Our kids can’t get enough of their old time summer camp here in southern New Hampshire. There’s swimming and boating, games and pranks, popsicles galore and a talent show to boot. Best of all, the whole thing takes place in the great outdoors where kids belong, especially in summer. Or do they?
Over the course of last week at summer camp, I noticed something peculiar about our six-year-old son. While my wife and I and his two older siblings were fine, and everybody else we had been around for weeks had seemed healthy too, he was developing a cough. In fact, his hacking was bothersome enough that he didn’t want to eat and had trouble falling asleep. He even asked to stay home from camp.
Reading the news the next day, I came across a headline that took my breath away: “Wildfire smoke is like smoking ‘half a pack a day.’” The article noted that when the Air Quality Index reaches 100 to 200, people are exposed to as much air pollution as smoking between five to 10 cigarettes a day.
I promptly checked the stats for our part of southern New Hampshire and was shocked to learn that on two consecutive days last week, the AQI had reached 117 and 113. It came with the warning “unhealthy for sensitive groups.” A review of the American Lung Association’s air quality website provided some helpful context: when AQI is between 101-150, it said, “Children, active adults, and people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should limit prolonged outdoor exertion.” The website said even an AQI of 50 — the lowest level recorded in the area last week — can be damaging for people in sensitive groups.
To back up these claims, the American Lung Association pointed me to a raft of scientific research on the dangers of outdoor air pollution, much of it published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the first Trump administration. In case I doubted the gravity of the matter, the research showed that around 350,000 Americans die each year from fine particle pollution (PM2.5) in the air caused by burning fossil fuels. What’s more, each incremental increase of 50 AQI (corresponding to roughly 10 micrograms of PM2.5) raised the risk of respiratory infections in children by 11 percent and overall cancer by 22 percent. Talk about a suffocating set of studies!
Yes, I had seen the hazy skies while driving to and from work last week and was aware that another year of record wildfires in Canada was to blame, according to WMUR. In fact, I had been shocked that on my return drive west on Route 101 early in the week, when my weather app said there was not a cloud in the sky, the normally blinding afternoon sun looked more like the moon on a clear night. But habits are hard to break and clean air is just one of those things I’ve always taken for granted since growing up in New Hampshire. I couldn’t imagine a bit of haze getting in the way of my kids’ summer outdoors — until that darn cough and the headline about smoking.
As it happens, our family’s experience was hardly unique. As WMUR also reported, local doctors were seeing “double the normal number of patients with respiratory issues” last week and recommending people limit time outdoors, wear a mask, and use indoor air purifiers. Another doctor reported seeing “patients without any risk factors who are coughing and wheezing.”
It would appear that my vision of how a New Hampshire summer should be is sadly out of date. While air quality here is still better than many parts of the country, healthy air is no longer a fact of life in the age of fossil-fueled climate damage causing record heat and drought — the recipe for worsening wildfires, according to NASA. What’s more, recent events in Washington are all but guaranteed to make matters worse.
Last month, Republicans in Congress overcame bipartisan opposition and narrowly passed the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” In addition to making the richest Americans richer by an average $13,600 a year and the poorest Americans poorer by an average $1,200 a year, the bill is a stunning success for the largest emitters of deadly air pollution.
Fossil fuel companies, which generate 85% of airborne fine particle pollution and almost all sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions worldwide, are winning big in Washington. Centuries after the U.S. government first began subsidizing fossil fuels, the oil, coal and gas industries received billions additional tax breaks and incentives under the new law.
In stark contrast, the “Big Beautiful Bill” effectively ends recent federal supports for wind, solar, electric vehicles and energy-efficient buildings, the primary tool Americans have for reducing air pollution while maintaining our quality of life. By radically reducing the growth of wind and solar, which became the cheapest sources of energy in 2017 and provided 93% of new electricity generation capacity last year, the law is projected to increase wholesale electricity rates by 74% in 2035.
For individual families, that means hundreds more dollars in household electricity bills in the coming years. For the economy as a whole, it means $980 billion in lost GDP and 760,000 lost jobs. All told, the 340 gigawatts of lost power generation also means America will face a major strategic setback in the AI race with China, a defining security threat in the 21st century.
Whether you’re sentimental about summer camp or concerned about energy costs or just want to keep your kids safe, I think we can all agree that current policies in Washington and Concord aren’t cutting it. If the party in power won’t stand up against big polluters, let’s hope the people will.
Dan Weeks leads ReVision Impact Partners, which is expanding access to clean energy for nonprofits and low-income communities. He lives in Nashua with his wife and three kids.