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~or~ perhaps we might look back into recent history, note the way things were, and gain some level of understanding rather than express ignorance by typing:
"
During 2010, the Los Angeles metropolitan area suffered through three "red alert" smog days and 69 other "smog days." That is three red alert and sixty-nine other smog days too many.
But let's look for a moment on the bright side. And we mean the bright side as depicted by Plein Air painters rather than the Next Nature-style, particle-aided sunsets that Angelinos hate to love.
Yes, let's look at today's relative bright side. After all, NRDC President Frances Beinecke writes of traveling to Los Angeles in the 1970s, "when the air hit unhealthy levels of pollution more than 200 days a year." And this New York Times infographic shows decreasing area pollution woes from 1984 to 2004.
That's good news, because for decades smog was so synonymous with the City of Angels that those same Angels couldn't fly without packing inhalers. Pollution one day in 1903 was so severe residents thought an eclipse was nigh. The San Gabriels used to be so regularly shrouded that Fuji-san seemed like a camera hog. The county as early as 1947 opened the nation's first "air pollution control program." One October day in 1955 was said to be L.A.'s smoggiest ever. Some smog-boggling photos have been collected on this page by KCET colleague Nathan Masters - including a Boy Scout wiping air pollution-produced tears from a girl's face; an underground backyard smog shelter; and Miss Smog Fighter 1951, with sash, recoiling from a just-opened jar full of the stuff.
Some of those Los Angeles air quality horrors have improved however, thanks to a range of legislative, regulative - and many other significant - reasons.
Man selling fresh clean desert air for 50 cents a balloonfull in front of Loew's State Theatre in Los Angeles, Oct. 22, 1954. Herald-Examiner Collection photo courtesy of The Los Angeles Public Library
Perhaps the key single factor is the 1970 federal Clean Air Act. "It was such a huge change in the law," Larry Pryor says, nominating the Act as a Law That Shaped L.A, "because local controls were erratic and sensitive to industry costs rather than health costs."
Pryor is an associate professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism** and a prize-winning former editor and environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times.
During a recent interview, Pryor recounted the back story that led to the passage of the federal Clean Air Act, as well as the related creation of the California Air Resources Board to administer the Act at the state level.
Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 31, 1970, eight months after the first Earth Day, the Clean Air Act set comprehensive emissions limits and allowed the newly established EPA to regulate seven harmful chemicals. The Act and its federal bully pulpit led to the expanded influence - or in some cases the creation of - local agencies such as the California Air Resources Board to administer the Clean Air Act. The Act was updated in 1977 and dramatically in 1990."
How Los Angeles Began to Put its Smoggy Days Behind | Laws That Shaped LA | Land of Sunshine | KCET
Still....I'm sure you have something other than failure to comprehend to base your comment on. (please note sarcasm)
:lamo Oh come on....The picture is laughable....hhahahahahaha! Man you greenies fall for anything don't you.....