Listen to NASA: By Julie Peller, Ph.D.

Green Junction

The particulate matter (PM2.5) measurements from the Purple Air (purpleair.com) monitor on the front of my house recently reached the 700s, a dangerous level I do not recall seeing in the past four years since the monitor was installed. There was a notable odor outside that accompanied these very high levels. It was interesting that I could not correlate the stench with common odors. The Purple Air index categorizes the most dangerous level of PM 2.5, beginning at 300, as “emergency conditions likely to affect everyone.”

PM2.5 monitors measure the concentration of small particles (2.5 micrometers and smaller) that can penetrate into the lungs. According to the State of Global Air, an organization that compiles “a comprehensive analysis of the levels and trends in air quality and health for every country in the world,” PM2.5 is the greatest air quality threat contributing to the burden of disease worldwide. The adverse health impacts range from heart disease to lung cancer to type 2 diabetes. Over the past decade, worldwide deaths attributable to PM2.5 increased by about 23%.

Areas of the United States have been in the path of the moving air masses from Canadian fires that have increased nearly fourfold since the 1970s, according to an expert on fire management at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia. Most of the wildfires have burned in remote areas that are not accessible by road. Ground crews are required to extinguish fires before they rage out of control. While natural forest fires, initiated by lightning strikes, are part of normal forest rejuvenation, the longer and hotter fire seasons – an outcome of climate change – create conditions for more fires.

In 2025, NASA reported its latest data, revealing a dramatic rise in the intensity of weather events such as droughts, fires, and floods over the past five years. This week, a poll of US citizens showed that “about 61% of likely American voters believe extreme weather events have become more frequent over the past five years.” We are more equipped than ever with science and data that clearly indicate that human lifestyles are having dramatic effects on the earth. It is the responsibility of all who are of sound mind to share this information or we will be spending more summer days indoors while our fellow earth inhabitants (wildlife of all types) have nowhere to seek refuge.

Part of Beginners

by Denise Levertov

“How it might be to live as siblings with beast and flower, not as oppressors.

Surely our river cannot already be hastening into the sea of nonbeing?

Surely it cannot drag, in the silt, all that is innocent?

Not yet, not yet — there is too much broken that must be mended,

We have only begun to know the power that is in us if we would join our solitudes in the communion of struggle.”

Julie Peller, Ph.D., is an environmental chemist (Professor of Chemistry at Valparaiso University). She has been writing a weekly column, The Green Junction, for the past seven years and is helping to move the call of Laudato Si to action. Her research interests include advanced oxidation in aqueous solutions, water quality analyses, emerging contaminants, air quality analyses, challenges along the Lake Michigan shoreline (including Cladophora, water, and sediment contaminants), and student and citizen participation in environmental work.