FOSSIL FUELS AND AIR POLLUTION IN USA AFTER THE CLEAN AIR ACT: MARKETS FOR HYDROGEN

Author(s):  
A.V. Chuveliov
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yao Yao ◽  
Xiaozhen Lv ◽  
Chengxuan Qiu ◽  
Jiajianghui Li ◽  
Xiao Wu ◽  
...  

Abstract Air pollution may accelerate cognitive aging, it is unclear whether large-scale interventions by Clean Air Act can mitigate the cognitive deterioration. Here, we conducted a difference-in-differences analysis based on Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey during 2014 and 2018. Intervention group came from where the government set a strict target of reducing air pollution, whereas control group lived in areas without reduction target. Global cognitive functions were measured using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). We found the intervention group with implementing Clean Air Act had a significantly smaller decline in MMSE score compared to the control group. Interquartile increases in PM2.5 and SO2 concentrations were significantly associated with a faster decline of MMSE score by 1.78 and 0.92 points, respectively. Implementing stringent clean air policies, especially in low- and middle-income countries may mitigate the risk of cognitive aging in older people.


2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 27-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Schmalensee ◽  
Robert N. Stavins

The US Clean Air Act, passed in 1970 with strong bipartisan support, was the first environmental law to give the federal government a serious regulatory role, established the architecture of the US air pollution control system, and became a model for subsequent environmental laws in the United States and globally. We outline the act’s key provisions, as well as the main changes Congress has made to it over time. We assess the evolution of air pollution control policy under the Clean Air Act, with particular attention to the types of policy instruments used. We provide a generic assessment of the major types of policy instruments, and we trace and assess the historical evolution of the Environmental Protection Agency’s policy instrument use, with particular focus on the increased use of market-based policy instruments, beginning in the 1970s and culminating in the 1990s. Over the past 50 years, air pollution regulation has gradually become more complex, and over the past 20 years, policy debates have become increasingly partisan and polarized, to the point that it has become impossible to amend the act or pass other legislation to address the new threat of climate change.


1987 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth E. Melichar

This article uses the social definitional process approach to understand the making of the 1967 Montana Clean Air Act. This approach holds that it is how the various competing social groups define the objective situation (air pollution) as problematic and then act on these definitions that counts. Based on their cultural meanings of the problem, the competing groups engage in claims-making activities that they seek to have legitimated in law. In the struggle for the legitimation of the various competing definitions, the groups attempt to claim ownership (disownership) as well as to assign causal and political responsibility for the problem. In Montana it was the clean air forces who were able to have their cultural meanings legitimated in law and who placed causal responsibility for air pollution on industrial capital and political responsibility for solving the problem on the Montana State Board of Health.


1972 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard A. Scarrow

Fifteen years have elapsed since the British Parliament enacted legislation designed to curb air pollution. The 1956 Clean Air Act appeared seven years in advance of comparable American legislation and well before the quality of the environment became a matter of world-wide concern. In view of the fact that Queen Elizabeth I had complained about smoke pollution in London, or that nineteenth-century novelists had penned vivid portraits of London's smoke and fog, the 1956 Act should perhaps be viewed as being at least a century late in appearing. Nevertheless, the Act did mark a distinctive policy innovation, particularly with regard to those provisions relating to smoke pollution from domestic sources. An analysis of the impact of those provisions will be the subject of this paper.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 7559-7566

Clean air is considered the fountain of life that enables humankind to sustain healthy lives while supporting unique ecosystems of the Earth. The United Nations, being the supreme policymaking body in the world, has duly stated that “clean air is a human right”. The underlying reason for this derives itself from gruesome statistics asserting that between 6 and 7 million people die prematurely each year due to air pollution, and around 90% of the global pollution breathes polluted air. Being the existential threat pollution is, most of it is caused by burning of fossil fuels that contributes not only to climate change but also deteriorating human health. A significant portion of air pollution is constituted by indoor air pollution through carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions, which has been a major cause of concern for India. It has been observed that 9 out of 10 people in India breathe air that breached safe limits and 7 million people die each year due to household air pollution through exposure to fine particles causing cardiovascular diseases, lung cancer and other pulmonary diseases. Women form a significant portion of such sufferers, whereby, a WHO report has found that mothers were more likely to deliver underweight babies in households with indoor air pollution from solid fuels. Associated with this, is the issue of increasing household expenditure on health vis-à-vis women. This paper examines the impact of such indoor pollution on women vis-à-vis health costs as part of their household expenditure allocations. Observations emphasise the need to reverse such trend of increasing indoor air pollution while moving on to a phase of employing greener fuels and technologies among households, and associated sensitive policymaking. This is expected to not only increase the standard of health among women of different strata but also will propel the productivity of human capital on a per capita basis.


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