Photo hiking in black Los Angeles smog on day I declared it was time to start chasing clean air.
EPA Must Set a Much Stronger Ozone Air Quality Standard
We need leadership to set stronger ozone air quality standards for the greatest good, for the greatest number of people, and for the environment.
I’d like to share a few pivotal moments in my life that led me to stand before you today.
When I was seven years old and living in San Francisco, my best friend came over as she always did to laugh and play. On one occasion she brought a gas mask. So we made up a survival game called Help! I can’t breathe! And we pretended to live in Los Angeles, as we placed the gas mask over one another’s head.
But this game was not fun.
Nor did we laugh.
Help! I can’t breathe was a dud. Therefore, we stopped playing, and agreed that living in Los Angeles was surely insane, and only for insane people.
Twenty years later, at age twenty-seven I lived in Washington, DC and worked as a reporter. One fateful Saturday night, I went out dancing. And under a full-moon, I fell blindly in love with a handsome stranger, who happened to live in Los Angeles. By my own definition, insanity set in and I moved to L.A.
Now twenty years later I’m struggling with the real life game I invented when I was seven—Help! I can’t breathe!—Only my doctor recently gave it a new name.
Asthma.
And he told me what happens to certain individuals who don’t treat their asthma: emphysema.
And I say to you today: Help! I can’t breathe!
You must set stronger ozone air standards. Encourage industry to step up to the innovation plate and encourage people to modify their behavior.
How do I treat asthma with ozone? Ozone burns my throat and lungs, makes me cough and hurts my chest. At times, it’s hard to breathe, to get enough breath to go all the way down.
How do emphysema sufferers treat their illness with Los Angeles smog that according to scientific studies is killing people as I speak?
Killing like a slow bullet to the lungs.
My best-friend’s mom recently died a painful lung cancer death. Let me underscore painful. She never smoked. And I thought for the millionth time. Why am I living in this insane city?
I moved to this vibrant city with strong lungs, a strong body, and dreams. I’d forgotten the wisdom of my youth. And as a result, I created a life, a business, friends, and breathing problems.
It’s hard to start over but ozone smog and traffic have crushed my dreams and compromised my health and lifestyle.
This past year, I traveled to other states, seeking clean air in which to breathe, and, hopefully, to move. I started a blog called Chasing Clean Air to document my search and to serve as a forum where others can share ideas.
I started my journey in the clean air state of New Mexico, and I got altitude sickness. I didn’t know that altitude sickness occurs in those who have lung disease. I didn’t know I had it.
I recently returned from the Evergreen State of Washington where there are several clean air spots, and I experienced a special moment; an epiphany.
I was on an isolated island surrounded by tall Douglas Fir trees, expansive water and a never-ending blue sky. The only sound was a bird, chirping its contentment. And I became aware that there were no honking cars, no sounds of industry, no vibration of a humming city, and, most importantly, there was no smog.
I could breathe. I could breathe easily.
The air went all the way down my lungs, circulated throughout my body, and came out just as easily again.
There was nothing to defend against.
I felt safe.
In that moment, I realized how much energy I wasted over the years, responding to L.A.’s dirty air whether having difficulty breathing, cringing at the sight of smog covered buildings, or wondering how much damage smog had already done to my lungs.
When you live here you hear frightening stories about smog’s effect on your health, and, then, you live it to one degree, and, if unlucky, then another.
Last year a study was published, stating that people living in L.A. County are 30% more likely to develop cancer as a result of breathing the air than those living anywhere else in America, outside of New York City.
This year, the same Washington University researchers, who determined hormone replacement therapy for post-menopausal women put them at risk for heart disease and breast cancer, determined that post-menopausal women are also at serious risk for heart disease, stroke, and premature death, as a result of breathing smog.
I want more moments like I experienced in Washington State.
But, for now, I’m back in Los Angeles.
Help! I can’t breathe!
I’d like to suggest that when you break for lunch today, in between your bites of turkey sandwich and sips of Diet Coke, you consider the toxic air you’re breathing right now.
Consider the state of this toxic air, which is in part a result of loose clean air standards and loose regulations, and ask yourself: Will this air make my lungs sick? Today? How about tomorrow? In ten years? How about in twenty?
Please don’t ignore the wisdom of a seven year old for the justification of an adult, like I did.
Make industry step up to the innovation plate, and watch them hit a home run into clean air.
You have the power today to set stronger ozone standards.
I encourage you to use your power to do the right thing, so tomorrow we all breathe easier.
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Photo August 11, 2007 flying into LAX
