The transition of weather from merely reporting on weather conditions and relaying (somewhat) authoritative forecasts is pretty much complete, as now every change in the weather pretty much has to be linked to the dreaded anthropogenic climate change. New York City’s recent poor air quality due to Canadian wildfires highlights a change they haven’t been pushing — how much better air quality in major cities has become:
Earlier this month, as wildfires ravaged Canada, the Northeastern United States experienced heavy air pollution problems from the smoke.
The out of control fires and subsequent pollution is a tragedy, certainly. But the fact that a low-visibility New York City was national news highlights how much things have changed.
Pollution has dramatically declined over the past few decades. To get a clear picture of how much, look at this graph.
This shows the number of days air quality is considered to be at “unhealthy levels” by the US government in seven major metros in the U.S.
All seven metros have improved their air quality since 1980. This is good news!
In the NYC metro, nearly 300 days in 1980 had unhealthy air quality. Today it’s less than 50.
So what’s going on here? Well, some might argue regulation is the primary source. It’s certainly possible that environmental regulations in the end of the 20th century resulted in less pollution. As our technology has improved, we’ve gained the ability to police people polluting the air of their neighbors. But this isn’t the full story.
