I certainly hope no 13-year-olds read Deborah Fields’ op-ed in today’s in N&R on Greensboro’s Cool Cities initiative:
Ground-level ozone increases with rising temperatures. The American Academy of Pediatrics Policy Statement on Ambient Air Pollution links outdoor air pollution to more asthma attacks and lung infections, more pre-term births, higher infant mortality, permanent deficits in lung growth in healthy children and new onset asthma in children who regularly exercise outdoors. The air in the Southeast is getting dirtier faster than the air in any other part of the country.
Children worry about the world they will inherit. Sometimes they worry themselves sick, like the 13-year-old Greensboro girl with asthma who recently sought medical attention because she was having trouble breathing. She was not having the asthma attack she feared, but an anxiety attack, brought on by fear of the poor air-quality index.
Hell, I’m a lot older than 13 and I’m having trouble breathing after reading this.