Imagine being so bad at your job that you write articles about air pollution in reaction to Trump’s statements rather than the actual pollution trends.
And please look carefully at the chart I linked. Air pollution was not at record lows during COVID. The spike happened in 2023, while the economy reopened in 2021.
You guys are all talking about a national average number of unhealthy fine particulate pollution days like it's a) the only metric of pollution and b) driven directly and deterministically by just US federal policy. You're also all acting like COVID was just a giant switch that turned on and then off again.
None of this is valid analysis. None of this is meaningful -- this is just a pile of snide bullshitting on the back of a random article.
What about forest fires in the years measured? Hurricane activity? Humidity and wind patterns? What was the data like in Chicago vs Seattle vs Houston, what were the state and municipal policies?
> What about forest fires in the years measured? Hurricane activity? Humidity and wind patterns? What was the data like in Chicago vs Seattle vs Houston, what were the state and municipal policies?
Yeah, exactly! I’m not saying Biden caused air quality to get worse in 2023. That was probably the Canadian forest fires that year. My point is that the reporting on this is bullshit. Lots of outlets ran stories about the 5% increase from 2016 to 2018 in this air quality metric. But then they ignored the much bigger fluctuations that came after.
I’m not saying the opposite happened, my point is that you cant trust the media any farther than you can throw it.
And please look carefully at the chart I linked. Air pollution was not at record lows during COVID. The spike happened in 2023, while the economy reopened in 2021.