The Stegner Center’s 30th annual symposium, “Breathing Easier: Air Pollution Challenges and Solutions,” brought together 34 speakers and over 600 in-person and online attendees from across the nation to consider the challenges of air pollution and possible solutions.
The symposium considered air pollution’s environmental and human health tolls—including the unequal burdens air pollution places on disadvantaged communities.
Despite gains in many places, air pollution remains a vexing problem across the nation. In Utah, winters bring inversions and particulate matter pollution, and summers deliver increased ground-level ozone pollution. The Wasatch Front regularly exceeds national ambient air quality standards, exacerbated by the region’s unique geography and meteorology.
Finding solutions to these thorny problems becomes only more vital with each passing year. In Utah, emerging threats like dust from the shrinking Great Salt Lake and intensifying wildfire smoke further compound longstanding air pollution problems. Experts shared potential solutions, including those that have been successful in other parts of the country.
The symposium presentations have been posted on the College of Law YouTube channel and can be viewed online here.