Public Health

A recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report concludes that the Environmental Protection Agency’s response to wildfire smoke is “ad hoc,” poorly resourced and muddled by a lack of coordination with other agencies. The new GAO report highlights how an “Exceptional Events” rule loophole in the Clean Air Act allows local regulators to make a case that air pollution from “natural” wildfires shouldn’t count against their federal air quality goals. Thus, erasing some of the worst air-pollution days pollution — not from the sky, but from the record.

Extreme heat has been a concern in Southern California for decades as temperatures continue to rise. In the City of Los Angeles, an effort to provide bus stop shade for public transit riders--who tend to be people of color—demonstrates a long-standing challenge in all levels of government: inability to work across departments.

Juan Moreno Haines writes from inside San Quentin Prison in https://www.kneedeeptimes.org/imprisoned-with-climate-change/ on the impacts of climate change on the incarcerated; an extremely vulnerable population that often goes unrecognized.

An article published today in the New York Times highlights the results of a new national survey, which shows that Americans' concerns about climate change have not been diminished by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. On the contrary, the survey found that acceptance of the reality of climate change is at a record high in some cases.