Instant Information
to Protect Your Family
Sierra Club Air Alerts allow you to better protect yourself and your family. Sign up and you’ll receive a text message when an air quality alert is issued in your area. You will know instantly when outdoor air is polluted with harmful levels of smog, and you can plan your outdoor activity accordingly.
When an air quality alert is issued in your area, it signals that smog has reached levels that are harmful to your health. Local media often refer to them as Orange (unhealthy for sensitive groups), Red (unhealthy) or Purple (very unhealthy) alerts.
Smog and Your Family’s Health
Smog (ground-level ozone) is a dangerous air pollution that harms your family's health. When we breathe smoggy air, it causes inflammation that has been compared to sunburn. Children whose lungs are still developing, senior citizens, and persons with asthma and other respiratory ailments are most at risk from smog pollution, but no one is safe outside on high ozone days. Even at low levels, smog is associated with low birth weight in newborns and premature death from a host of causes. Ozone triggers life-threatening asthma attacks, sending tens of thousands of children to emergency rooms each year.
The most common alerts issued are usually for "unhealthy" or "very unhealthy" levels of pollution. Here's what that means for your family:
- Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups: members of sensitive groups may experience health effects. The general public is not likely to be affected.
- Unhealthy: everyone may begin to experience health effects; members of sensitive groups may experience more serious health effects.
- Very Unhealthy: health warnings of emergency conditions. The entire population is more likely to be affected.
- Hazardous: health alert: everyone may experience more serious health effects.
What You Can Do
Sign up for Sierra Club Air Alerts, and urge your family and friends to sign up too. Then tell the Environmental Protection Agency to set a strong standard to reduce dangerous smog pollution, clean up our air, and protect our children. Our communities deserve clean air, free from the smog pollution that comes from burning fossil fuels.