Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Ray Madoff, Professor of Law, Boston College

Law professor Ray Madoff is the co-founder and director of the Boston College Forum on Philanthropy and the Public Good. In an interview with Emily Schwartz Greco, The Conversation U.S. philanthropy and nonprofits editor, Madoff sums up some of the main points about charitable giving she makes in her 2025 book, “The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy.” This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How has charitable giving changed over the past 50 years?

Giving has pretty much remained flat as a percentage of personal disposable income. It’s been stable by that measure at about 2%. What’s changed is where that charitable giving is going.

In the early 1990s, about 6% of all giving was going to intermediaries, like foundations and donor-advised funds, and 94% was going directly to charities: hospitals, universities, churches, organizations curing diseases, all sorts of things.

Donor-advised funds, or DAFs, are charitable investment accounts that can serve many of the functions of a foundation – but with fewer rules and regulations.

Fast-forward to today, and there’s been a huge transformation with dramatic growth in giving to intermediaries. Today, around 40% of U.S. giving from individual donors goes instead to charitable intermediaries, and 60% of those donations go straight to charities.

When money donated to charity through intermediaries primarily went to foundations, those assets were subject to a 5% payout rule. It was imperfect, but still, at least 5% of those funds, for the most part, had to go to charity.

Now, due to the rise of donor-advised funds, none of this money going to intermediaries is subject to payout rules.

That’s because there are no payout rules that apply to donor-advised funds, and foundations can meet their payout minimum by giving to a donor-advised fund.

Charitable giving, in other words, used to be more connected to what I’d call “charitable getting.” Now, the money is often landing in what’s essentially a halfway house, with no obligation to get out.

What is the current state of play with respect to the tax rules governing charitable giving?

There’s a tale of two systems for charitable giving.

Most Americans have no ability to get any tax benefits for their charitable giving, while the wealthiest Americans can get benefits that are worth up to 74% of the value of their donations.

The reason most Americans get no tax benefits is that they can only offset their income tax if they itemize their tax returns, instead of taking the standard deduction.

Prior to the tax reform package that President Donald Trump signed into law in 2017, about 70% took the standard deduction and 30% didn’t. Once those reforms took effect, the share of taxpayers who were itemizing fell below 10%.

The more than 90% of taxpayers who claimed the standard deduction in 2022, for example, couldn’t get any tax breaks tied to their charitable giving.

What do you expect to see change due to provisions in the big tax and spending package that Trump signed into law on July 4, 2025?

The government is adding a new deduction for non-itemizers. Starting in 2026, they will be able to deduct up to US$1,000 of their taxable income when they file their taxes, if they give at least that amount to charity. That means some charitable tax benefits will be available for people who take the standard deduction.

It’s very hard to tell what kind of impact that is going to have.

If charities publicize this, it might encourage some people to give who might not otherwise give to donate. But it could also cause a lot of confusion and make other people think that there is a $1,000 cap on tax benefits for all charitable donations. I think it’s going to be a difficult messaging problem.

As a matter of policy, I also think it’s not very well drafted. I do think we should be giving charitable tax benefits to non-itemizers, but a better format would be to give everybody a tax credit so they have the same dollar-for-dollar benefit, regardless of their income bracket.

And rather than imposing a ceiling, we should impose a floor, as a certain amount of giving is going to happen even with no incentives.

It’s going to be interesting to see what happens.

Are there other policy changes that you support?

I have two proposals.

First, I believe that private foundations and donor-advised funds should have to distribute their funds that are reserved for charity within some set time period.

Second, I think that just as other Americans are subject to limitations on their tax benefits, the wealthiest should be subject to limitations on their tax benefits too.

If it’s important for you and me to help pay down the national debt, then why isn’t it important for Warren Buffett to do so?

Is there a risk that giving might decline due to these changes?

If they had to spend it quickly, maybe there would be less money set aside in these charitable intermediaries.

But if someone has no intention to disburse those funds, then I think it wouldn’t matter that their money is no longer getting halfway to actually being received by charities.

Do you believe that the philanthropy of rich people is helpful?

Philanthropy is often used as shorthand for something that is great for society.

But philanthropy includes a lot of not-great things.

Sometimes people make mistakes. Just because someone is good at making money, it doesn’t mean they’re good at solving other people’s problems.

For example, actor Brad Pitt, maybe with good intentions, decided he was going to fix housing problems after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans’ 9th Ward. He got architects to build houses that are now falling apart. It’s a massive problem.

Sometimes their gifts aren’t so well-intentioned.

Rich philanthropists may donate to groups calling for lower taxes. Or they try to curry favor with the White house by helping pay for the construction of Trump’s new ballroom, which is going to be built with charitable money.

Charity expert Bill Schambra has brought to light what he calls “philanthropy’s original sin: Early U.S. foundations supported eugenics – the pseudoscience movement that sought to encourage “fit” people to have kids and to stop people deemed “unfit” from doing so, sometimes through forced sterilization.

Today, there’s another common problem: the philanthropy of whimsy.

One example is what happened with the nonprofit pre-K-8 school for low-income children in East Palo Alto, California, that Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, funded. He was saying “Oh hey, I think I’m going to solve the problems of poverty in East Palo Alto.” And then, “Oops, I changed my mind.”

The school is slated to close at the end of the 2025-2026 year.

That’s why, generally speaking, I don’t think we should assume that what’s done with philanthropy is better than what’s done with tax dollars.

What about MacKenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife? She’s given about $26 billion to charity since 2019.

I am a big supporter of how MacKenzie Scott does her philanthropic giving. She seems to be trying to do the right thing. She’s trying to build civil society, which I think is good. She’s giving to existing organizations, with no strings attached.

A lot of it is about power. If you give money to institutions, as Scott is doing, then the institutions have power. If you keep the money yourself, and you drip it out, then you have power.

Ray Madoff was an adviser to and supporter of the Initiative to Accelerate Charitable Giving, a coalition of philanthropists, foundations and academics.

– ref. With less charitable giving flowing directly to charities, a tax policy scholar suggests some policy fixes – https://theconversation.com/with-less-charitable-giving-flowing-directly-to-charities-a-tax-policy-scholar-suggests-some-policy-fixes-271677

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Jaclyn L. Tanenbaum, Associate Teaching Professor, Florida International University

Imagine you are searching for a new mattress online and find something surprising. The retailer displays an ad featuring a “Mattress Comfort Scale” running from 1 (soft) to 10 (firm), followed by the message that if your firmness preference is at either end, this mattress is not for you. Wait … what? A retailer telling someone not to buy its product? No way!

Why would a company tell potential buyers that the product might not suit them? Our team of professors – Karen Anne Wallach, Jaclyn L. Tanenbaum and Sean Blair – examines this question in a recently published article in the Journal of Consumer Research.

Marketers spend billions trying to persuade consumers that a product is right for them. But our research shows that sometimes the most effective way to market something is to say that it isn’t for them. In other words, effective marketing can mean discouraging the wrong customers rather than convincing everyone to buy.

