CODE RED!

From the North Carolina Air Quality Forecast Center:

Ozone in the city of Charlotte has reached Code Red, which is considered unhealthy for all people. Please limit your time outdoors until after sunset. Ozone has reached low Code Orange southeast side of the Triangle south to Fayetteville and east to Goldsboro. Slight improvement in ozone tomorrow but still expect some scattered Code Orange readings.

I loathe waking up to warnings like this. It sounds like we’re under attack, but our enemy isn’t carrying bombs. It’s more likely they’re carrying groceries, or the kids to soccer, or their briefcase to work, or maybe they’re mowing our lawns.

Our enemy in this battle is air pollution, and it’s fed by exhaust from cars, machinery and industry. Mix that pollution with extreme heat, and you’ve got yourself a “Code Red” day — a day when we’re not supposed to enjoy summer as much as we’re supposed to shield ourselves from it.

While Charlotte’s air quality has improved, it’s still not great. This year, the American Lung Association ranked the Charlotte-Gastonia-Salisbury metro area as the 10th-highest among ozone-polluted cities in its “State of the Air” report. Last year the Queen City was listed at No. 8.

But, what can you do about it?

To start, you can produce less pollution by driving less and walking more. You can encourage industry to work harder to protect our air, and you can support organizations that do the same. You can let the North Carolina Division of Air Quality know you’re not interested in inhaling smog, that you’d like them to step up their efforts to protect our lungs. And, you can find out when to duck and cover with immediate air quality updates for our area from Facebook and Twitter.

Further reading:

• Urban areas getting hotter, faster — DiscoveryNews
• As Climate Scientists Battle the Press, One Receives Rare Apology From Paper — Science Magazine
• Report: 97 percent of scientists say man-made climate change is real — USA Today

This video is from Utah, but it’s a good 101 course on air quality issues:

This article appears in Jun 22-28, 2010.