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Dramatic successes – and dramatic challenges |
Related Links: Sacramento Region Air Quality Progress Report, May 2011 Sacramento Region Air Quality 2011 Progress Report: Summary Sheet "The Simple Truth," an educational cartoon Forbes Magazine: "America's Most Polluted Cities" Regional Blueprint smart-growth plan "Greenhouse plan may waft across U.S." |
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Despite the great strides we've made reducing our air pollution, we still breathe some of America's unhealthiest air here in the Sacramento region. According to the American Lung Association and Forbes Magazine, the Sacramento metro area ranks among the nation’s ten most polluted for both ground-level ozone or "smog" and for lung-damaging fine particles, like the soot found in diesel and auto exhausts and wood smoke. When we don't meet federal and state health standards, we risk harming our economy and losing millions of dollars in federal transportation funds under the Clean Air Act. We also risk harming our environment, our health and well-being. Geography presents a unique challenge. The foothills that are a source of beauty and recreation for residents in Sacramento, Placer, Yolo, El Dorado, Yuba and Sutter counties also keep air pollution close by. Summer heat cooks this cocktail of gases into ground-level ozone, while winter cold traps smoke and soot. We can’t change the geography or the weather, but much is in our control – especially the pollution from cars, trucks and mobile sources that makes up 70 percent of our air problem. We’ve reduced unhealthy air days by two-thirds since 1979 thanks to cleaner cars, better fuels, stricter controls on manufacturing and other measures. Our new Regional Blueprint smart-growth plan helps lower reliance on cars by weaving jobs, homes and services closer together. For one, the bar keeps rising higher as air quality standards tighten. Under federal law, we need to make our air cleaner than it is today while accomodating an estimated 50 percent growth in population over the next two decades. That’s 1.2 million new people – and their cars! Another challenge: the nation’s most sweeping regulations on a third source of air pollution, the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Luckily, there are plenty of ways that all of us can help make a difference – often without making dramatic changes in our daily lives.
Air pollution’s impact on health |
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