J u s t C l o u d s

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced yesterday that green house gasses (GHGs) are a threat public health and the environment as indicated by an endangerment study finding. “In less than eleven months, we have done more to promote clean energy and prevent climate change than happened in the last eight years,” stated Lisa Jackson. Indeed, there has been more action on EPA’s part than it would ever be imaginable with the Bush administration. Go Lisa, go!

What does this mean? GHG regulations would fall under EPA’s Clean Air Act giving EPA more authority in regulating GHGs than Congress. Question now is: How will GHGs be measured and regulated?

Young pollution sleuths and community activists fight for healthier air.

When Juan Hernandez moved to West Oakland from Bakersfield, Calif., one year ago, his asthma flared up. He used his inhaler more and more often and, eventually, had to give up his favorite sport: running. “I was huffing and puffing, but I thought, It’s my own personal problem,” says Hernandez, 17. Then, while working on a school assignment, he discovered otherwise. His environmental-law teacher sent Hernandez and his classmates on a “toxic tour” of their neighborhood: they walked around and wrote down what they saw, what they smelled and how they felt. This particular section of West Oakland, which lies in the shadow of a tangled web of four freeways and the Port of Oakland, has the second highest rate of asthma in the city. As Hernandez strode a few blocks from school, he passed a scrap-metal recycling plant and aluminum smelter that “smelled nasty,” he says. It was an “aha” moment: “I said to myself, ‘I’m living in this place that has some of the worst pollution in all of Oakland, and I gotta do something about it. (more…)