air pollution

Facts and figures on air quality and Latino health in the U.S.

92 — percentage of the U.S. Latino population living in urban areas in 20002, 3 80 — percentage of Latinos living in counties that violated at least one federal air-pollution standard in 20022 57 — percentage of non-Latino whites living in counties that violate at least one federal air-pollution standard in 20022 50 — percentage […]

David Cash, Massachusetts air-policy director, answers questions

David Cash. What work do you do? How does it relate to the environment? I’m the director of air policy for the state of Massachusetts in the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. EOEA is an umbrella agency that oversees and coordinates the activities of numerous other environment-related agencies such as the Department of Environmental Protection […]

Bush EPA nominee Steve Johnson garners praise and sympathy

Stephen Johnson. Photo: Energy Star. The next chief of the Bush EPA wasn’t expected to have more than a dewdrop’s chance in hell of widespread acceptance in the disgruntled environmental community. So it came as a surprise on Friday when the president tapped respected scientist and 24-year EPA veteran Stephen Johnson to captain the agency, […]

Poop is not funny

OK, maybe a little. Hot off the, er, presses: a company in Australia is seeking donations of kangaroo dung to make recycled paper. Inspired by African and Asian operations that make sheets from elephant excrement, Joanna Gair hopes to make "Roo Poo Paper" a household name. The "pooey" product has proven useful as a conservation fundraiser in some places and is, of course, a hit with the kids. "It's taken my breath away just how popular this [idea] is," Gair says. Which is not a funny quote at all.

Folks in Milford, Nebraska, might want to consider the same plan, since they just spent four months battling a massive, burning pile of manure at a feedlot. The 100-foot-long heap, estimated to weigh 2,000 tons, began smoldering due to organic action at its center (here's to the power of composting!). After the state Department of Environmental Quality cited clean-air violations, concerned parties spent several weeks pulling the pile apart, and finally quelled the fire. What a relief that is.

Bush team pushes Clear Skies, but disagreement over CO2 could stymie the bill

Barely a week into the president’s second term, the emboldened Bush team — even whilst juggling plans for a Social Security overhaul and major new expenditures on the Iraq venture — has signaled that it’s bound and determined to pass its Clear Skies Act, the first major amendment to the Clean Air Act since 1990. […]

Joe Sherman’s Gasp! explores the history of air and finds it’s anything but empty

Oxygen may not strike you as a likely protagonist for a book. It's invisible, it's all around you, it's something you inhale 19,000 times a day and take utterly for granted. But Joe Sherman's Gasp! The Swift and Terrible Beauty of Air is a masterfully inventive biography of air, weaving together geology and history, myth and science, to deepen our understanding and appreciation of life's most precious gas.

An excerpt from Feeling the Heat sizes up the ominous Asian Cloud

The Indian city of Mumbai, formerly Bombay, is home to one of Asia's largest slums and endures among the worst air quality on earth. Half the city's population lacks running water or electricity, and the smoke from countless wood-burning cooking fires joins with the acrid haze from two-stroke auto rickshaws, diesel buses, and coal-fired power plants to all but choke the city. Breathing Mumbai's air, reports the Lonely Planet travel guide, is equivalent to smoking 20 cigarettes a day. Comparable air quality wraps New Delhi, Bangalore, and 69 of India's 70 principal cities year-round, according to a 1997 study by India's Central Pollution Control Board.

Umbra on whether to leave the engine running

Dear Umbra, I have a question that has been nagging me for a while, and I would really like to have it answered once and for all. You see, I deliver pizzas for a living right now, and so I make many frequent stops and starts at people’s houses during a shift. I always turn […]

Global dimming? Global warming? What’s with the globe, anyway?

Raise a toast to solar radiation. The director of the Zurich-based World Radiation Monitoring Center, the organization that measures the amount of solar radiation hitting the ground around the globe, has a strange talent. Give Atsumu Ohmura a glass of white wine and tell him only its vintage, and he’ll swish a mouthful and — […]