Communities of color have long faced the negative effects of air pollution, including more severe asthma symptoms.
Millions of people in the eastern U.S. have been dealing with unhealthy air quality this week owing to Canadian wildfires — but homeless and low-income people, outdoor workers, and people with preexisting health problems have been particularly vulnerable.
“As the climate gets worse and being exposed to the elements becomes a more and more serious proposition — [housing is] not just healthcare, it’s life saving,” Dave Giffen, the executive director of the New York City-based organization Coalition for the Homeless, told ABC News. “The most effective way to reduce childhood asthma would be to fix all the socioeconomic and environmental issues that contribute to the problem,” Taylor wrote.
That means people living in the vicinity of heavily trafficked roads take in the exhaust fumes from vehicles that burn gasoline RB00 , but also don’t enjoy the convenience of accessing those streets and roads with their own vehicles. It’s the relative ease and low cost of gas-powered vehicles that has boosted their popularity over the past several decades and slows the transition to electric vehicles.
While air quality deteriorated Wednesday in the racially segregated city of Buffalo, N.Y., the University of Buffalo Center for Urban Studies similarly observed on Twitter: “As bad as this is for the city as a whole, the smoke is sure to hit hardest in low-income communities of color, where residents are more likely to develop respiratory illnesses like asthma and lung disease.”
As for wildfires, which have been exacerbated by climate change fueling warmer, drier conditions: More than 29 million Americans already live in areas with significant potential for extreme wildfires, and the majority of them are white and economically secure, researchers said in one 2018 paper.
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