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This is exactly how the law ought to work. We make exceptions for events that would legitimately obfuscate the data and there is a strict review process (less t
by jjk166 3y ago
This is exactly how the law ought to work. We make exceptions for events that would legitimately obfuscate the data and there is a strict review process (less than 20% of requested exceptions got approved). Increasing numbers of wildfires are a concern, but it's a problem totally unrelated to the EPA's air quality monitoring. The EPA isn't keeping air dirty, it's keeping human activity from making the air excessively more dirty, which is what it's supposed to do.
- jackbravo 3y agoBut, but but. If an event makes the air super dirty, the government should look for ways to make sure we all put our gran of salt on fixing the problem, instead of hiding it.
- rando_dfad 3y ago> the government Agree with your general sentiment; the article headline may be a bit of clickbait. The challenge is what arm of the government has jurisdiction for what cause of harm?
- zeroonetwothree 3y agoAgreed. Must be a slow news day or something? This is a non issue
- mrpopo 3y agoYes, let's keep believing that the increase in wildfires isn't in any way related to human activity at all (climate change and bad forestry practices don't exist). Dust storms in Asia spread further and further (because of deforestation), is that also totally unrelated to human activity?
- malfist 3y agoEPA regulation is not going to reduce wildfires. Conflating it's pollution measurements with those from non-industrial sources just makes EPA's job harder and less meaningful.
- mrpopo 3y agoI was talking about dust storms in my comment, because it happened in the USA as well in the 1930s (dust bowl) and pushed the US government to create the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). The point is that there needs to be a regulatory government tool to assess, measure, predict and prevent human-caused natural pollution, be it from dust storms or wildfires or anything else. If you believe that shouldn't be the EPA's job, then it needs to be someone else's.
- meragrin_ 3y agoHow is including days where Canadian smoke covered Ohio, Pennsylvania, and whatever other states useful in regulating pollution caused by local industry?
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- mrpopo 3y agoI explicitly said that if you think it isn't the EPA's job, then it should be someone else's job, and not just ignored. How do you think this could be tackled? Also, if you have read the article, you could see that Ohio and Pennsylvania were low on the list, with <10 days excluded. California and New Mexico have >50, and that smoke ain't coming from Canada, so your point is deceptive...
- jjk166 3y agoWildfires are handled by the US department of the Interior. That being said, the question "who should tackle forest fires" is completely irrelevant to how the EPA should implement their emissions standards.
- meragrin_ 3y ago> I explicitly said that if you think it isn't the EPA's job, then it should be someone else's job, and not just ignored. How do you think this could be tackled? I did not explicitly say whether it should be the EPA's job or not. The data being nixed is at the local level. No one said it should be ignored at higher levels. > Also, if you have read the article, you could see that Ohio and Pennsylvania were low on the list, with <10 days excluded. California and New Mexico have >50, and that smoke ain't coming from Canada, so your point is deceptive... Sorry, but it is not deceptive. You just seem to fail to understand there can be local level data useful for regulating local companies and macro level data for getting a better overall picture. The article was specifically talking about lower than state level. Should a forest or industrial fire two counties over ruin another county? At least for California, I would imagine the locals have great motivation to have something they have no control over stricken from their record since the state more than likely uses EPA numbers in ways that could hurt them.
- AlgorithmicTime 3y ago[dead]
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- tomatotomato37 3y agoNo, what we should be doing is sorting out the baseline of natural events from the specific events that can be credited to the industries under your jurisdiction, instead of punishing everyone off of whatever gut feeling of environmental virtue you happen to be feeling that day
- jjk166 3y agoNo one is claiming the wildfires are unrelated to human activity, just that they are unrelated to the EPA's emissions standards, which neither regulate the gasses responsible for climate change, nor affect actions in other nations.
- lucideer 3y ago> they are unrelated to the EPA's emissions standards This seems tautological? Surely the proposal here is a change to said standards to increase their utility?
- jjk166 3y agoHow is it tautological? Anthropomorphic climate change is driven by the global emission of greenhouse gasses that have very little direct effect on air quality. These standards are for regulating local emissions of substances that negatively impact local air quality.
- Dylan16807 3y agoClimate change is a driver here, but the smoke itself is local (at least to the same extent as most regulated emissions) and negatively impacts air quality.
- mschuster91 3y agoThe problem is, it makes the data less usable for people depending on actual air quality (e.g. asthmatics). For them, it doesn't matter if they have difficulty breathing because there's a factory running decades old tech upwind or if it is because every year the smoke from wildfires makes everything smell like a badly lit BBQ.
- jjk166 3y agoThe data isn't being deleted, it's being ignored when the EPA needs to determine if pollution controls need to be added. Yes, asthmatics don't care about the source of pollution, but the EPA doesn't care about asthmatics. It's job is regulating human polluters; asthmatics are the concern of the department of health and human services.
- lucideer 3y ago> for events that would legitimately obfuscate the data You'll need to define "legitimately obfuscate" here - presumably you're proposing that a majority of data consumers would consider wildfires irrelevant in their assessment of air quality. Why do you think this? Anecdata but off the top of my head I can only think of data consumption in which wildfires would be relevant - excluding the data gives a harmfully incomplete picture. It also strikes me that data annotation would solve whatever your use-case might be if data needs to be excluded?
- jjk166 3y agoYou seem to be confused, the data isn't being deleted so that no one else can consume it. It is just being annotated to be excluded from the EPA's evaluation of whether stricter pollution controls than already implemented are necessary.
- lucideer 3y ago> whether stricter pollution controls than already implemented are necessary in which case this seems to posit that measures to reduce human causes of wildfires are not valid pollution control measures?
- jjk166 3y agoNo, it's positing that valid pollution control measures don't reduce human caused wildfires. These specific valid pollution control measures are just restrictions on industrial emissions, not "all conceivable pollution controls".
- nerpderp82 3y agoNo, we shouldn't be removing datapoints. If the law says that you can be in-compliance but remove "force majeure" type events, then so be it. But the EPA should be tracking and controlling ALL sources of pollution. This is like politicians deciding PI should be 3. EPA numbers are now meaningless, which is probably the point.