Wildfires are reversing decades of clean air standards in Canada and the U.S., according to new data published Thursday. Researchers at the University of Chicago released their annual Air Quality Life Index (AQLI), which tracks air pollution and how it impacts life expectancies. This year’s report analyzed data collected in 2023. That year, as Canada … Read more
We all have cause to take climate change personally. Not only do higher temperatures lead to such mega-events as droughts, heat waves, wildfires, and floods, they also affect human health—exacerbating asthma, allergiescardiovascular disease, the spread of water-borne pathogens, and more. Now, it appears that a warming world affects us in one other, potentially life-threatening way. … Read more
From vehicle exhaust to manufacturing plumes, nearly every person in the world breathes in unhealthy air on a daily basis. The impact is deadly: air pollution is responsible for 7 million premature deaths around the world per year according to the World Health Organization (WHO), making it the second leading risk factor for death behind … Read more
Climate change is bad news for a lot of reasons—the droughts, the floods, the heat, the hurricanes. And then, too, there’s all the sneezing. If you suffer from hay fever—or allergic rhinitis (AR)—and have found your symptoms growing worse in recent years, you’re not alone. Increasingly, health care professionals are concluding that as global heat … Read more