We call this “dissuasive framing.” Instead of saying a product is perfect for everyone, a company is up front about who it might not be for. Surprisingly, that simple shift can make a big difference.

We ran experiments comparing ads with dissuasive versus persuasive framing. For example, one coffee ad said, “If you like dark roast, this is the coffee for you.” Another said, “If you don’t like dark roast, this isn’t the coffee for you.” Most marketers assume the first version would work better. But for people who prefer dark roast, the second message outperformed it.

Across different products, from salsa to mattresses, and in a real Facebook campaign for a toothbrush brand, we consistently saw the same results. The dissuasive ad drove more engagement and clicks, making the brand feel more specialized and its product more appealing for the right customers.

Why? You might think it’s about fear of missing out, or reverse psychology, but we ruled out those explanations. Instead, we found that what really drives the effect is the perception of a stronger match between personal preference and product attributes.

When a message signals that a product may not suit everyone, consumers see it as more focused on a specific set of preferences. This sense of focus, which we call “target specificity,” makes the product feel like a better match for customers whose preferences align with it. For others, it feels less relevant, which helps companies reach their goal of attracting those who are most likely to buy.

Our results show a clear trend: When companies set boundaries in their messages, products appear more focused. This messaging strategy makes the intended customer feel like the product is a better match for them. People assume that if a product isn’t meant for everyone, it must be more specialized. That sense of specificity makes those in the target audience feel the product was designed just for them.

Why it matters

These findings challenge one of marketing’s most enduring assumptions: that effective marketing comes from directly persuading customers that a product matches their needs. In today’s crowded marketplace, where nearly every brand claims to be “for you,” dissuasive messaging offers an alternative. By clearly signaling that a product may not be right for customers with different preferences, brands can communicate focus and specialization. Consumers see this as a sign that the company understands its own product and who it will best serve.

Our work also helps explain how people make what psychologists call compensatory inferences. This means consumers often believe that when a product tries to do too many things, it ends up doing each of them less well. Think of an all-in-one tool that can cut, twist, open and file – but few would say it performs any of those tasks better than the dedicated tool.

From a practical standpoint, dissuasive framing helps marketers communicate more effectively by defining the boundaries of their product’s appeal. In doing so, brands can build trust, strengthen connections with the right customers, and avoid spending their marketing dollars on those unlikely to purchase.

What still isn’t known

Our research focused on products with clear attributes, such as taste or comfort, and on consumers who already knew their preferences. Future work could test how this approach works when people are less certain about what they like or when choices reflect self-expression rather than product fit.

Even with these open questions, one conclusion stands out. Defining whom a product is not for can help the right customers see that it truly fits them. By focusing on preference matching rather than universal appeal, brands can make their messages more targeted, more efficient and ultimately more effective. In other words, telling the wrong customers “This isn’t for you” can actually help the right ones feel that it is.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. ‘If you don’t like dark roast, this isn’t the coffee for you’: How exclusionary ads can win over the right customers – https://theconversation.com/if-you-dont-like-dark-roast-this-isnt-the-coffee-for-you-how-exclusionary-ads-can-win-over-the-right-customers-269080

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Laura Baehr, Assistant Professor of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences, Drexel University

One in five Philadelphians are age 60 or older, and the city’s senior population has been growing for at least the past decade.

I’m a Philly-based physical therapist and researcher who studies how to boost physical activity for seniors and people with disabilities. Patients, participants in the studies I conduct, and older community members alike often ask me: “What should I do to stay healthy?”

My answer is simple: Movement is one of the most powerful tools we have to support our bodies and minds, and to stay independent as we grow older.

The World Health Organization recommends that all adults, no matter their age, should aim for at least 150 minutes of cardio activities per week, and strength training twice a week. Older adults should also practice balance training through activities like tai chi, yoga or dance to prevent falls.

But most older adults don’t meet all these metrics. In fact, in Philadelphia, 30% of seniors report having difficulty with mobility activities like walking or climbing stairs.

While staying active is key to aging independently, the environments where we live also influence these outcomes. Think about “blue zones,” places where some of the healthiest and longest-living people in the world reside. They usually live longer because of a combination of social connections, movement opportunities and diets.

Philly is definitely not a blue zone, but there are pros to moving through your golden years here … and some cons.

Urban infrastructure

Philadelphia’s regular street grid, close neighborhoods and the fact that much of Center City is accessible by foot help explain why Philly was named the most walkable city in the U.S. by USA Today for the past three years.

If you’re taking in the city on foot, you’re very likely to stumble upon a public park like one of the five historic squares designed by William Penn in the 1680s, the massive Fairmount Park – which is over 10 times the size of Central Park in New York – or the bustling Clark Park in West Philadelphia, among others.

In fact, 95% of all Philadelphia residents – and 94% of those 65 and older – live within a 10-minute walk of a public park. However, those parks tend to be smaller and lower-quality for people in low-income neighborhoods.

Philly’s public transit system, however, tends to receive less praise.

In the beginning of 2025, over 700,000 people rode some form of Southeastern Pennsylvania Public Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, public transit daily. But this year was marked by dramatic service cuts – though they were quickly reversed – funding uncertainty and fare increases.

Public transportation is directly linked to the overall health of a city and its residents. Healthy public transportation can stimulate local economies, improve air quality and increase access to work, school and health care for everyone, whether they own a car or not.

And the physical activity often required to get to and from a bus, train or trolley stop can provide some extra movement for riders.

Since older adults make up a significant portion of SEPTA riders, service cuts mean that some seniors cannot get where they need to go, are less physically active and may become lonelier.

Of course, Philly’s historic cobblestone streets, narrow alleyways and uneven sidewalks aren’t wheelchair- or cane-friendly, and are a challenge for people with mobility limitations. However, in 2023, Philadelphia settled a class action lawsuit over inaccessible sidewalks and curb ramps that resulted in a federal mandate that requires the city to install or fix 10,000 curb ramps by 2038. Philly has installed or fixed about 25% of that total so far.

Philadelphia also has many historic buildings, and this designation allows for a loophole to Americans with Disabilities Act compliance laws. These buildings are often inaccessible to people who use wheelchairs or other mobility devices.

Services for seniors

In 2011, Philly launched the Mayor’s Commission on Aging to support policies and projects that aim to improve the quality of life of older adults.

At the time, the U.S. was experiencing a massive shift in demographics. The number of adults age 65 and older grew by nearly 40% from 2010 to 2020. According to research from the Pew Charitable Trusts, Philly experienced a similar, albeit less dramatic, upward trend. The city’s senior population grew by 22% from 2013 to 2023.

The Mayor’s Commission on Aging advocates for older residents and often partners with agencies like the Philadelphia Corporation on Aging that focus on seniors. PCA offers several programs to support senior independence and wellness, such as the Senior Housing Assistance Repair Program and the Caregiver Support Program, which provides help for the family and friends who support seniors.

