A quarter of greenhouse gas pollution in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic comes from transportation.

Maryland is among the states with the worst air pollution from cars, trucks, and buses.

Air pollution from vehicles causes increased death rates attributed to cardiovascular diseases, including heart attacks and strokes, and has been linked to other adverse impacts such as lung cancer, reproductive and developmental harm, and even diabetes and dementia.

Pollution burden from cars, trucks, and buses is inequitably distributed among racial and ethnic groups in the state. People of color experience an undeniable “pollution disadvantage.”

Air pollution is concentrated in Black and low-income communities across Maryland. It not only worsens climate change -- with effects hitting these communities hardest -- it also makes COVID-19 15 times more deadly.

Baltimore City, Maryland, has among the highest rates of emission-related deaths in the country.

In Brandywine, a community in Prince George’s County, residents live with five coal and gas plants within a 15-mile radius.

47 out of Maryland’s 50 sacrifice zones, areas with high levels of pollution and environmental hazards, are located in communities of color.

South Baltimore has a cluster of over 200 permitted pollution facilities in a 2.5- mile radius.

Brandywine in southern Prince George’s County hosts a surface mining operation, a Superfund site, a sludge lagoon, a concrete batching facility, a fly ash landfill, 3500 diesel truck trips/day, and contaminated soil from the site of the new DC United Soccer Stadium in the Buzzard Point area of Washington, DC. of Washington, DC.

In Somerset County, one of the poorest counties in the state, there are as many as 95 chicken houses, holding tens of thousands of chickens each, within a three-mile radius.

In Southern Anne Arundel County there’s a proliferation of polluting facilities, including reclamation sites and a medical waste site, that cause pollution and bring down property values for a racially diverse, but largely lower-income community.

20 % of people living within a three-mile radius of the mining and reclamation sites are African-American.

Studies from the National Institute of Health show that cancer risks associated with chronic toxic exposure disproportionately affect African-American communities.

Communities of color are less likely to have access to energy-efficient housing and transportation and less likely to benefit from clean energy infrastructure investments. Studies have found that low-income households have an energy burden up to three times higher than middle-to-high-income households.

For example, renters and low-income households are less likely to be able to install solar panels and thus less likely to access energy-saving benefits.

As Maryland increases funding for renewable energy and energy efficiency programs, it’s essential to ensure residents have equitable access to the benefits of these programs.

Our current level of warming (about 1.1C) is already causing unprecedented storms, fires, heatwaves, droughts, and floods across the world, and has already contributed to sea levels rising, polar ice melting, and the ocean becoming warmer and more acidic.

Most of Maryland has warmed one to two degrees (F) in the last century, heavy rainstorms are more frequent, and the sea is rising about one inch every seven to eight years.

Average annual precipitation in Maryland has increased about 5 percent in the last century, but precipitation from extremely heavy storms has increased in the eastern United States by more than 25 percent since 1958.

Aging stormwater infrastructure that can’t handle the increased demand, damaging property and endangering lives.

Non-porous paving interrupts the hydrological cycle — preventing groundwater recharge, carrying toxins into our waterways instead of allowing soil to clean the water, and devastating freshwater and marine ecologies.

Lacking ownership rights, tenants have little power to push for their homes to be retrofitted for disaster resilience.

Heat island effects that contribute to localized warming and require more energy use for cooling, release more damaging chemicals into the air that drive global warming.

Today, Maryland averages 10 days a year when heat exceeds dangerous levels; by 2050, the state is projected to experience 40 dangerous days a year.

Roughly 110,000 Maryland residents are vulnerable to extreme heat.

High air temperatures can cause heat stroke and dehydration, and affect people’s cardiovascular and nervous systems. Warmer temperatures can also increase the formation of ground-level ozone, a component of smog that can contribute to respiratory problems.

Pollution from incinerators increases the risk of pre-term births and lung and blood cancers. Maryland’s incinerators emit higher levels of mercury, lead, nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), and carbon dioxide (CO2) than our coal plants.

Nearly 80% of incinerators are located in “environmental justice” communities - meaning that they are disproportionately located near communities of color and people with higher than average rates of poverty.

The BRESCO incinerator operated by Wheelabrator is Baltimore’s biggest stationary source of air pollution. Reducing local air pollution, and NOx in particular, is critical for public health in Baltimore.

In 2015, the BRESCO incinerator emitted roughly double the amount of greenhouse gases per megawatt hour of energy than each of the 6 largest coal plants in Maryland.

The Montgomery County Resource Recovery Facility in Dickerson is a 24-year old trash incinerator and the largest polluter in the County – more than the nearby coal-fired power plant. The incinerator burns an average of about 570,000 tons of trash per year, turning it into 390,000 tons of air pollution and 180,000 tons of toxic ash that is dumped in Virginia landfills.