Discourse for all interested in all things air-quality related
California’s first ever car-exhaust measuring program became effective in 1984. And, it’s no wonder. Southern California experienced its first major smog episode in 1943. Not knowing what was initially to blame a butadiene plant was shut down. Even with the plant closing the smog persisted. It became apparent that it was motor vehicles that were … Read more
I know people who either suffer of have suffered at one time or another, unfortunately, from air pollution’s effects. One has asthma; the other twice had sinus infections, this person’s diagnosing physician expressing the cause, at least in the first instance, anyway, was more than likely on account of polluted air. I never spoke with … Read more
In growing food, farmers and homeowners alike often must contend with pesky pest infestations that can present challenges in terms of control. Whether down on the farm, in the community garden or in the yards of homes on the range, pest management techniques can run the gamut, everything from aerial crop-dusting and ground spraying of … Read more
The consensus among scientists worldwide is: to stave off the most extreme effects of climate change, which is expected to occur near the 21st century’s end if the worst-case scenario plays out, the rise in global mean temperature cannot exceed 2 degrees Celsius. This is my understanding of the situation, at least. I mean, isn’t … Read more
Mention Minnesota and maybe one thinks of Vikings, of Twins, but of corrosive, lung-searing air? Yep, that’s there too! In fact, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) in the news release: “New report puts numbers on air pollution’s effect on public health in the Twin Cities,” acknowledged this. According to information brought forward in the … Read more
There isn’t a reader who reads this blog regularly who does not now know that the San Joaquin Valley of California is this nation’s most air-polluted trouble spot – irrespective of whether such had prior knowledge of this or not – a pollution trouble spot even more so than Los Angeles in the south state which … Read more
In the last post, emphasized was how without across-the-board agreement come December at the climate-change conference in Paris, France, the likelihood that the world will be on a path to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to generally agreed-upon levels (the presumed consequences of not doing so being the earth … Read more
Turn on any national network T.V. news broadcast and it’d be truly difficult to go an entire half-hour segment without there being at least some mention of the drought in the western U.S., now in its fourth year – a direct consequence of global warming? And, that brings this discussion to the next and final … Read more
Toward the end of installment 1, I observed how if public transit passenger counts are “healthy,” this can be a pretty effective means of helping lower the amount of pollution in the air, or something to that effect. News for the uninitiated: Even if internal-combustion-engine-powered motor-vehicle use was significantly scaled back as a way to … Read more
It has been nearly a decade since authors Ted Balaker and Sam Staley released to the world their treatise “The Road More Traveled – Why the Congestion Crisis Matters More Than You Think, and What We Can Do About It.” In “The Road More Traveled,” there is much I did and did not agree with. … Read more