Air quality can affect health. Climate change is worsening both.

Sandra Rapp has had breathing problems for at least 20 years. She was a heavy smoker — a habit she gave up 30 years ago — spent many years working in manufacturing and has lived near the pollution and heat of highways in New Haven and Waterbury for decades.

Now 80, she fights COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and the aftermath of a bout of lung cancer, with three liters of oxygen 24/7.

But this past summer was something else.

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