揭露前22大空氣汙染源

少數工業設施排放了大量的有毒物質和溫室氣體

加入我們的科學愛好者社群!


關於支援科學新聞報道

如果您喜歡這篇文章,請考慮透過以下方式支援我們屢獲殊榮的新聞報道 訂閱。 透過購買訂閱,您將有助於確保未來繼續有關於塑造我們當今世界的發現和想法的具有影響力的報道。


僅100家設施,在20,000家設施中,在2014年產生了美國工業有毒空氣汙染的三分之一。另有100家設施排放了工業溫室氣體排放量的三分之一,在7,000個排放這種氣體的裝置中。根據公共廉正中心建立排名的調查,22個“超級汙染源”站點同時出現在兩個名單上(如下所示)。許多是燃煤發電廠,有些排名靠前是因為它們規模非常大。這個群體對美國工業空氣汙染負有重大責任。(自2014年以來,178家設施中有8家已關閉,但沒有一家是超級汙染源。)該中心的研究人員還使用人口普查資料表明,有毒物質名單上的100家設施中的大多數位於貧困社群,這些社群的收入低於全國平均水平。好訊息是,清理這些站點可以大大減少與呼吸道疾病和該國對氣候變化的貢獻有關的有毒化合物。研究人員表示,現有法規已經足夠,但必須加強執法力度。

圖片來源:Tiffany Farrant-Gonzalez;資料來源:“美國超級汙染源”,作者:Jamie Smith Hopkins。由公共廉正中心於2016年9月29日線上釋出 www.publicintegrity.org/2016/09/29/20248/america-s-super-polluters

Mark Fischetti has been a senior editor at 大眾科學 for 17 years and has covered sustainability issues, including climate, weather, environment, energy, food, water, biodiversity, population, and more. He assigns and edits feature articles, commentaries and news by journalists and scientists and also writes in those formats. He edits History, the magazine's department looking at science advances throughout time. He was founding managing editor of two spinoff magazines: 大眾科學 Mind and 大眾科學 Earth 3.0. His 2001 freelance article for the magazine, "Drowning New Orleans," predicted the widespread disaster that a storm like Hurricane Katrina would impose on the city. His video What Happens to Your Body after You Die?, has more than 12 million views on YouTube. Fischetti has written freelance articles for the New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Smithsonian, Technology Review, Fast Company, and many others. He co-authored the book Weaving the Web with Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, which tells the real story of how the Web was created. He also co-authored The New Killer Diseases with microbiologist Elinor Levy. Fischetti is a former managing editor of IEEE Spectrum Magazine and of Family Business Magazine. He has a physics degree and has twice served as the Attaway Fellow in Civic Culture at Centenary College of Louisiana, which awarded him an honorary doctorate. In 2021 he received the American Geophysical Union's Robert C. Cowen Award for Sustained Achievement in Science Journalism, which celebrates a career of outstanding reporting on the Earth and space sciences. He has appeared on NBC's Meet the Press, CNN, the History Channel, NPR News and many news radio stations. Follow Fischetti on X (formerly Twitter) @markfischetti

More by Mark Fischetti
大眾科學 Magazine Vol 316 Issue 1This article was originally published with the title “Top Air Polluters” in 大眾科學 Magazine Vol. 316 No. 1 (), p. 72
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0117-72
© .