Breathing air in polluted metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles or Riverside can reduce your life expectancy by 2 to 3 years.

Motor vehicles and other air pollution sources that move, such as ships, trucks, trains, buses and even lawnmowers, account for about 90% of the cancer risk in the greater-Los Angeles region – with stationary sources such as power plants and factories accounting for only about 10%.

Diesel exhaust from trucks, ships, trains and buses has been declared to contain over 40 substances listed as hazardous air pollutants by the U.S. EPA.

When you drive in bumper-to-bumper traffic, pollutants outside can seep into your car, making the air you breathe inside your car up to 10 times more polluted than typical city air.

Every day that a ship sits at dock unloading its cargo, it releases an entire ton of smog-forming and toxic pollutants.

If you live, work or go to school near freeways, high-traffic roads, seaports, and rail yards, you are generally at greater risk for cancer and decreased lung function, studies show, because these places contain more concentrated levels of air pollution.

For your child, toxic air pollution is an even bigger problem, in part because children breathe much more quickly than adults.

Asthma is a leading cause of school absenteeism, according to the California Department of Education.

Even if you don’t smoke cigarettes at all, your lungs or heart may be similarly damaged simply from exposure to ozone and particulate matter. The American Heart Association recently declared, “[Air pollution’s] impact on cardiovascular disease … represents a serious public health problem.”

Health impacts from diesel pollution exposure, such as premature death, heart disease, asthma and bronchitis, cost some $22 billion statewide in 2004, not including impacts such as lost work and school days.

Credit: Coalition for Clean Air

Half of all personal autos on the road in the U.S. on a typical day travel less than 20 miles. These vehicles represent less than 20% of the total miles driven, but, due to cold engines and cold catalytic converters, these short trips produce more than 40% of all emissions.

Adjusting thermostats 2 degrees can save 2,000 pounds of carbon.

Cleaning refrigerator coils twice a year can save 650 pounds of carbon.

Credit: Energy Independence Now

Electric vehicles (EV’s) are the only true zero-emissions vehicles on the road.

The only emissions from electric vehicles are from upstream power plants providing electricity.

Upstream emissions for gasoline vehicles are more than 14 times higher than for electric vehicles.
Electric vehicles run on electricity provided by on-board batteries, and can be recharged at any of the many recharging stations around the state.

As of March 2002, there were more than 4,000 electric vehicles on the road in the U.S., most of them in California.

Hybrid vehicles offer 2-3 times the energy efficiency of a comparable gasoline-only car, and have ranges of about 600 miles on a tank of gas.

The most widely available hybrid vehicles are the Honda Insight and the Toyota Prius, which have retail prices of about $20,000. The Ford Escape Hybrid will be launched late summer 2004, at a retail price of around $27,000.

Comprehensive data of vehicles’ fuel economy and emissions is provided by the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Green Vehicle Guide”: www.epa.gov/greenvehicles.

Credit: Coalition for Clean Air

Various plant and animal species are becoming extinct literally every single day!

Big cats, including tigers and jaguars, are an extremely endangered species. Poached and hunted for sport, these magestic creatures are diminishing every year. Currently, there are less than 250 Siberian Tigers left in the wild. The Sumatran Tiger has less than 450 in its ranks. The poor Chinese Tiger has only 47 of its kind left in the wild.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts a warming in the range of 2.5 to 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100.

According to the IPCC about three-quarters of the human-caused emissions of CO2 is due to the combustion (or burning) of fossil fuels. The rest is primarily due to deforestation and other land use changes.

According the IPCC's third assessment, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) has increased by 31% since 1750. The current CO2 concentration has not been exceeded during the past 420,000 years, and most likely was not exceeded during the last 20 million years. The atmospheric concentration of methane (CH4), a potent greenhouse gas, has increased by 151% since 1750, and continues to increase.

The United States is the world leader in Greenhouse Gas emissions, producing almost 25% of the total CO2 emissions worldwide.

Substituting 10 incandescent light bulbs for compact fluorescent bulbs in a household can save 1,780 pounds of carbon.

Credit: Coalition for Clean Air

With 70 percent of the earth's surface covered with water, it makes water the most common substance on earth. Yet, industries released 197 million pounds of toxic chemicals into waterways in 1990. That was nearly two decades ago. Imagine how much that has increased since.

Reducing time in the shower by 2 minutes saves 350 pounds of carbon.

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