As of this hour Logan, Provo, Ogden, and Salt Lake City Utah make up 4 of the top 5 highest AQI (Air quality Index which includes particulate matter 2.5 and ozone), in the nation. In other words our air is nasty as hell. This is not a new thing, last week we spend many a days on the top of this list as well... Not necessarily a list you want to be ranking the highest on.
On a normal day we can easily see the Wasatch mountains from our apartment but today you can barely make out the peaks of this normally clear range. It really does scare me, this air that we are breathing. And tomorrow will be worse. Tuesday should get still worse until we get a predicted snow storm to 'clear' out the air in the valley.
It is amazing to me that people believe that this 'dirty' air is only here during the time of an inversion, that all other times of the year the pollution just disappears and gets taken care of. This inversion, this pollution we are seeing and breathing is that of our waste. Our driving. Our burning fossil fuels. Our wasting of finite resources to make our lives as comfortable as technologically possible (note that I don't say 'humanly possible because we are beyond that point). And yet we find ourselves in this ironic position of being advised not to drive on 'red days', but who really wants to be walking or biking to work when we are being recommended not to breath in this nasty air?
So still we are car-less, and heartily attempt to drive less (including getting less rides, renting less car hours and driving less distances). We are on the brink of ringing in 2010 and we still find ourselves being thought of as strange, weird, immature, idealistic, and many more adjectives because of our lack of car ownership. But we still breathe the same dirty, harmful air that our hummer driving neighbors do....but more likely we are breathing more of it since we have to walk much further distances than to our garage and back.
Maybe we should move out of Salt Lake City.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hey, Carla.
ReplyDeleteI've been feeling bits of your pain...we are not selling the car until next fall, but my goal for 2010 is to be as car free as is healthfully possible (asthma + red air quality days = well, you know!). I just bought carbon filter masks, yesterday, for everyone in the family. SLC Bike Co. has imported some (there are no USA distributors!) from London.
It is maddening as hell to see the updates with advice not to drive due to the poor air quality, yet I'm stuck with a possible emergency room visit for respiratory distress if I bike or even walk in that muck!
We are excited to relocate to PDX next fall.
We are looking to move out of Salt Lake this spring, not just because of the air quality but on days like this I would be ready to leave asap to get outta this crap!
ReplyDeleteI haven't been biking at all for awhile, just walking and using public transit but we'll have to check out the filter masks since my husband still rides in the winter when the air is breathable.