple things such as going shopping can cause a person to go into distress.
Governments could clean their air with policies such as funding renewable energy projects and public transport; building infrastructure to encourage walking and cycling; and banning people from burning farm waste. Unfortunately, the US isn’t the only country that has been cutting funding for renewable energy projects. Getting Americans to give up their personal vehicles and utilize public transportation is seen as an insult to one’s dignity by people in too many cities. Rarely does one find a population willing to cooperate with the remedies that would bring all of us cleaner air.
As climate change worsens, the effect of our pollution is now stretching beyond the breathable atmosphere. MIT researchers calculated that as global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil, and gas continues it may reduce the available space for satellites in low Earth orbit by anywhere from one-third to 82% by the end of the century, depending on how much carbon pollution is spewed. That’s because space will become more littered with debris as climate change lessens nature’s way of cleaning it up.
We keep forgetting that the environment in which we live is delicate. There are too many of us, roughly three billion too many of us, for our existence on the planet to not create problems. The more we ignore air quality, the more we shorten our own lives and those of future generations.
We’ve known this for over fifty years. Such a display of our stupidity should be embarrassing.
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