PCA also oversees 28 senior community centers throughout the city. Each of the centers offers a variety of free or low-cost classes, including nationally recognized physical activity programs that improve strength, balance, quality of life and other important health metrics for older adults.

The Salvation Army Kroc Center of Philadelphia in North Philadelphia is another great resource for older Philadelphians. The state-of-the-art health club offers fitness, swimming and gardening opportunities. An annual membership is US$451 for adults over age 62, and the club accepts some insurance wellness benefits.

In 2026, I will partner with the Kroc Center to launch Bingocize, an evidence-based physical activity program for older adults, as part of a research study funded by the Arthritis Foundation. We hope to find out if the new program boosts physical function and physical activity, and improves arthritis symptoms and quality of life. We’re also looking at what factors will make the program sustainable at the Kroc Center long after the study is over.

I believe Philly has more work to do when it comes to providing seniors access to physical activities that promote healthy aging. But the seeds planted over a decade ago to protect and support the city’s rapidly growing aging population demonstrate a commitment to positive change, and an understanding that where we live affects individual and collective health.

Read more of our stories about Philadelphia, or sign up for our Philadelphia newsletter on Substack.

Laura Baehr receives funding from the Department of Defense, the Arthritis Foundation, and the Clinician-Scientists Transdisciplinary Aging Research Coordinating Center (a National Institutes of Health National Institute on Aging funded center).

Laura Baehr has worked with the Philadelphia Mayor’s Commission on Aging and with Philadelphia Corporation on Aging.

– ref. Philly’s walkable streets and public parks offer older residents chances to stay active – but public transit and accessibility pose challenges – https://theconversation.com/phillys-walkable-streets-and-public-parks-offer-older-residents-chances-to-stay-active-but-public-transit-and-accessibility-pose-challenges-270038

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Jennifer Morgan, Senior Fellow, Center for International Environment and Resource Policy and Climate Policy Lab, Tufts University

Two years ago, countries around the world set a goal of “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner.” The plan included tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency gains by 2030 – important steps for slowing climate change since the energy sector makes up about 75% of the global carbon dioxide emissions that are heating up the planet.

The world is making progress: More than 90% of new power capacity added in 2024 came from renewable energy sources, and 2025 saw similar growth.

However, fossil fuel production is also still expanding. And the United States, the world’s leading producer of both oil and natural gas, is now aggressively pressuring countries to keep buying and burning fossil fuels.

The energy transition was not meant to be a main topic when world leaders and negotiators met at the 2025 United Nations climate summit, COP30, in November in Belém, Brazil. But it took center stage from the start to the very end, bringing attention to the real-world geopolitical energy debate underway and the stakes at hand.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva began the conference by calling for the creation of a formal road map, essentially a strategic process in which countries could participate to “overcome dependence on fossil fuels.” It would take the global decision to transition away from fossil fuels from words to action.

More than 80 countries said they supported the idea, ranging from vulnerable small island nations like Vanuatu that are losing land and lives from sea level rise and more intense storms, to countries like Kenya that see business opportunities in clean energy, to Australia, a large fossil-fuel-producing country.

Opposition, led by the Arab Group’s oil- and gas-producing countries, kept any mention of a “road map” energy transition plan out of the final agreement from the climate conference, but supporters are pushing ahead.

I was in Belém for COP30, and I follow developments closely as former special climate envoy and head of delegation for Germany and senior fellow at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. The fight over whether there should even be a road map shows how much countries that depend on fossil fuels are working to slow down the transition, and how others are positioning themselves to benefit from the growth of renewables. And it is a key area to watch in 2026.

The battle between electro-states and petro-states

Brazilian diplomat and COP30 President André Aranha Corrêa do Lago has committed to lead an effort in 2026 to create two road maps: one on halting and reversing deforestation and another on transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner.

What those road maps will look like is still unclear. They are likely to be centered on a process for countries to discuss and debate how to reverse deforestation and phase out fossil fuels.

Over the coming months, Corrêa plans to convene high-level meetings among global leaders, including fossil fuel producers and consumers, international organizations, industries, workers, scholars and advocacy groups.

For the road map to both be accepted and be useful, the process will need to address the global market issues of supply and demand, as well as equity. For example, in some fossil fuel-producing countries, oil, gas or coal revenues are the main source of income. What can the road ahead look like for those countries that will need to diversify their economies?

Nigeria is an interesting case study for weighing that question.

Oil exports consistently provide the bulk of Nigeria’s revenue, accounting for around 80% to over 90% of total government revenue and foreign exchange earnings. At the same time, roughly 39% of Nigeria’s population has no access to electricity, which is the highest proportion of people without electricity of any nation. And Nigeria possesses abundant renewable energy resources across the country, which are largely untapped: solar, hydro, geothermal and wind, providing new opportunities.

What a road map might look like

In Belém, representatives talked about creating a road map that would be science-based and aligned with the Paris climate agreement, and would include various pathways to achieve a just transition for fossil-fuel-dependent regions.

Some inspiration for helping fossil-fuel-producing countries transition to cleaner energy could come from Brazil and Norway.

In Brazil, Lula asked his ministries to prepare guidelines for developing a road map for gradually reducing Brazil’s dependency on fossil fuels and find a way to financially support the changes.

His decree specifically mentions creating an energy transition fund, which could be supported by government revenues from oil and gas exploration. While Brazil supports moving away from fossil fuels, it is also still a large oil producer and recently approved new exploratory drilling near the mouth of the Amazon River.

Norway, a major oil and gas producer, is establishing a formal transition commission to study and plan its economy’s shift away from fossil fuels, particularly focusing on how the workforce and the natural resources of Norway can be used more effectively to create new and different jobs.

Both countries are just getting started, but their work could help point the way for other countries and inform a global road map process.

The European Union has implemented a series of policies and laws aimed at reducing fossil fuel demand. It has a target for 42.5% of its energy to come from renewable sources by 2030. And its EU Emissions Trading System, which steadily reduces the emissions that companies can emit, will soon be expanded to cover housing and transportation. The Emissions Trading System already includes power generation, energy-intensive industry and civil aviation.

Fossil fuel and renewable energy growth ahead

In the U.S., the Trump administration has made clear through its policymaking and diplomacy that it is pursuing the opposite approach: to keep fossil fuels as the main energy source for decades to come.

The International Energy Agency still expects to see renewable energy grow faster than any other major energy source in all scenarios going forward, as renewable energy’s lower costs make it an attractive option in many countries. Globally, the agency expects investment in renewable energy in 2025 to be twice that of fossil fuels.

At the same time, however, fossil fuel investments are also rising with fast-growing energy demand.

The IEA’s World Energy Outlook described a surge in new funding for liquefied natural gas, or LNG, projects in 2025. It now expects a 50% increase in global LNG supply by 2030, about half of that from the U.S. However, the World Energy Outlook notes that “questions still linger about where all the new LNG will go” once it’s produced.

