Why You Need an Outdoor Air Quality Monitor (2025)

It was not A long time ago, few people were watching the air – not the government, not its citizens. Today, weather applications provide outdoor air quality estimates, government air quality monitoring site, Airnow, which has an easy -to -use symbolic gate, fire and smoke map.

There are real health benefits for having an air quality screen. Each American state is responsible for developing its monitoring plan. Even in the populated urban areas, the outdoor air screens owned by federal, state and local states may spread geographically, leaving the observation gaps that do not accurately capture air quality beyond the front door.

The outdoor air quality screens are not only to understand the air quality when the smell of smoke fills your home – a screen can keep you out of the open air. America was in the field of air quality control for less than a century. In the non -distant past, citizens died due to the unorganized and unorganized air.

Again, the Trump Environmental Protection Agency seeks to weaken the current air quality index standards, numbers that decide what is good, moderate or unhealthy air, as well as canceling regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. These procedures will lead to dirt and less reliable data. Like facial masks and air purification, the outdoor air quality control device is no longer a specialized but electronic canaria in the modern charcoal mine of a world in the air.

Photo: Lisa Wood Shapiro

Again in January, I woke up to find an outdoor air quality control device in PurpleAir Zen. This happened for several days, and I was confused because the numbers were more than 100, yet there was no air quality alert in the area.

The annual AQI decreases in my neighborhood under 50 years – extracted from good air. For context, AQI of 100 or more unhealthy for sensitive groups, and AQI of 150 is unhealthy for everyone. I mentioned the unhealthy air air that told me that New York City recently installed a concrete recycling center, a few buildings from my house. The literal dust caused by the center, including failure to inform the neighborhood of its existence, may be the perpetrator of the last upgrading in the bad air, from the concrete dust established by the recycling center. At this point, the recycling center has not yet carried out irrigation to alleviate the dust poles. Data from my external screen feeds it in the PurpleAir map in an actual time. On the map, I could see the other nearby PurpleAir screens, and those closest to the concrete recycling center tend to be worse.

Invisible

In July, after a year of increasing protests and political pressure, the city announced that it would move the concrete recycling center. What would have happened if the population had not seen dust clouds or noted that the gray film collects their cars? What if they could not see what was around them? PM 2.5 is the solids and invisible fluids in the air. The smallest shape can enter the deepest parts of the lungs, which passes into the bloodstream. There, it can cause a group of diseases, respiratory distress, and cardiovascular disease.

Photo: Lisa Wood Shapiro

Sterile

Outdoor air quality screen

In early 2024, the Biden Administration has strengthened the national standards for the surrounding air quality (NAAQS) of the gem, which is a step that determines the “main 2.5 standard (health -based) standard at 9.0 micrograms per cubic meter (microgram/m/m)³In order to reflect the new science on the damage caused by particle pollution. “This has changed the window of” good “air on the air quality index.

These guidelines in the Environmental Protection Agency are almost double the guidelines of the World Health Organization, which are the stronger 5 pm 2.5 pm. The Trump Environmental Protection Agency is reviewing the PM 2.5 standards for Biden Administration. “All Americans deserve to breathe clean air while following the American dream. During the era of president Trump, we will ensure that the air quality standards for particles are protecting human health and the environment while we unleash the golden age of US prosperity.”

Trump administration also wants to cancel greenhouse gas emissions regulations. According to a statement issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, “The Environmental Protection Agency also suggests that greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel power stations do not contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution.” Cases of scientific research otherwise. Thus, when the air in the open air becomes less organized, it has the ability to get people’s tablets and disease.

Very close to the house

Last spring, the smell of the camp’s fire was filled. I fired from my window on the fourth floor to see my neighbor’s illegal fire hole, three backgrounds. I watched the colors on the external PurpleAir Zen screen that changes from green to yellow to a crimson over an hour. When I log in to the PurpleAir map in an actual time of the crowd, I was able to see that the open air quality was unhealthy 160 pm 2.5 and that the air quality was good at less than 30 pm 2.5. There is nothing surprising about a fire hole that generates air pollution, but I did not realize how intensity and localization of air pollution, although I was four stories in an area of half the city. This is the air quality on the microscope.

Photo: Lisa Wood Shapiro