Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Air quality awareness
As some readers may have gleaned, I harbor a sincere concern for the current status and trendline of our environment.
It occurred to me recently, that one of the problems is that air quality in particular is such an abstract problem, that it fails to gain sufficient attention to mobilize the individual interest on which national consensus would ultimately be built.
I thereby propose that we use a non-profit entity to install Continuous Emissions Monitors ("CEMs") similar to those used to monitor power plant stack emissions in our major cities. With 15 or 20 such monitors, we could facilitate sensational headlines like, "Over 15% of Americans are breathing air that is unsafe." Or better yet, "2.4 million school children breath poisonous air every day."
By making web access to the continous data readily available, people could have an air quality monitor on their google home page and start considering air quality when they decide to i) go to the public pool, ii) hit the jogging track, iii) watch a game at the ball park or iv) walk to work. With awareness will follow anger, and anger might just be followed by a call to action. "Global warming" is too vague and distant a threat, but "today's mercury levels are 5 times higher than are considered safe by the EPA" is a real and current problem, that might encourage us to take action now. ¶ 8:01 AM
As some readers may have gleaned, I harbor a sincere concern for the current status and trendline of our environment.
It occurred to me recently, that one of the problems is that air quality in particular is such an abstract problem, that it fails to gain sufficient attention to mobilize the individual interest on which national consensus would ultimately be built.
I thereby propose that we use a non-profit entity to install Continuous Emissions Monitors ("CEMs") similar to those used to monitor power plant stack emissions in our major cities. With 15 or 20 such monitors, we could facilitate sensational headlines like, "Over 15% of Americans are breathing air that is unsafe." Or better yet, "2.4 million school children breath poisonous air every day."
By making web access to the continous data readily available, people could have an air quality monitor on their google home page and start considering air quality when they decide to i) go to the public pool, ii) hit the jogging track, iii) watch a game at the ball park or iv) walk to work. With awareness will follow anger, and anger might just be followed by a call to action. "Global warming" is too vague and distant a threat, but "today's mercury levels are 5 times higher than are considered safe by the EPA" is a real and current problem, that might encourage us to take action now. ¶ 8:01 AM