What to watch for

The Belém road map dialogue and how it balances countries’ needs will reflect on the world’s ability to handle climate change.

Corrêa plans to report on its progress at the next annual U.N. climate conference, COP31, in late 2026. The conference will be hosted by Turkey, but Australia, which supported the call for a road map, will be leading the negotiations.

With more time to discuss and prepare, COP31 may just bring a transition away from fossil fuels back into the global negotiations.

Jennifer Morgan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The battle over a global energy transition is on between petro-states and electro-states – here’s what to watch for in 2026 – https://theconversation.com/the-battle-over-a-global-energy-transition-is-on-between-petro-states-and-electro-states-heres-what-to-watch-for-in-2026-272205

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Yifang Zhu, Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles

When wildfires began racing through the Los Angeles area on Jan. 7, 2025, the scope of the disaster caught residents by surprise. Forecasters had warned about high winds and exceptionally dry conditions, but few people expected to see smoke and fires for weeks in one of America’s largest metro areas.

Environmental health scientist Yifang Zhu studies air quality at UCLA and began collecting samples from inside and outside homes the day after the fires began. In this Q&A, she describes findings by her team, a consortium of universities and local projects, that are painting a picture of the health risks millions of Los Angeles-area residents faced.

Their research offers both a warning and steps people everywhere can take to protect their homes and themselves from wildfire smoke in the future.

What made the LA fires unusual?

Urban fires are unique in a sense that it’s not just trees and other biomass burning. When homes and vehicles catch fire, plastics, electronics, cleaning chemicals, paints, textiles, construction material and much more burns, releasing chemicals and metals into the air.

More than 16,000 buildings burned in LA. Electric vehicles burned. A dental clinic burned. All of this gets mixed into the smoke in complicated ways, creating complex mixtures that can have definite health risks.

One thing we’ve found that is especially important for people to understand is that the concentration of these chemicals and metals can actually be higher inside homes compared with outside after a fire.

What are your health studies trying to learn?

To understand the health risks from air pollution, you need to know what people are exposed to and how much of it.

The LA Fire HEALTH Study, which I’m part of, is a 10-year project combining the work of exposure scientists and health researchers from several universities who are studying the long-term effects of the fire. Many other community and health groups are also working hard to help communities recover. A local program called CAP.LA, or Community Action Program Los Angeles, is supporting some of my work, including establishing a real-time air quality monitoring network in the Palisades area called CAP AIR.

During an active wildfire, it’s extremely difficult to collect high-quality air samples. Access is restricted, conditions change quickly, and research resources are often limited and take time to assemble. When the fires broke out not far from my lab at UCLA, my colleagues and I had been preparing for a different study and were able to quickly shift focus and start collecting samples to directly measure people’s exposure to metals and chemicals near and around the fires.

My group has been working with people whose homes were exposed to smoke but didn’t burn and collecting samples over time to understand the smoke’s effects. We’re primarily testing for volatile organic compounds off-gassing from soft goods – things like pillows, textiles and stuffed animals that are likely to absorb compounds from the smoke.

Our testing found volatile organic compounds that were at high levels outdoors during the active fire were still high indoors in February, after the fires were contained. When a Harvard University team led by environmental scientist Joe Allen took samples in March and April, they saw a similar pattern, with indoor levels still high.

What health risks did your team find in homes?

We have found high levels of different kinds of volatile organic compounds, which have different health risks. Some are carcinogens, like benzene. We have also found metals like arsenic, a known carcinogen, and lead, which is a neurotoxin.

Mike Kleeman, an air quality engineer at the University of California Davis, found elevated levels of hexavalent chromium in the nanometer-size range, which can be a really dangerous carcinogen. In March, he drove around collecting air samples from a burn zone. That was testing which government agencies would not have routinely done.

Fires have a long list of toxic compounds, and many of them aren’t being measured.

What do you want people to take away from these results?

People are exposed to many types of volatile organic compounds in their daily lives, but after wildfires, the indoor VOC levels can be much, much higher.

I think that’s a big public health message from the LA fires that people really need to know.

In general, people tend to think the outdoor air is worse for their health, particularly in a place like LA, but often, the indoor air is less healthy because there are several chemical emission sources right there and it’s an enclosed space.

Think about cooking with a gas stove, or burning candles or spraying air fresheners. All of these are putting pollutants into the air. Indoor pollution sources like cleaning fluids and PFAS from furniture and carpets are all around.

We often hear from people who are really worried about the air quality outside and its health risk during fires, but you need to think about the air indoors too.

What are some tips for people dealing with fires?

The LA fires have given us lots of insights into how to restore homes after smoke damage and what can be cleaned up, or remediated. One thing we want to do is develop an easy-to-follow decision tree or playbook that can help guide future fire recovery.

When the fires broke out, even I had to think about the actions I should take to reduce the smoke’s potential impact, and I study these risks.

First, close all your windows during the wildfire. If you have electricity, keep air purifiers running. That could help capture smoke that does get into the home before it soaks into soft materials.

Once the outside air is clean enough, then open those windows again to ventilate the house. Be sure to clean your HVAC system and replace filters, because the smoke leaves debris. If the home is severely impacted by smoke, some items will have to be removed, but not in every case.

And you definitely need to do testing. A home might seem fine when you look at it, but our testing showed how textiles and upholstery inside can continue off-gassing chemicals for weeks or longer.

But many people don’t have their homes tested after wildfires. They might not know how to read the results or trust the results. Remediation can also be expensive, and some insurance companies won’t cover it. There are probably people who don’t know whether their homes are safe at this point.

So there needs to be a clear path for recovery, with contamination levels to watch for and advice for finding help.

This is not going to be the last fire in the Los Angeles area, and LA will not be the last city to experience fire.

Yifang Zhu is working with CAP.LA (Community Action Project Los Angeles), which is funded by the R&S Kayne Foundation, and the LA Fire Health Study, which is funded by private philanthropists, including the Speigel Family Fund. Her work has also been partially funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Danhakl Family Foundation, and the California Air Resources Board.

– ref. LA fires: Chemicals from the smoke lingered inside homes long after the wildfires were out – studies tracked the harm – https://theconversation.com/la-fires-chemicals-from-the-smoke-lingered-inside-homes-long-after-the-wildfires-were-out-studies-tracked-the-harm-272473

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Brandon Rottinghaus, Professor of Political Science, University of Houston

Donald Trump joked in 2016 that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and not lose support. In 2024, after two impeachments and 34 felony convictions, he has more or less proved the point. He not only returned to the White House, he turned his mug shot into décor, hanging it outside the Oval Office like a trophy.

He’s not alone. Many politicians are ensnared in scandal, but they seldom pay the same kind of cost their forebears might have 20 or 30 years ago. My research, which draws on 50 years of verified political scandals at the state and national levels, national surveys and an expert poll, reaches a clear and somewhat unsettling conclusion.

In today’s polarized America, scandals hurt less, fade faster and rarely end political careers.

