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Jonatan,Vanegas
English 113B
Professor Amy, Reynolds
May 6, 2016, 2016
Californias Air
Air pollution is basically contaminating the air, it can be caused by any smoke, harmful
gases, smoke that enters the atmosphere that is harmful not only towards the earth but also to the
people and animals who may be living where the air isnt safe to breath. California has some of
the worst cities with air pollution that is causing more than just breathing problems, but also
disease from cancer to birth defects. California has had some of the worst air pollution dating
back as far as 1943 when it was at its peak. Since then California has tried its hardest to clean up
the air that we have, but lately things have not been getting better some have said that we are
heading more towards the type of air pollution that we had back in 1974. We have some of the
strictest air pollution laws in the United States some may say that is good for a state to have that,
but it doesnt help when you have almost up to 25 cities with horrible air pollution. The top five
worst cities with air pollution are in California. How did we get here, is a big question what
caused so much of the air pollution, is another great question. We mostly look to the past to try to
find answer for what has happened and what we can do to help fix this problem.
California has had a smog problem as far back as 1943, when residents of Los Angeles
sometimes could not see for more than three blocks and suffered burning eyes(Huff ). People
blamed it on the chemical factories first but once most of them where shut down, scientist later
realized that the air pollution was caused by a mixed of weather, geography, and emissions from

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factories and of course cars. California first started its fight for cleaner air in 1959 when the first
air quality standards where enacted on emissions, that was a step towards the right direction but
didnt fix the whole problem. Most people who started to try to clean up the air where doing so
because when they were kids they were really effected by the air pollution. Things looked good
for a while until things started to get worse around the 1970s when air pollution has reached is
worst mark. Beside the pollution in the air there was also record high temperatures that reached
above 100 degrees which causes a lot of other issues around California like the first sing of a
drought and also a lot of farmers loosing crops because they couldnt keep their vegetables and
fruits from getting burnt from the sun. Also for the first time ever California recorded, Stage III
smog which is the worst stage of smog any place can get it (AQMD). The upside that was the
last time California had that stage record even though it has had some scares throughout the
years, we still have some places that can still lead us towards that stage III like Los AngelesLong Beach, Visalia-Porterville, Bakersfield, Fresno-Madera, and Sacramento-Roseville, Ca and
a couple more places that are on the top 10 cities with the most air pollution in the U.S..
Californias Bakersfield is the number one city with the unhealthiest days from airborne
particles that are from highways traffics, diesel trucks, farm equipment and fireplaces. Los
Angeles remains the nations leader in harmful ozone pollution from car tailpipes emissions
(LA). This shows that Los Angeles is mostly effected by cars and the smog they produce. There
is a wide group of people in California, Eight out of 10 Californians- 32 million people- live in
counties with unhealthy level of ozone or particle pollution (LA). Los Angeles still remains the
city with the worst air pollution, but it has been getting better throughout the past three years.

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Pollution has not only effected cities but also are farms, the farms are from San Joaquin
Valley. San Joaquin Valley is one of the top five most air polluted place in California, the
pollution over Californias cities and farm is not enough to undo decades of environmental
progress against smog, which is characterized by high levels of ozone in the atmosphere caused
by an interaction of heat with pollutants.(Huff) This shows that no matter how hard we try to
undo the bad we have caused we cant completely undo change them. The past two summers San
Joaquin Valley was out of compliance with the federal ozone rules for 99 days (Huff), last time
it was out for only 89 days. Once again showing that the air isnt getting better but worse in a
place that already has bad air. There are more to air issues then they may seem one issues gets
effected by other things since air pollution is going up also those the heat in California which can
cause a drought everything is connected because we live in an ecosystems.
Air pollution has many issues a lot of questions that come with it also but some people
may argue that air pollution in California isnt bad at all but that its good and is only getting
better. In an article that I read there has been a drop of smog levels in California, there were
only 82 days when smog levels exceeded federal standards for clean air. That may sound bad, but
its better than in 2014 when there were 92 such days (SCPR). This show that the air in
California is slowing getting to a better and cleaner air but doesnt mean we shouldnt stop trying
to make it as clean as it should be in the first place. Air in California is taking a big jump in
becoming cleaner with people being more informed by how they can help to cause less pollution
in the first place. It can be by little steps from using more ecofriendly cars like electric and
hybrids, to bigger ones like using solar panels. But they do agree that air pollutions does cause
problems in a lot of ways that might make people become ill.

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So what is being done to prevent air pollution in California a lot of it has come from
cleaner energy like solar panels, electric cars, and more ecofriendly fuels instead of fossil fuels,
wind power, and also using water for energy like dams. Electric vehicles have been seem to be
more on the up than anything else, some have said that, electric cars in Los Angeles is the most
important project for improving this countys air quality (NY Times). The best way to make air
pollution better is by making the issues not an issues and if you dont have cars that rely on gas
to power then engines then we wouldnt have to worry about air pollution. The article says it the
best, The best way to reduce urban air pollution is to curb it at its source. Electrified vehicles
would eliminate all the emissions from vehicles, since the end use of electricity is 100 percent
clean (NY Times). This shows that if we just ride electric cars we wouldnt have much of any
issues with air pollution which is really good for us since we are trying to change things for the
better. Everyone is also trying to carpool so there wont be as many people on the freeways and
less cars on the streets to cause smog. A lot of people are also looking for other ways to help out
the air pollution in California and even new technology is being created to help better understand
the pollution in California and what steps we can take to cut down the pollution by finding where
the pollution is mainly coming from. All this step are coming to help us become a better
California a more cleaner one.

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Works Cited
Gerken, James. "Spike In California Air Pollution Brings Reminder Of Bad Old Days." The
Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 27 Mar. 2015. Web. 25 Apr. 2016
History of Air Pollution Control in Southern California." South Cost AQMD. Web. 25 Apr.
2016.
"Electric Vehicles Would Reduce Pollution." The New York Times. The New York Times, 15
May 1990. Web. 27 Apr. 2016.
"Los Angeles and Bakersfield Top List of Worst Air Pollution in the Nation." Los Angeles
Times. Los Angeles Times, 4 Feb. 2016. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.
"Smog Declined in Southern California over the Last Year." Southern California Public Radio,
02 Nov. 2015. Web. 27 Apr. 2016