President Donald Trump tweeted, a world Health organization map of particulate pollution on Monday that the U.S has the “cleanest air in the world”.
John Walke, director of a clean air program and a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), clapped back that this tweet has shown a big-time how the map can be used to change facts and make conclusions.
Break down to show that the president claims are wrong:
First, POLITICO observed that the tweet was based on 2016 information when Barrack Obama was the president. This is not the first time that Trump and his team has taken credit for the work done by the previous administration. His EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has once claimed the credit of Obama CO2 reduction.
Looking at the map, it was noticed that the image has a top blue band that says, “America: the Cleanest Air in the World”. It also included that “about 91% of the U.S population is not exposed to air pollution concentration more than the world health organization suggested level”
The original Map was traced by John Walke, which look totally different, pink in color with no text. It shows that half of the fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is greater than the world health organization air quality guideline level of 10 micrograms per cubic meter.
The accurate map from World Health Organization data, showing that the U.S has average annual PM2.5 pollution concentration above the WHO recommendations, was tweeted by John Walke.
From the true map, it was noticed that there are indeed countries that have lower pollution concentration than the U.S.
Earlier this year, the world health organization has announced that Finland has the world’s best air quality. The U.S is not yet in the tenth position.
As previously reported from World Health Organization data, Brunei, Canada, Australia, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, Greenland, Sweden and countries in the Pacific island are the countries with the healthiest air in the world.
Premature death, asthma, lung cancer, heart attack, preterm births, autism and dementia, and another wide array of adverse health impacts, are linked to fine particulate matter.
The U.S is ranked 23 in the world when it comes to prevention of sickness and death caused by air pollution. As NRDC wrote, “in 2016, the American population lost 516 years of disease and disability-free life per 100,000 people. That’s more than double the rate found in top-ranked New Zealand and only marginally better than other countries”. Which means, that president Trump’s tweet, claiming that no population in the U.S is suffering from dangerous air pollution is false.
The “State of the Air report“ by the American Lung Association found that about 133.9million Americans could be breathing unacceptable pathogens, toxins, and smog.
Air pollution has levels has been reduced in the U.S since the 1970s, all thanks to the national clean air standard. However, Trump administration has shown an effort to roll back these protections in favor of the fossil fuel industry and other sectors that are contributing to pollution.
As noted by the Sierra Club, “Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has disbanded a scientific panel that reviews particulate pollution and has gutted several clean air standards that protect from particulate matter pollution, including the Clean Power and loosening regulation on glider trucks”.
The clean power plan, which was to focus on reducing the emission of coal-burning power plants, was one of the major targets of these administration regulatory rollbacks. In March, the Executive Order on Energy Independence that calls for a review of the clean power plan was signed by president Trump.
As said in a press release by Michael Brune, Sierra Club executive director, “Trump is responsible for the most serious attacks on clean air by any president ever, and his tweets will do nothing to prevent children from getting sick from his big polluter handouts and clean air rollbacks”.
Brune also added that “Trump is taking credit for the progress achieved by the exact same air safeguards other presidents put in place that he is now trying to throw out. Last week, president Trump disbanded the EPA panel that was responsible for overseeing the progress on the particulate pollution that he is now citing. No amount of gas lighting can change the damage that his reliance on gas and coal will cause”
If the president Trump can shift away from coal and fossil fuel to focus on energy power plant, the country climate condition will drastically reduce, and put the U.S in the present false state tweeted by president Trump.
According to John Walke tweet, “the trump administration needs to do more to protect the many millions of Americans living in areas that are polluted above PM2.5 World Health Organization suggested a level of air quality, and also the tens of millions that still live with unsafe pollution bellow WHO recommendation.