New York’s Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey’s Jim McGreevey both resigned as governors due to sex scandals, only to run again this year for mayoral posts. Both lost. Cuomo sought to replace New York Mayor Eric Adams, who never stepped down despite being indicted – with charges later dropped – in a corruption case that engulfed much of his administration.

The adulterous state attorney general from Texas, Ken Paxton, survived an impeachment vote in 2023 over bribery and abuse of office and is now running for the U.S. Senate. The list goes on – proof that scandal rarely ends a political career.

When scandals still mattered

For most of the previous half-century, scandals had real bite.

Watergate, which involved an administration spying on its political enemies, knocked out President Richard M. Nixon. The Keating Five banking scandal of the 1980s reshaped the Senate, damaging the careers of most of the prominent senators who intervened with regulators to help a campaign contributor later convicted of fraud.

Members of Congress referred to the House ethics committee were far less likely to keep their seats. Governors, speakers and cabinet officials ensnared in scandal routinely resigned. The nation understood scandal as a serious breach of public trust, not a potential fundraising opportunity.

But beginning in the late 1990s and accelerating throughout the Trump era, something changed.

According to my dataset of more than 800 scandals involving presidents, governors and members of Congress, politicians in recent decades have survived scandals for longer periods of time and ultimately faced fewer consequences.

Even at the presidential level – where personal legacy should, in theory, be most sensitive – scandals barely leave a dent. Trump and his supporters have worn his legal attacks as a badge of honor, taking them as proof that an insidious swamp has conspired against him.

This isn’t just a quirk of modern politics. As a political scientist, I believe it’s a threat to democratic accountability. Accountability holds politicians, and the political system, to legal, moral and ethical standards. Without these checks, the people lose their power.

To salvage the basic idea that wrongdoing still matters, the nation will need to figure out how to Make Scandals Great Again – not in the partisan sense but in the civic one.

As a start, both parties could commit to basic red lines – bribery, abuse of office, exploitation – where resignation is expected, not optional. This would send a signal to voters about when to take charges seriously. That matters because, while voters can forgive mistakes, they shouldn’t excuse corruption.

A tribal cue, not an ethical event

Why the new imperviousness?

Partisanship is the main culprit. Today’s voters don’t evaluate scandal as citizens; they evaluate it as fans. Democrats and Republicans seek to punish misdeeds by the other side but rationalize them for their own.

This selective morality is the engine of “affective polarization,” a political science term describing the intense dislike of the opposing party that now defines American politics. A scandal becomes less an ethical event than a tribal cue. If it hurts my enemy, I’m outraged. If it hurts my ally, it’s probably exaggerated, unfair or just fake.

The nation’s siloed and shrinking media environment accelerates this trend. News consumers drift toward outlets that favor their politics, giving them a partial view of possible wrongdoing. Local journalism, formerly the institution most responsible for uncovering wrongdoing, has been gutted. A typical House scandal once generated 70 or more stories in a district’s largest newspaper. Today, it averages around 23.

Evaluating surveys of presidency scholars, I found that economic growth, time in office, war leadership and perceived intellectual ability all meaningfully shape presidential greatness. Scandals, by comparison, barely move the needle.

Warren G. Harding still gets dinged for Teapot Dome, a major corruption scandal a century ago, and Nixon remains defined by Watergate. But for most modern presidents, scandal is just one more piece of noise in an already overwhelming media environment.

At the same time, partisan media ecosystems reinforce voters’ instincts. For many voters, negative coverage of a fellow partisan is not a warning sign. As with Trump, it can be a badge of honor, proof that the so-called establishment fears their champion.

The incentive structure flips. Instead of shrinking from scandal and behavior that could once have ended careers, politicians learn to exploit it. As Texas governor a decade ago, Rick Perry printed his felony mug shot on a T-shirt for supporters. Trump’s best fundraising days corresponded directly to his criminal court appearances.

Making scandals resonate

Even when the evidence is clear-cut, the public’s memory isn’t.

Voters forget scandals that should matter but vividly remember ones that fit their partisan worldview, sometimes even when memory contradicts fact. Years after Trump left office, more Republicans believed his false claims – about the 2020 election, cures for COVID-19 and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot – than during his presidency. The longer the scandal drags on, the foggier the details become, making it easier for partisans to reshape the narrative.

The problem isn’t that America has too many scandals. It’s that the consequences no longer match the misdeeds.

But the story isn’t hopeless. Scandals still matter under certain conditions – particularly when they involve clear abuses of power or financial corruption and, crucially, when voters actually learn credible details. And political scientists have long known that scandals can produce real benefit. They expose wrongdoing, prompt reforms, sharpen voter attention and remind citizens that institutions need scrutiny.

So, what would it take to Make Scandals Great Again, not as spectacle but as accountability?

One step would be to rebuild the watchdogs. Local journalism could use investment, including through nonprofit models and philanthropy.

Second, it’s important that ethics enforcement maintains independence from the political actors it polices. Letting lawmakers investigate themselves guarantees selective outrage. At the same time, however, political parties could play a role in restoring trust by calling out their own, increasing their own accountability by lamenting real offenses among their own members.

Political scandals will never disappear from American life. But for them to serve as silver linings – and, ultimately, to protect public trust – the conditions that give them meaning require restoration. That could foster a political culture where wrongdoing still carries a price and where truth can pierce through the noise long enough for the public to hear it.

Brandon Rottinghaus does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Voters shrug off scandals, paying a price in lost trust – https://theconversation.com/voters-shrug-off-scandals-paying-a-price-in-lost-trust-271077

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Devon Akmon, Director of the MSU Museum and CoLab Studio, Michigan State University

Across the United States, political polarization has deepened to historic levels. In a report published in May 2025, the Pew Research Center found that Americans are more divided and less trusting of one another than at any point in recent decades. Yet museums remain among the few places where curiosity still draws people across political and cultural lines.

Ninety-two percent of adults view museums as nonpartisan sources of education, according to a report from Wilkening Consulting. People also trust museums for presenting fact-based, authentic and research-driven information. Ninety-six percent of Americans say they would support lawmakers who fund museums, and 97% see museums as vital educational assets to their communities. These findings place museums among the most trusted institutions in American life, ranking just behind friends and family.

That rare level of confidence gives museums both an opportunity and a responsibility. As debates over science, history and art intensify, they are being called upon to do something more fundamental: to model how people might think and listen together.

As director of the Michigan State University Museum in East Lansing, and core faculty in the Arts, Cultural Management and Museum Studies program at MSU, I see every day how these spaces can foster understanding.

Questioning algorithms, fostering dialogue

At the MSU Museum, an upcoming exhibition titled “Blurred Realities” will ask a question that feels urgent far beyond its gallery walls: How do we decide what is true?

