California Wins Air Pollution Contest

By Alicia Dorr in News on May 1, 2007 6:02PM

We know this is blasphemous and all, but we've gotten a little tired of hearing about global warming lately. Each passing day bombards us with another article about switching incandescent lightbulbs for the ones laced with mercury that can be disposed of as easily as, say, batteries, another "green issue" of Jane or Bop or whatever and another quote about the dire situation from a presidential candidate, we're terribly sorry, probably don't even recycle.

That's why we were happy for a breath of fresh air, in the form of pollution — namely, the American Lung Association's annual ranking of cities with the most polluted air. It wasn't a surprise to see Los Angeles on the top, though it was interesting to read that they had fewer ozone days than they've had in the past.

Other ribbon winners included Pittsburgh (no. 2), Detroit (no. 5), two other California cities (in the top ten) and St. Louis. And Cleveland. As for our fair city, we parked at number 11 — though, to be fair, we tied with Naperville and Michigan City (which appears to be identified as being in Wisconsin, but we're pretty certain its the one in Indiana with the cooling plant less than a mile from the lake and the outlet mall.)

For all our whining about being burnt out on news of the global warming crisis, we have to mention that we think it is incredibly important to pay attention to the ozone alert days. When all is said and done, we will still watch the Midwest haze cam from the religiously before going to the beach. But that's not because of Leonardo DiCaprio or Al Gore, it's because we're control freaks.

*Thanks, Jeremy!

Image via luc.edu.