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We All Deserve To Breathe Clean Air. We Need State and Federal Policies To Make That Possible.
A perspective from Elizabeth Bechard
As a mother of two, I care deeply about the impacts of air pollution on our physical and mental health. May is both Asthma Awareness and Mental Health Awareness Month – making it a good time to highlight how cleaner air will help us breathe easier, in more ways than one.
I testified at EPA just last month on one especially critical aspect of cleaning up air pollution: the need to establish strong truck pollution standards. EPA’s current proposal is a welcome step forward, but it doesn’t go far enough. The proposal must be strengthened.
Parents across the country want to see a rapid transition to zero-emitting trucks because we need cleaner air for our children and our communities – and we need it now.
I grew up in a family that really, really loved vehicles. My dad is from Michigan, and my grandfather worked for the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, where he curated an extensive collection of car and truck radios. My mother says that when she met her future in-laws for the first time, there were parts of at least 20 different vehicles scattered around the front lawn of their house, and I don’t think she was kidding. To marry into my dad’s side of the family was to marry the vehicles, too.
But as I’ve grown up, I’ve learned that the cars and trucks my dad and grandfather loved are contributing directly to climate change. As a mom, I’m deeply worried about how climate change threatens our children’s future.
The largest source of climate pollution in the U.S. is transportation, responsible for 29% of all climate pollution. Within the transportation sector, heavy-duty vehicles are the second-largest contributor, at 23% (the largest contributor is passenger vehicles). As all the latest research tells us, we are at a critical crossroads with climate change. And a recent North Carolina-specific analysis showed significant health benefits from adopting clean trucks standards.
Cleaner air for North Carolinians will mean that people with asthma and other respiratory conditions can take easier breaths. Asthma rates vary across the state, but the burden of the disease is not evenly distributed: communities of color and low-income communities are most affected by asthma. These are the same communities in our state that will be hit hardest by climate change.
Climate pollution from cars and trucks also impacts our mental health in a number of ways. Here in North Carolina, the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events due to climate change causes stress, trauma, and anxiety for many of us, with some communities, like communities of color and youth being especially impacted. Climate change also sparks feelings of fear and grief for many of us every time we read another troubling climate headline. I imagine I’m not the only person whose heart broke at the recent reports of two houses on North Carolina’s beloved Outer Banks falling into the ocean.
Climate pollution from vehicles may also have a physiological impact on our mental health. Truck emissions contain particulate matter and nitrogen oxides, both of which are associated with adverse mental health impacts. Vehicle emissions contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone (also called smog), and recent research suggests that ozone exposure may be linked to symptoms of depression in young people. Because ground-level ozone forms more easily on hotter days, climate change is making ozone pollution worse.
The science is clear, and it’s telling us: we must do everything within our power to reduce climate pollution as quickly and efficiently as possible to protect our children’s right to a livable future.
America’s love affair with cars and trucks is written into the love stories of my own family, but the only way for the love story to continue with a clear conscience is to make sure our vehicles aren’t harming our families. We need stronger standards to reduce deadly climate pollution from cars and trucks, and we need standards that put our national bus and truck fleet on a clear path to 100% zero-emission vehicles as quickly as possible.
We need stronger truck emissions standards at the state and federal levels to better protect children, people with asthma, and other vulnerable groups from the physical and mental health harms of air pollution. Everyone has the right to breathe easy, and our children deserve to live on a healthy planet.
Elizabeth Bechard is Senior Policy Analyst for Moms Clean Air Force, and the author of the book “Parenting in a Changing Climate: Tools for Cultivating Resilience, Taking Action, and Practicing Hope in the Face of Climate Change.” She lives in Durham, North Carolina, with her husband and young twins.
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