Opening in January 2026, “Blurred Realities” examines how information, bias and technology shape people’s understanding of the world. Rather than advancing a single authoritative narrative, the exhibition creates space for inquiry, encouraging visitors to reflect on how beliefs are formed, how digital systems influence perception, and how imagination reshapes memory and identity. In doing so, the exhibition invites thoughtful engagement with the stories, data and algorithms that shape contemporary life, and considers what it means to navigate truth in an increasingly complex information environment.

Central to this effort are the museum’s “CoLaborators,” a team of college students trained to facilitate small, idea-driven conversations that encourage curiosity and exchange between museum visitors. They engage guests in open conversations that respond to their interests in the moment. This approach differs from the traditional docent model, which often centers on the transmission of information. Instead, the students’ work transforms the gallery into a living forum where questions matter more than conclusions.

In my experience, this is just one of many ways that museums are engaging the communities they serve to explore timely and relevant topics that shape contemporary life.

Catalysts for civic connection

Museums have long been places to explore the natural world, cultural artifacts and scientific discovery.

History museums have hosted community storytelling projects. An excellent example is the “Your Story, Our Story” project led by the Tenement Museum in New York.

Science museums, including the Natural History Museum of Utah, have led public discussions on climate change.

Art and history museums have opened their galleries and programming spaces to conversations about identity and belonging. The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History held an exhibition centered on Detroiters exonerated of crimes and themes of justice, identity and renewal.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services describes museums and libraries as community catalysts that support social well-being through cultural engagement, shared identity and social connection. In a time when public debate often happens online, in anger and lacking nuance, museums offer something different: a physical place where curiosity can thrive and where people can pause, reflect and listen.

The more than 35,000 museums across the United States represent a remarkably broad and diverse field, rooted in communities of every size and serving people where they live and learn. Their core work has traditionally focused on collecting, researching, preserving and interpreting objects of historical, cultural and scientific significance.

As social divisions grow, they are becoming important forms of social infrastructure where people can encounter different perspectives. In many cases, their roles are also expanding as museums help the public engage with the pressing questions of our time.

The Association of Science and Technology Centers notes that rising mistrust in institutions, the spread of misinformation and the weakening of shared public spaces are creating new challenges for organizations that engage the public. In recent years, these trends are prompting museums to think about their role in supporting connection and understanding. Across the country, institutions that once focused mainly on preservation and education are reframing their purpose to include convening civic dialogue and helping visitors navigate complex issues together.

Preserving trust in an age of discontent

As museums step more visibly into the civic sphere, they also face new pressures. Efforts to engage with difficult topics can draw criticism from across the political spectrum.

Some question why museums address issues like race, climate or misinformation at all, while others expect them to go further. The result can be a delicate balance between maintaining trust and remaining relevant. Staff and volunteers are expected to create inclusive environments while navigating limited resources, public scrutiny and, sometimes, personal attacks. Smaller institutions may lack the capacity to sustain long-term partnerships or withstand political pushback.

I believe avoiding these conversations carries its own risks. It can reinforce perceptions that museums are detached from the realities of the communities they serve. The key question we ask ourselves at the MSU Museum is not whether to engage with societal issues, but how to do so with care, humility and authenticity. That involves listening as much as leading and viewing dialogue itself as part of our educational mission.

At a moment when trust in public institutions is fragile, museums hold a rare and valuable position. They are places where people still expect to learn something new and to encounter ideas different from their own. When museums invite visitors to think together about complex issues, whether through exhibitions, conversations or community partnerships, they help nurture the habits of curiosity and empathy that democracy depend on. These interactions may not resolve polarization, but they can model a more constructive way of engaging with difference.

Within a museum’s walls, people can explore difficult ideas without the noise of argument or the demand to take sides. In doing so, museums continue their essential work, not only preserving the past but helping us imagine a shared future built on understanding, curiosity and trust.

“Blurred Realities” is on view at the Michigan State University Museum in East Lasing, Michigan, from Jan. 15 to July 18, 2026.

Read more of our stories about Michigan.

Devon Akmon is the board chair for the American Alliance of Museums.

– ref. How museums can help rebuild trust in a divided America – https://theconversation.com/how-museums-can-help-rebuild-trust-in-a-divided-america-268466

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Linda Bartoshuk, Research Professor of Psychology, George Washington University

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com.

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Why does orange juice taste bad after you brush your teeth? – Seth G., age 10, Bloomington, Indiana

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It’s a mistake you hopefully only make once. In your morning rush to get ready, you brush your teeth before you head to the kitchen and down a big glass of orange juice. Yuck!

What makes your clean, minty mouth taste so gross when it meets OJ?

The short answer is that toothpaste contains a detergent that dissolves fat. And since your taste buds are partly made of fat, they are disrupted whenever you brush your teeth.

Before you decide you need to stop brushing your teeth to save your taste buds, know that this disruption is temporary, lasting only a few minutes. Brushing with toothpaste is still important for your health.

But how does this change in taste happen? And how are the taste receptors that are all over the surface of your tongue supposed to work?

I’m a psychologist, and I’ve spent more than 40 years researching the science of how people experience taste and flavor.

Let’s look at the science behind this phenomenon:

A bittersweet symphony

Thanks to evolution, your brain is wired to make you love the sweet sugars your body and brain need for fuel and hate the bitter poisons than could kill you. So your receptors for these two particular tastes are vital to your survival.

All of the cells in your body are held together by an outer layer, known as the membrane, that is made up of fats called lipids. And in sweet or bitter taste receptor cells, the cell membranes also contain a special molecule called a G protein-coupled receptor, or GPCR.

Some GPCRs are designed to detect sweet tastes. They tune out all compounds that aren’t sweet and respond only to the sugars your body can use. Others detect bitter tastes, tuning in to the large number of compounds in nature that are poisonous. They act as a built-in alarm system.

Salty chips and sour candies

Your perception of saltiness and sourness happens a little differently. These tastes are detected when positively charged ions called cations pass through tiny openings in the cell membrane of your salty and sour receptors.

In the case of saltiness, the cation is the positively charged sodium found in sodium chloride – common table salt.

For acidic, or sour, tastes, the cation is a positively charged hydrogen ion. While different types of acids may contain different chemical compounds, they all contain the hydrogen cation.

When you eat potato chips, the positively charged sodium cations from the salt pass through special openings in a receptor’s membrane, producing the salty taste. Similarly, the hydrogen cations in your favorite sour candy slip through other special openings in your sour receptor’s membrane and send a “sour” signal to your brain.

Toothpaste and OJ

The orange juice that many people like to drink with breakfast is naturally high in sugar. But it also contains citric acid, with its hydrogen cations. As a result, it’s a delicious combination of both sweet and a little sour.

But if you brush your teeth before breakfast, your OJ tastes terrible. What’s changed?

It’s not just that minty tastes clash with sweet ones. Toothpaste contains the detergent sodium lauryl sulfate, which helps remove dental plaque from your teeth. Plaque is the sticky film of germs that can cause cavities and make your breath smell bad.

