State Of Air

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State of the AirThus far in this course we have been discussing, learning, and exploring the ideas of environmental problems, human values, politics, and economics. This week we turn to take a closer look at a particular type of pollution: air pollution. Have you ever visited or lived in a town that had air quality warnings? For the last 16 years, the American Lung Association has used air quality data to publish a report on air quality called State of the Air. In this forum, we will explore some of the most polluted cities in the United States and focus on solutions.

Part I. Questions:

Since this is not a writing assignment but a discussion, you will not need to formally reference your work but need to attribute it to the source you found it, something likely you do in everyday conversation.  For example, “Yesterday I was reading in the Washington Post that . . ” or, “I found this interesting video on YouTube.”

Choose one of most polluted cities from the State of the Air report that has not been selected already by another classmate (check what has been posted already)*. Research the city you chose and share your research with the class here are some topics to consider:

· What are the causes of this city’s pollution? Why is air pollution a problem?

· What are some possible solutions to this city’s pollution?

· What is your opinion about the role of scientists, government, and citizens in air pollution solutions?

· What is your personal experience? Have you been to this city, or another that your perceived as having air pollution? How did you know? How did it affect you?

· End your response by posing an open-ended question to the class that you have thought of based on your research and study (it can be anything related to air quality and air pollution).

*Place the name of the city you chose in the title of your initial post.

THE PLACE I PICKED IS ***** Missoula, MT*****

***The initial post should be no longer than 1-2 short paragraphs. ***

Reply To Each Post 50 words min. There are 7 different ones

1. What are the causes of this city’s pollution? Why is air pollution a problem?
One of the many reasons there is such bad pollution in Bakersfield is that it is a valley that lies in a bowl created by the Sierra Nevada mountain range. What this does is it creates a literal bowl where heavier air that is saturated with particulates can linger, especially with the weather getting hotter with global warming. This is one of the most densely populated areas in the San Fernando valley so a lot of people contributing to the pollution with their vehicle emissions and other pollutants caused from day to day living.
What are some possible solutions to this city’s pollution?
Some things the city could do is require more frequent emissions testing with stricter penalties. There was a clunker buy out program many years ago that helped people upgrade to newer vehicles with more efficient emissions systems. That was a huge impact on air quality as it got a lot of vehicles with inefficient motors off of the road.
What is your opinion about the role of scientists, government, and citizens in air pollution solutions?
Government is a huge role in correcting air pollution as the government can pass new legislation or enforce existing laws on preventing pollution and for spreading knowledge on what each individual can do to help the situation. Researchers can help develop ways to clean up the air that is already polluted and come up with better ways of generating energy and not burning fossil fuels that have harmful emissions. Citizens can do their part by conserving energy, using mass transit, walking or biking when possible, taking shorter showers and abiding by laws when it comes to disposing of certain substances like motor oil and batteries.

2. What are the causes of this city’s pollution? The chemical industry, auto production(Ford) and as well as the Bourbon industry have been huge polluters for decades.  In and out of Jefferson and Nelson counties.  Not mention the Stock Yards down near the river.  The company that stands out the most  is DuPont. They have a spin off plant, Chemours, which to date has been the biggest contributor to the pollution problem in Louisville according to the article I read by WFPLs Ryan Van Velzer.  Since I was a kid the smells of that area, downtown, could bring you to your knees(Not kidding).  It always seemed when you drove towards downtown there was a invisible barrier when you started to reach the river front from the east side of town.  I will have to say in recent years I have made visits to see my family and the groups that offer pollution solutions are making the great strides to improve the area.

3.  What are the causes of Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA pollution? Some of the causes of the above mentioned Cities pollutions consists of, the high Ozone levels, and an outrageous particles rankings within the metropolitan regions. Per the American Lungs Association, Ozone is an invisible gas molecule that’s harmful to breathe. Additionally, these cities experiences pollution problems because, of the high compound which lingers within the atmosphere. Moreover, a warmer climate plays a major role in the increase in unhealthy air days. For instance, unhealthy conditions and populations, causes asthma, COPD, diabetes or other lung issues for children and teens, and older adults.

4.  What is your personal experience? Have you been to this city, or another that your perceived as having air pollution? How did you know? How did it affect you?  With my personal experience would have been when I deployed to the country of Jordan. The air there was not at all clean due to the way of life they live there. There trash consumption there was way to much so therefore it wasn’t clean at all. Also we had to use bottled water in order to brush our teeth due to the fact that the water there was not at all clean enough to consume. I knew this because when we first got to Jordan we were told by higher ups that we were not able to consume the running water there due to it not being clean. It affected me by the ways of having to use more water bottles which increases more plastic being out and about in the surrounding areas.

5. What is your opinion about the role of scientists, government, and citizens in air pollution solutions? Scientists should do more research on how to clean up the air that is already polluted. They can also find ways of generating energy without the use of fossil fuels. The government should inject more money into the research done by scientists. Also, the government should come up with stricter laws and penalties regarding air pollution. The citizens should plant more trees and take good care of them. Citizens should also minimize the use of cars by either carpooling or using mass transportation means. What is your personal experience? Have you been to this city, or another that you perceived as having air pollution? How did you know? How did it affect you? The Seattle-Tacoma area is what I call home when in the United States. My oldest daughter, who is suffering from asthma, gets more asthma attacks whenever she travels to Seattle compared to when she is in Uganda. It made me believe that the air quality over there has something to do with these attacks.

6.We do get a “C” for particle pollution, but that is average, and who wants average.  That puts Denver at #13 and to say we are only 12 spots from Los Angeles makes me nauseous. An article I read and have added below shows that the more than 125M metric tons of bad stuff come from all kinds of stuff. Factories, cars, buildings/homes, fossil fuel facilities, cattle feedlots. But I’m all about root cause analysis, and you know what is the #1 contributor to all these things mentioned above? Unprotected sex, that’s what. Just start giving baby boys vasectomies right when they pop out and everything will get better mark my word. As for my opinion on the role’s people play, it’s all just putting lipstick on a pig.  Scientists want papers published and Nobel prizes, governments want votes, and citizens don’t know what they want as most of them have a lower IQ than my cat.

7. I couldn’t help myself, I picked my hometown Kansas city, MO. During a news broadcast released last year it states that KCMO has now received the grade “D”. It is believe the air pollution is caused by climate change. Air pollution is a problem because we literally breathe everyday and if the quality of air is dangerous, it’s dangerous to us. It can cause long term illnesses like lung cancer and other problems like asthma. Scientists, government, and citizens all play a role in finding solutions. Citizens as individuals can be mindful how many hours they drive or take public transportation. Instead they could bike, roller blade, even skateboard to get around. I understand however there are situations that will require a car or plane to travel. That’s only one change that can be made there are plenty more however. For scientists, they can come up with new machinery or discover more materials that would be less harmful to the air to produce and more energy efficient to use. The government cause help with that by funding those discoveries. They can also ban the burning or use of certain materials that go into the air from burning factories.

 
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