Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Climate

Wildfire Smoke Is a Wheezy Throwback for New York City

This looks familiar.

Manhattan in the smoggy 1950s and today.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

“An eye-smarting, throat-irritating twilight gray hung over New York, New Jersey, Long Island, and Westchester all day,” reported The New York Times, warning local residents that “today is to be warm, which would prolong the four-day smoky haze plaguing the East.”

True enough. Only, The New York Times published those words … back in 1953.

It’s been smokier in New York than California this year, with the Air Quality Index (AQI) hitting triple digits across the East Coast on Tuesday due to air blowing down from Canada, where there are more than 400 active fires. In addition to triggering a region-wide Air Quality Alert for more than 8 million people, all the smoke gave Manhattan the appearance of being in a brownish cloud:

Before the success of the Clean Air Act, scenes such as these were common over Manhattan — though not due to wildfires. Building incinerators, rampant coal burning, and vehicle emissions would regularly cause stagnant “killer smogs” that made “downtown Manhattan [look] like a Cloud City” during the mid-century. One such event, in 1966, is thought to have killed as many as 400 people.

Smog in 1953.Smog covers New York City in 1953.Library of Congress/Walter Albertin

Smog in 1870.More smog in 1970...Library of Congress/Bernard Gotfryd

Smog in 1973....and again in 1973.The National Archives/Environmental Protection Agency/Wilbert Holman Blanche

The smoke in New York this week is not directly comparable to the 1960s and 1970s in terms of concentration — the inhalable particles (PM 2.5) circulating on Tuesday were concentrated between 52 micrograms of pollutant per one cubic meter of air (that is, “52 µg/m³”) and 70.2µg/m³, depending on time of day and where you were on the East Coast. That’s still over 10 times the World Health Organization’s annual air quality guideline and “unhealthy for sensitive groups,” but a far cry from the 100 to 200 µg/m³ annual average concentration of fine particle pollutants that sickened and killed New Yorkers in the 1960s and 1970s.

Still, wildfire smoke is nothing to sneeze — or rather, cough — at; there is no single AQI number where the air stops being safe to breathe. That said, researchers have estimated that people of all ages are 1% more likely to die of nontraumatic events like a heart attack or stroke on days where the PM2.5 value is above 20.4 μg/m3 (that is, less than half the concentration in New York on Tuesday). The cumulative effect is bad too: People are “2% more likely to die on the day immediately after a smoke event,” Crosscut reports. There are also increased cancer risks from living near wildfires, another study found.

Though there have been major national improvements in air quality, contemporary New Yorkers are still no strangers to bad air, wildfires or no. From gas stoves that renters can’t avoid to subway platforms to trucks, buses, and power plants that spew cancer-causing particulate matter, we may have air that is technically better than our arch-rival Los Angeles’, but it still definitely isn’t great. That gives us all the more reason to pay close attention when it gets even worse.

Some throwbacks should stay in the past.

Blue

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Energy

The IRA’s Home Energy Efficiency Programs Are Still Kicking ... Sort Of

Congress has left well enough alone, but that doesn’t mean funds are necessarily flowing.

Houses.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have done a pretty good job working in tandem to tear down American climate policy. But one key set of clean energy programs has remained relatively unscathed.

The Inflation Reduction Act’s two home energy efficiency rebate programs — one for carbon-cutting appliances and one for whole-home efficiency upgrades — have not been targeted for agency termination or Congressional repeal, or at least not to date.

Keep reading...Show less
Green
Energy

AM Briefing: An Energy Smorgasbord

On a new report from the Energy Institute, high-stakes legislating, and accelerating nuclear development

Global Energy Use Smashes Records Across the Board
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Monsoon rains hit the southwestern U.S., with flash floods in Roswell, New Mexico, and flooding in El Paso, Texas • The Forsyth Fire in Utah has spread to 9,000 acres and is only 5% contained • While temperatures are falling into the low 80s in much of the Northeast, a high of 96 degrees Fahrenheit is forecast for Washington, D.C., where Republicans in the Senate seek to finish their work on the “One Big, Beautiful Bill.”

THE TOP FIVE

1. The world is using a lot of energy — of every kind

The world used more of just about every kind of energy source in 2024, including coal, oil, gas, renewables, hydro, and nuclear, according to the annual Statistical Review of World Energy, released by the Energy Institute. Here are some of the key numbers from the report:

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Carbon Removal

Is It Too Soon for Ocean-Based Carbon Credits?

The science is still out — but some of the industry’s key players are moving ahead regardless.

Pouring a substance into water.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The ocean is by far the world’s largest carbon sink, capturing about 30% of human-caused CO2 emissions and about 90% of the excess heat energy from said emissions. For about as long as scientists have known these numbers, there’s been intrigue around engineering the ocean to absorb even more. And more recently, a few startups have gotten closer to making this a reality.

Last week, one of them got a vote of confidence from leading carbon removal registry Isometric, which for the first time validated “ocean alkalinity enhancement” credits sold by the startup Planetary — 625.6 to be exact, representing 625.6 metric tons of carbon removed. No other registry has issued credits for this type of carbon removal.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue