How a dangerous stew of air pollution is choking the United States
The US-wide heat map aligns pretty well with agricultural and industrial pollution, not necessarily wildfires. Let's not turn every last thing into a climate change debate.A US-wide view also obscures the air quality where it matters most, which is population centers. They are too small to show up on the blurry, smoothed heat map provided. In population centers (big cities), smog from personal and commercial vehicles is the primary contributor to poor air quality.I spent Thanksgiving week on Catalina Island and I personally watched the smog roll over greater Los Angeles. However on Thanksgiving Day I woke up and looked east, and the air was incredibly clear like I've never seen. On Friday morning it was still pretty good. But by Saturday the smog was back to normal. The weather was the same all week - this had to do with the number of vehicles on the road in a given day.