AIR QUALITY

"I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use our natural resources, but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob by wasteful use, the generations that come after us."

—Theodore Roosevelt (1900)

In our Environmental Studies Course textbook. G. Tyler Miller, Jr. states that environmentalists and many leading scientists believe that we are depleting and degrading the earth's natural capital at an accelerating rate. Our population and demands on the earth's resources and natural processes are increasing exponentially. In 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established by the White House and Congress with the daunting task of repairing the damage already done to the natural environment, and establishing new criteria to guide Americans in making a cleaner environment a reality.

The quality of the air we breathe has been altered by pollutants. An air pollutant can be one or more chemicals in the atmosphere in quantities and duration that cause harm to humans, other forms of life, and materials. In 1970, 1977, and 1990, the U.S. Congress passed Clean Air Acts providing federal air pollution regulations that are enforced by each state. Today several government agencies have formed AirNow, a program to inform citizens about air quality. Through AIRNow, EPA, NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration —National Weather Service), NPS (National Park Service), news media, tribal, state, and local agencies work together to report conditions for ozone and particle pollution.

The Air Quality Index (AQI) lists daily how clean or polluted your air is. It focuses on health effects you may experience within a few hours or days after breathing polluted air. EPA uses five major air pollutants to calculate the AQI: ground-level ozone, particle pollution, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide. A specific color has been assigned to each level of health concern, rated from 0 to 500. Your local weather forecaster often refers to these categories:

Green                     0 to 50 AQI                 Good—satisfactory air quality

Yellow             51 to 100                     Moderate—acceptable

Orange                   101 to 150                   Unhealthy for sensitive groups

Red                  151 to 200                   Unhealthy for everyone—more serious for sensitive groups

Purple              201 to 300                  Very Unhealthy—more serious health effects for everyone

Maroon                  301 to 500                  Hazardous—health warnings of emergency conditions

To gather more information to pass on to your garden club, please explore and study the following websites:

AIRNow:        http://airnow.gov/

Click on "Local Forecasts and & Conditions" to view information for YOUR STATE!

Click   on   "Air   Quality   Index"   to   view   the   AQI   chart,   or   go   directly   to

http://airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=static.aqi

                EPA:       http://www.epa.gov  —Many subtopics on air are listed
                NOAA:  http://www.noaa.gov/airquality.html —More scientific and detailed subjects