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This week ends with a focus on air quality and pollution.
About 44 million Americans live in cities or counties that received a failing grade for air quality, which has deteriorated to its worst in 25 years across a swath of the U.S., in part because of wildfires, according to a recent report.
The American Lung Association's annual "State of the Air" report said cities with the poorest quality air are concentrated in the West, including Los Angeles and San Bernardino in California and Phoenix, Arizona.
Among the places with the highest quality air are Bangor, Maine along with Honolulu, Hawaii, and Wilmington, North Carolina, where ocean breezes tend to disperse pollutants, the report's author Katherine Pruitt, a senior director with the association, said in an interview.
Small particle pollution, or airborne soot, which can come from wildfire smoke as well as other sources, is the main source of the increased pollution, the report said. Small particle pollution "puts a strain on the heart and has been linked to heart attacks and strokes, not to mention lung cancer, low birth weights," Pruitt said. "The list goes on and on".
In keeping with the focus on air quality, the European Parliament this week adopted stricter legally binding air pollution limits that must be complied with by 2030.
The World Health Organization (WHO) tightened its air quality guidelines last year, hoping to push countries toward clean energy and prevent deaths caused by polluted air.
Air pollution causes 300,000 premature deaths in Europe each year. EU Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius said tougher rules could reduce that number by 70% over the next 10 years.
Europe's air quality has improved over the last decade, but the EU has still taken more than 10 countries to court for breaching its limits. The European Court of Justice has found countries including France, Poland, Italy, and Romania guilty of illegal air pollution.
