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TMIQ Today: Cleaner Air, Smarter Kids · The Most Important Question

• 0:00
  [music] Welcome back to The Most Important Question today, where in just a couple minutes or less, we apply the Actually Pro-Life principles to a news headline and then help you answer the most important question, what can I do?
• 0:26
  [music] We've all found ourselves standing behind a bus with the engine running and turn your face away from it. Is there anywhere that's not a thing anymore where the streets have gotten easier to breathe, not harder?
• 0:41
  Fun fact, it has in New York City. New York has been cleaning up its air for twenty-two years, but this did not happen because of some invention or one heroic vote.
• 0:52
  In fact, a study published last month names the policies that were in force while the air got cleaner. The Clean Fuel Bus Program, the Clean Air Taxi Legislation, the Clean Heat Program, and the Climate Mobilization Act.
• 1:05
  Buses, taxis, heat, and a climate law. Four separate fights, four separate decisions. And the whole time, Columbia University was paying attention and following the children.
• 1:17
  Eleven hundred kids, to be specific, in that city tested as toddlers over the same twenty-two years. As the pollution came down, their scores on standard development tests went up every year.
• 1:28
  The paper's conclusion then was obvious. Kids' scores on cognitive tests improved, providing evidence that such policies are obviously beneficial to children's neurodevelopment. Again, we don't have to invent anything.
• 1:42
  One huge, complicated city already did it. We're ready to go. But in February, the EPA said it's revamping the federal school bus program so districts can buy more kinds of buses, including natural gas buses.
• 1:56
  The release is titled Safe, Affordable, Efficient Transportation for America's Youth. Who is actually fighting for actually cleaner buses in, in your city?
• 2:09
  Moms Clean Air Forces, a bunch of parents, and the World Resources Institute has a free toolkit for getting your own district's buses switched. [music] Thanks for listening.
• 2:26
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• 2:34
  You can get more answers for free twenty-four seven at whatcanido.earth, or you can join hundreds of other important members to support the mission and make your actions go much, much further. [music]