Nearly half of Americans breathing in unsafe levels of air pollutants – report

Soot and smog can cause premature death and increase the risk of an array of serious medical conditions. Photograph: Gary Hershorn/Getty Images

Almost half of Americans are breathing in dangerous levels of air pollutants, a new report shows, a rise compared with a year ago and likely to further increase in coming years thanks to the climate crisis and the Trump administration’s sweeping environmental rollbacks.

Just over 156 million people live in neighborhoods with unhealthy levels of soot or smog – a 16% rise compared with last year and the highest number in a decade, according to the American Lung Association (ALA) annual state of the air report.