This summer, airplanes from the Boulder-based National Center for Atmospheric Research crisscrossed the Front Range measuring emissions that cause ozone.
As the $11 million science project demonstrates, ozone presents a complicated challenge. But ozone also demonstrates how we can work thoughtfully at the local level to curb pollution.
Ozone is, as the rhyme goes, good up high but bad nearby. In the upper atmosphere, it blocks the sun’s harmful rays while, at ground level, it can irritate lungs.
The good news is this year ground-level ozone locally was the lowest since 2011. While a relatively cool, wet summer helped (ozone levels increase on long, hot days), Colorado has been proactive in addressing this problem.
• The Regional Air Quality Council’s voluntary but effective Ozone Aware program offers simple ways the public can help reduce ozone pollution. (For example, keep cars well maintained or don’t use gas-powered lawn mowers during hot sunny days.)
• The Colorado Air Quality Control Commission, with the support of some of the state’s largest oil and gas producers, earlier this year passed rules to reduce emissions from energy producers that can contribute to ozone.
• Colorado’s new car dealers created the Clear the Air Foundation and have donated more than 1,100 old, high-emitting cars to be crushed and recycled. Some of these cars polluted 100 times or more as much as new vehicles.
Ozone isn’t the only pollution source that is being tackled thoughtfully and effectively.
Nationally, since 1980 emissions of six common pollutants have declined by two thirds, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Meanwhile, the U.S. population increased by more than a third, energy consumption grew by more than a quarter, and travel by car increased by 92 percent.
Consider that since 1980:
• Ozone pollution is down by a quarter.
• Carbon monoxide pollution is down 83 percent.
• Lead, whose effect on developing brains was linked to more violent crime, has declined by 91 percent.
• Sulfur dioxide, which contributed to acid rain (remember that?), has declined by more than three quarters.
And the good news extends to Colorado. The United Health Foundation ranked Colorado as the eighth healthiest state, in part because of low air pollution levels.
Part of the success is thanks to the transformative power of technology.
For example, automobile manufacturers continue to unveil a range of new environment-friendly technologies including flex fuel, clean diesel, electric, hybrids, hydrogen fuel cell and natural gas-powered vehicles. These technologies – along with the latest versions of the classic gas-powered internal combustion engine – emit 90-plus percent less on average than vehicles sold in 1970, while offering exponentially better performance, safety and fuel economy.
As Matt Ridley wrote in Wired magazine 2012, “Humanity is a fast-moving target. We will combat our ecological threats in the future by innovating to meet them as they arise, not through the mass fear stoked by worst-case scenarios.”
Sadly, however, the EPA lately has displayed a preference for one-size-fits, top-down mandates that carry an untenable economic cost.
Little noticed in the shadow of controversial proposed EPA carbon rules is a second set of ozone rules that, according to research from the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), would be the most expensive regulation ever imposed on the American public. In Colorado, it would cost the gross state product $18 billion through 2040.
NAM notes that air quality continues to improve and ozone-contributing emissions are already down nearly 60 percent nationwide since 1980, even while the economy has grown.
As NAM notes, “With all the progress we’ve made and the further investments that will take place without new ozone regulations, now is not the time to move the regulatory target—not at these costs.”
The contrast between thoughtful local action and illogical federal mandates couldn’t be clearer.
Tim Jackson is CEO of the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association. More information about the CADA-sponsored Clear the Air Foundation is available at .