If you ever do the dishes, you’ve probably seen what happens when you squirt detergent into a sink full of greasy water: The detergent breaks up the greasy fat, making it easy to wipe it off the dishes and rinse them clean.

But there’s another type of fat in your mouth that the detergent in toothpaste disrupts – the lipids in the cell membranes of your taste receptors. Brushing your teeth breaks up that layer of lipids, temporarily changing how you perceive taste.

Testing it out

Back in 1980, I conducted a study with a couple of my colleagues who were studying chemistry. We wanted to know how the tongue responds to sweet, bitter, salty and sour after being exposed to sodium lauryl sulfate, the detergent in toothpaste.

We conducted an experiment with seven student volunteers at Yale. They tasted very high concentrations of sweet sucrose, sour citric acid, salt and bitter quinine, both before and after holding a solution (0.05%) of sodium lauryl sulfate in their mouths for one minute.

You could conduct your own version of this experiment with something sweet like sugar, a little table salt, orange juice and tonic water. Taste them before you brush your teeth and then after, and see what happens!

We found that the intensity of the tastes of sucrose, salt and quinine were reduced by a small amount, but the most important change was that a bitter taste was added to the sour taste of citric acid.

This is why, instead of tasting sweet with a bit of nice tanginess, your OJ tastes bitter after you brush your teeth.

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Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

Linda Bartoshuk has received funding from NIH.

– ref. Why does orange juice taste bad after you brush your teeth? – https://theconversation.com/why-does-orange-juice-taste-bad-after-you-brush-your-teeth-271741

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By James Salzman, Professor of Environmental Law, Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, University of California, Santa Barbara; University of California, Los Angeles

Growing up in the 1970s, I took for granted the trash piles along the highway, tires washed up on beaches, and smog fouling city air. The famed “Crying Indian” commercial of 1971 became a symbol of widespread environmental damage across the United States.

That’s why the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, energized the nation. In the largest single-day public demonstration in U.S. history, roughly 10% of the population took to the streets to shout together: “Enough is enough!”

Republican and Democratic politicians alike listened. Over the decade that followed, all the nation’s foundational environmental laws were passed with strong bipartisan support – the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act and more.

These laws are taking a beating at the moment, including from the Environmental Protection Agency – the federal government agency created in 1970 to protect the environment. The agency’s own leader, Lee Zeldin, boasted of “driving a dagger straight into the heart” of environmental regulations. President Donald Trump regularly derides environmental laws as job killers and government overreach.

But the conditions that made these laws necessary have largely been forgotten. This environmental amnesia allows critics to focus entirely on costs while ignoring the laws’ very real benefits and achievements.

I’m an environmental law professor, so I was excited to learn recently about the Documerica project, courtesy of a wonderful article by writer Gideon Leek. It shows in clear photographic evidence how dirty the U.S. used to be and wakes people up to how much better the environment is today.

An inspired origin

Environmental protection was a bipartisan effort in the 1970s: The EPA was created by President Richard Nixon, a Republican. The agency’s first leader was Bill Ruckelshaus, a Republican congressman from Indiana.

Inspired by the famous photographs of Depression-era farmworkers commissioned in the 1930s by the Farm Security Administration, Ruckelshaus’ newly created EPA commissioned a nationwide photo record. The goal, as Leek put it, was to “provide the EPA with a great deal of qualitative environmental data, create a ‘visual baseline’ against which to judge their efforts, and introduce the agency to the country through art.”

In its few short years of operation, from 1972 through 1978, the Documerica project produced over 20,000 photographs of rivers and farms, highways and city streets. The photos provide a vivid window into the state of the U.S. environment in the 1970s. Now, looking back, they highlight the progress made in the decades since, a demonstration of environmental laws’ successes far more powerful than graphs and statistics.

Solid waste

As a kid, every Sunday my father and I would load the back of our station wagon with trash barrels and drive to the town dump – literally a hole in the ground. My dad would back up to the edge of the pit, and I would enthusiastically run out for what we called “The Olympic Trash Throw!” pouring the barrels’ contents down to where a bulldozer rumbled back and forth, compacting the trash while gulls circled overhead.

To say America’s landscape was littered in the 1970s is not merely poetic phrasing. Waste disposal was a matter of local law, and illegal dumping was commonplace. Drums of pesticides and chemicals could be sent to the local dump along with tires and just about anything else people and companies wanted to get rid of. When the dump was full, it was covered with topsoil and became open land, ready for recreation or building construction.

One place where this happened was Love Canal, a neighborhood near Niagara Falls, New York. A dump holding decades of chemical drums from the Hooker Chemical Co. was lightly covered and sold to the town for just $1. The town was grateful. A neighborhood was built on the land.

Only when people noticed high levels of miscarriages and cancer clusters among the residents – and saw oozing waste – did opinion change.

In 1976, Congress passed the Resource Conservation Recovery Act, which was the first law that tracked waste materials from their creation to their disposal and set tough standards for how to dispose of them. But by then, decades of unregulated waste disposal had contaminated sites all over the country. The contaminants, toxicity and people responsible were often unknown.

Four years later, the 1980 law known as “Superfund” set standards and assigned financial responsibility for cleaning up hazardous waste sites. The law created a multibillion-dollar fund that could pay for the cleanups and required potentially responsible parties to reimburse the government or clean up the sites on their own.

Faced with requirements to track their waste and heavy fines if the disposal resulted in hazardous sites, companies paid much more careful attention to their waste disposal. No one wanted to pay for cleaning up a Superfund site.

Water pollution

I had the misfortune in 1978 to capsize while sailing a boat on the Charles River in Boston. My shame turned to a dermatologist’s visit when I broke out in rashes the next day. You fell in the Charles at your peril.

Environmental advocates weren’t kidding when, in the 1960s and 1970s, they declared “Lake Erie is a dead lake” because of all the industrial pollution pouring into its waters. An oil slick on Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River famously caught fire in 1969, but it was actually the 12th time the river had burned in a century.

Just as with dumps on land, all kinds of waste was being disposed of in rivers, lakes and harbors. There was a federal law in place, but it was ineffective and relied on states to set limits and enforce them.

The Clean Water Act of 1972 sought to create a national standard, requiring companies that wanted to discharge waste into waterways to get a federal permit and use the best available technology to reduce the amount and toxicity of what they did dump. The act also provided billions of taxpayer dollars to upgrade sewage treatment plants so they didn’t just dump untreated sewage into the water.

The ambitious goal was to end water pollution entirely and make all of the nation’s waters safe for swimming and fishing within a decade. Those aspirational goals for the country’s waters still have not been fully met, though Ruckelshaus used to quip that at least they are not flammable.

Even more telling, the Charles River and other urban rivers that people avoided in the 1970s now boast all manner of recreation, with little or no risk of rashes even while swimming.

Air pollution

Perhaps the most obvious improvement since the 1970s has been in air quality around the U.S.

The horrible smog around Los Angeles is well known. But many other cities were blanketed in polluted air that led to respiratory illnesses and millions of early deaths across the nation over the decades. In Pittsburgh it was only half-jokingly said that you had to floss your teeth after breathing.

