2023届高考英语二轮复习外刊阅读训练学案：全美竟1.2亿人生活在空气污染地区

23年高考英语外刊阅读训练——阅读理解：全美竟1.2亿人生活在空气污染地区 本文节选自：The Guardian（卫报） 发布时间：2023.04.19 作者：Nina Lakhani 原文标题：Nearly 120 million people in US exposed to unhealthy levels of soot and smog – report The climate crisis has upended progress on improving air quality, with one in three Americans currently living in areas with harmful levels of pollutants known to increase the risk of medical emergencies, pregnancy complications and premature death, new research reveals. Almost 120 million people in the US are still exposed to unhealthy levels of soot and smog, according to the annual report by the American Lung Association (ALA), which found that people of color are almost four times more likely to live in the most polluted places than white Americans. The extent to which access to clean air is racialized is stark; people of color account for 54% of those living in counties with failing air quality, despite accounting for just over 40% of the general population. The zip code lottery spotlights decades of racist housing and environmental policies, which have incentivized and enabled polluting infrastructure like highways and railroads, fossil fuel projects and manufacturing plants to be located close to Black, Latin and Indigenous communities. And despite overall improvements in air quality and pollution-related deaths over the past 50 years, the report also highlights a widening disparity between air quality in eastern and western states, especially for soot particles – scientifically known as fine particulate matter or PM2.5. Ten of the 11 most polluted counties are in California where the climate breakdown is fueling wildfires and rising temperatures that are undermining efforts to improve air quality in places like Fresno, San Bernardino, Tulare and Los Angeles. “It is striking and distressing that 120 million people are still at risk from unhealthy air pollution, said Katherine Pruitt, lead author and the ALA’s national senior policy director. “Since around 2017, heat and drough