I feel overwhelmed when I get an alert from my weather app warning me about dangerous air quality conditions within my community. Are local residents expected to stay in the house and drop all responsibilities during this time to protect our health? Action is needed now to ensure that residents can safely breathe the air outside.
Unfortunately, climate change will make these unhealthy air days more frequent and more severe, as rising temperatures exacerbate existing air pollution. One such pollutant is methane, emitted during oil and gas production and responsible for at least 25% of today’s global warming.
Thankfully, the EPA has released a new proposal to tackle climate pollution and offer more protection from fossil-fuel industries. This is a great step in the right direction, and I hope to see the EPA continue to make progress by phasing out pollution from routine venting and flaring. This could help to drastically reduce methane emissions.
If you are concerned about climate change, or simply want to breathe freely, please take action to urge the EPA to close loopholes that allow fossil-fuel companies to continue to pollute. Pennsylvanians can submit a comment through Feb. 13 at bit.ly/PAEmethane to support strong methane protections.
Abbey Levy
Oakland
The writer is an intern with PennEnvironment.