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Smog Does Nobody Good Essay

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As of April 2000, Houston, Texas flunked the air quality test given by the American Lung Association of Texas. The city was carefully being watched because of the alarming reports taken from 1996-1998. Houston’s smog and ozone levels have now surpassed Los Angeles’s notorious air pollution problem. They must take advice from this infamously polluted city without slowing down the economic growth of their port city. They could reduce the traffic on the ship channel and the city’s highways, or create a better mass transit system but, just by shrinking the number of commuters or how much pollution factories are allowed to make in one day, it will not necessarily permanently fix the problem. These are the types of questions being asked by …show more content…

Large public education projects have started and have since helped (Monds). Unlike America it has become a national interest in Canada to preserve air. The United States needs to learn that saving the air quality is a full-time job and not just when a city is in trouble. The summer of 1999 was when Houston realized its crisis. Norris’ online article reported that Houston had 40 ozone alert days or a Stage 1 where the ozone level reached higher than the federal allowance of .12 parts per million in one hour. That summer, while Houston was reaching its highest smog level ever, Los Angeles was happy to report that they did not experience a Stage 1 alert day at all for the first time in fifty years (Norris). Although Los Angeles still does experience an ozone alert day periodically, it has cleaned its air up to some extent. However, that does not mean that Los Angeles should not continue with its efforts to reduce the level of smog. The steps Los Angeles took to reduce its levels, in the end, may work for Houston.

In the past four years, Los Angeles has created many plans of action to try and stop this economic threat in their air. The two main plans that have produced the best results are 1997’s Air Quality Management

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