Kind: captions
Language: en
during the summer the air quality and
lots of big cities can get pretty bad
but even in the last month news sources
have reported that places like denver
indianapolis and new york have been
exposed to higher than normal air
pollution for a few hours on august 7
2021 denver's air quality was the worst
in the world well above the particulate
matter exposure levels recommended by
the world health organization colorado
has struggled
with air quality throughout the summer
recently our air quality issues have
been compounded by the wildfire smog
wildfire smoke from western states
managed to make its way across the
country affecting cities like
indianapolis and new york the fires in
california the fires that have been
going on in idaho and montana and oregon
right all of that smoke has also come
through colorado a very common thing
that happens in colorado is the smoke
comes in from the north and then comes
down on the east side of the rockies it
was a particularly thick blanket of
smoke the visibility dropped to below
three miles pretty much but if you lived
in denver and weren't watching the news
you might not realize the thick haze
actually contained smoke you typically
can't smell the smoke from fires that
are more than a day of wind because the
compounds that are in smoke that have a
smell they degrade within one day in the
atmosphere but that doesn't mean it's
okay to breathe it in wildfire smoke is
composed of thousands of different
things there's what we call particulate
matter and then there's gases in the
smoke one of the major constituents is
carbon monoxide there's also hazardous
air pollutants things like benzene
toluene format aldehyde acetaldehyde
hydrogen cyanide those are all enhanced
when wildfire smoke comes to town smoke
from wildfires isn't the only thing to
blame for bad air quality other sources
of air pollution are things like cars
power plants and even wood burning
fireplaces these in turn can contribute
to vocs or volatile organic compounds
these are gases that are emitted from
certain solids or liquids they can lead
to another dangerous pollutant ozone
ozone is a secondary pollutant so it's
not emitted directly it's formed in the
atmosphere when nitrogen oxides react in
the presence of the ocs we have a lot of
oil and gas development so that's a
large source of vocs major sources of
nitrogen oxides include vehicles
transportation power generation so
there's certainly plenty of human
pollution sources to cause the ozone
problem that we have
and that's routine in summer ozone
formation in the upper atmosphere is
good it protects living things from much
of the sun's harmful ultraviolet
radiation but ground level ozone can get
in your lungs and cause the muscles in
your airways to constrict and trap air
in the alveoli
this can lead to health effects like
coughing or difficulty taking deep
breaths
sunlight drives the production of ozone
from vocs and hot temperatures speed
that up so summer generally means more
ozone and an abundance of ozone means
worse air quality even without wildfire
smoke
the wildfires that we're seeing now
absolutely have a climate component to
them
and we really can't solve the wildfire
challenges you know fully without
addressing climate change absolutely
climate change will exacerbate air
pollution issues no doubt about it
whether the pollutants are from car
exhaust ozone production or the
particles from wildfire smoke they can
all make their way into your lungs if
you're breathing in poor air quality the
symptoms that you can feel might include
cough
shortness of breath
fatigue
and just generally not feeling the
greatest when you take that deep breath
air pollution cause a lot of problems to
our body people who are surrounded by
air pollution and grow up in areas where
air pollution is heavy
they're going to develop symptoms of
asthma symptoms of emphysema and that's
an issue to complicate things air
quality disparities often align with
socioeconomic disparities
so let's just think about for a minute
where is it cheapest to live so it's
cheapest to live in areas that are next
to freeways you're going to have more
pollution which leads to significant
particulate matter and other particles
within the air that are going to lead to
inflammation within your lung
and so
people who are
don't have enough or who don't
have the ability to afford to live in
other areas they're also going to be the
people that are most diseased those
neighborhoods have a high prevalence of
asthma especially childhood asthma so if
the air quality around you is bad what
can you do to stay safe
if you have the privilege of not having
to go outside that day
stay indoors all right close your
windows make sure that the air
circulating in your house remains
healthy if you're going to be outside
make it a quick visit wear a mask it's a
physical barrier so you don't get as
abundant an amount of these molecules
that's going to lead to some of the
inflammation some of the healthcare
effects that can be seen is very bad i
think the most important thing is to be
able to develop a relationship with
local healthcare entities to make
certain that you're well taken care of
or at least your illnesses are managed i
think one message that's really
important to get across is that people
should be checking their air quality
daily like they're checking the weather
and making personal choices based on the
air that they're breathing people should
be
concerned about this because there are
real health impacts and quality of life
impacts
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