The Clean Air Act of 1970 was the first law to require the EPA to set uniform nationwide standards for air quality to protect the air people breathe. In short order, lead was phased out of gasoline, catalytic converters were required on cars, acid rain was ended, and the sources of smog were stringently regulated. An EPA study found that the benefits under the law exceeded costs by a factor of more than 30 to 1 and in 2020 alone prevented over 230,000 early deaths.

I could go on with photos and stories about laws from the 1970s that protected wetlands, conserved open space, reduced pesticide use, increased recycling and made many other changes to how Americans treat our lands and waters.

But it all boils down to two simple facts. First, with the exception of greenhouse gases, which have been effectively unregulated, every major measure of environmental health has improved significantly over the past five decades. And second, those improvements all occurred during times of strong economic growth, with inflation-adjusted gross domestic product increasing fivefold.

Calling these laws “job killers” misses the point entirely. They created jobs and stopped environmental killers. The laws now being demonized are the very reason the Documerica photos are images of the past, not the present. Environmental laws and regulations have their costs, to be sure, but these photographs still hold visceral power: They show just how far the nation has come and what is at risk if we forget.

James Salzman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The US used to be really dirty – environmental cleanup laws have made a huge difference – https://theconversation.com/the-us-used-to-be-really-dirty-environmental-cleanup-laws-have-made-a-huge-difference-271277

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Yifang Zhu, Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles

When wildfires began racing through the Los Angeles area on Jan. 7, 2025, the scope of the disaster caught residents by surprise. Forecasters had warned about high winds and exceptionally dry conditions, but few people expected to see smoke and fires for weeks in one of America’s largest metro areas.

Environmental health scientist Yifang Zhu studies air quality at UCLA and began collecting samples from inside and outside homes the day after the fires began. In this Q&A, she describes findings by her team, a consortium of universities and local projects, that are painting a picture of the health risks millions of Los Angeles-area residents faced.

Their research offers both a warning and steps people everywhere can take to protect their homes and themselves from wildfire smoke in the future.

What made the LA fires unusual?

Urban fires are unique in a sense that it’s not just trees and other biomass burning. When homes and vehicles catch fire, plastics, electronics, cleaning chemicals, paints, textiles, construction material and much more burns, releasing chemicals and metals into the air.

More than 16,000 buildings burned in LA. Electric vehicles burned. A dental clinic burned. All of this gets mixed into the smoke in complicated ways, creating complex mixtures that can have definite health risks.

One thing we’ve found that is especially important for people to understand is that the concentration of these chemicals and metals can actually be higher inside homes compared with outside after a fire.

What are your health studies trying to learn?

To understand the health risks from air pollution, you need to know what people are exposed to and how much of it.

The LA Fire HEALTH Study, which I’m part of, is a 10-year project combining the work of exposure scientists and health researchers from several universities who are studying the long-term effects of the fire. Many other community and health groups are also working hard to help communities recover. A local program called CAP.LA, or Community Action Program Los Angeles, is supporting some of my work, including establishing a real-time air quality monitoring network in the Palisades area called CAP AIR.

During an active wildfire, it’s extremely difficult to collect high-quality air samples. Access is restricted, conditions change quickly, and research resources are often limited and take time to assemble. When the fires broke out not far from my lab at UCLA, my colleagues and I had been preparing for a different study and were able to quickly shift focus and start collecting samples to directly measure people’s exposure to metals and chemicals near and around the fires.

My group has been working with people whose homes were exposed to smoke but didn’t burn and collecting samples over time to understand the smoke’s effects. We’re primarily testing for volatile organic compounds off-gassing from soft goods – things like pillows, textiles and stuffed animals that are likely to absorb compounds from the smoke.

Our testing found volatile organic compounds that were at high levels outdoors during the active fire were still high indoors in February, after the fires were contained. When a Harvard University team led by environmental scientist Joe Allen took samples in March and April, they saw a similar pattern, with indoor levels still high.

What health risks did your team find in homes?

We have found high levels of different kinds of volatile organic compounds, which have different health risks. Some are carcinogens, like benzene. We have also found metals like arsenic, a known carcinogen, and lead, which is a neurotoxin.

Mike Kleeman, an air quality engineer at the University of California Davis, found elevated levels of hexavalent chromium in the nanometer-size range, which can be a really dangerous carcinogen. In March, he drove around collecting air samples from a burn zone. That was testing which government agencies would not have routinely done.

Fires have a long list of toxic compounds, and many of them aren’t being measured.

What do you want people to take away from these results?

People are exposed to many types of volatile organic compounds in their daily lives, but after wildfires, the indoor VOC levels can be much, much higher.

I think that’s a big public health message from the LA fires that people really need to know.

In general, people tend to think the outdoor air is worse for their health, particularly in a place like LA, but often, the indoor air is less healthy because there are several chemical emission sources right there and it’s an enclosed space.

Think about cooking with a gas stove, or burning candles or spraying air fresheners. All of these are putting pollutants into the air. Indoor pollution sources like cleaning fluids and PFAS from furniture and carpets are all around.

We often hear from people who are really worried about the air quality outside and its health risk during fires, but you need to think about the air indoors too.

What are some tips for people dealing with fires?

The LA fires have given us lots of insights into how to restore homes after smoke damage and what can be cleaned up, or remediated. One thing we want to do is develop an easy-to-follow decision tree or playbook that can help guide future fire recovery.

When the fires broke out, even I had to think about the actions I should take to reduce the smoke’s potential impact, and I study these risks.

First, close all your windows during the wildfire. If you have electricity, keep air purifiers running. That could help capture smoke that does get into the home before it soaks into soft materials.

Once the outside air is clean enough, then open those windows again to ventilate the house. Be sure to clean your HVAC system and replace filters, because the smoke leaves debris. If the home is severely impacted by smoke, some items will have to be removed, but not in every case.

And you definitely need to do testing. A home might seem fine when you look at it, but our testing showed how textiles and upholstery inside can continue off-gassing chemicals for weeks or longer.

But many people don’t have their homes tested after wildfires. They might not know how to read the results or trust the results. Remediation can also be expensive, and some insurance companies won’t cover it. There are probably people who don’t know whether their homes are safe at this point.

So there needs to be a clear path for recovery, with contamination levels to watch for and advice for finding help.

This is not going to be the last fire in the Los Angeles area, and LA will not be the last city to experience fire.

Yifang Zhu is working with CAP.LA (Community Action Project Los Angeles), which is funded by the R&S Kayne Foundation, and the LA Fire Health Study, which is funded by private philanthropists, including the Speigel Family Fund. Her work has also been partially funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Danhakl Family Foundation, and the California Air Resources Board.

– ref. LA fire studies show the risks as wildfire smoke lingered inside homes – https://theconversation.com/la-fire-studies-show-the-risks-as-wildfire-smoke-lingered-inside-homes-272473