About 46% of U.S. residents — 156 million people — lived in areas with unhealthy air quality that earned “F” grades from the American Lung Association for ozone or particle pollution.
That’s according to the association’s 26th annual analysis of air quality data, which shows that the country is regressing on clean air measures.
The analysis — which reviewed data from the years 2021 to 2023 — saw an increase of about 25 million people living with unhealthy air in comparison with last year’s survey.
The report shows how the effects of climate change — heat, drought and increased wildfire smoke — are driving changes in air quality across the country.
“This year, we were really struck by, first of all, the large increase in the number of people across the country living with unhealthy air, and how much of the increase was driven by worsening ozone,” said Katherine Pruitt, the national senior director for clean air policy at the American Lung Association, who added that hot, sunny weather “makes ozone more likely to form.”
In 2023, the last year of the lung association’s analysis, global temperatures were the hottest recorded to date, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Temperatures in the U.S. were their fifth highest in the country’s history. (That record has already been surpassed: In 2024, NASA scientists estimated the Earth was about 2.65 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1.47 degrees Celsius, hotter than the historic average from 1850 to 1900.)
Pruitt, the report’s lead author, said her study shows ozone, also known as smog, spiked in places like Texas, which dealt with a sizzling heat wave in 2023.
“In 2023, the ozone levels in Texas really shot up,” Pruitt said. “They had a long spell of very hot weather day after day.”
Temperatures in towns like Del Rio exceeded 100 degrees for more than two weeks straight that year.
Intense wildfire smoke also contributed to so many regions receiving failing grades. In 2023, smoke from intense Canadian wildfires spread across population centers in the Northeast, causing the most smoke exposure per person in modern U.S. history.
Increases in wildfire smoke, which creates small particles that can penetrate in the lungs and circulate in people’s bloodstreams, is chipping away at the progress made on air quality since Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1963.
In 2023, Marshall Burke, an associate professor at Stanford University, published a study that found that increases in wildfire smoke had undone about 25% of the progress made under the Clean Air Act.
The lung association’s reports show a similar turnaround in progress, beginning in 2016.
“In about 2016, we start to see that trend reverse,” Pruitt said. “The climate is changing and it is increasing the risk of these extreme weather conditions that are making breathing worse for millions of people across the U.S. Until we get a handle on the sources of emissions that are leading to degradation of the environment, we’re going to suffer the consequences.”
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin last month outlined plans for an aggressive rollback of environmental regulations, and the agency plans to reconsider some programs authorized by the Clean Air Act, including rules setting emissions standards for vehicles and regulations of power plants.
The lung association report found that Bakersfield, California, had the most polluted air in the country from 2021-2023. It ranked first in short-term particle pollution (when air reaches “unhealthy” or “very unhealthy” levels, according to the air quality index), third in year-round particle pollution and first in ozone pollution.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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