so all kinds of activities for helping with the driving portion of this problem and i've probably forgotten a few but you get the idea what about electric power plants well i think actually from the research questions that i've been throwing at you you guys are getting the idea that we've been making a lot of beneficial changes there uh fossil fueled power plants have been moving from steam plants where you burn fuel to boil water and make steam to what are called natural gas turbines which are more efficient they can be started up and shut down more or less instantly so you don't need it you don't keep it running all kinds of changes again promoted by the aqmd intended to help clean the air industries highly regulated their emissions are monitored remember the story i told you um about the oil refinery not allowed to build an extension increase the throughput unless they removed an incomparable amount of air pollution in some way and they went and capped and i'll see two oil seeds at santa barbara okay the new paint job what i was really thinking about when i wrote that as one of the answers was like auto body painting spray painting it used to be done out in the open not anymore paint booths have to be fully enclosed they have to have vapor recovery systems giant fans retrieving the fumes and paint shops are regulated as to how many cars they can paint in a week can't go over inspectors drop in unannounced if you're painting too many cars uh or doing a quick panel painted painting out in the open air you lose your license you're shut down serious because the solvent the liquid that transports the paint in the spray is volatile it evaporates straight off into the air it's what we call a volatile organic compound you'll see that phrase voc volatile organic compounds small what about painting your home well historically there are two kinds of paint there's oil-based paint and water-based paint oil-based pect is a far superior product oil-based paint has a higher gloss it's stronger more durable it doesn't peel it doesn't fade it lasts for years but oil based the liquid that keeps the paint mobile so you can use it contains volatile hydrocarbons and as they evaporate and dry off they produce a horrible smell by the way you will have to we kind of need to work with windows open or you'll get headaches or worse but it's all evaporating into the air and contributing to smoke water-based paint way inferior you can't get a nice high shine it starts to peel and chip pretty quickly and it's not real good for durability high traffic where it wears out you can't scrub a wall with water-based paint on it too much or the paint comes off well today that's all you can use oil-based paint with one or two very limited very special exceptions oil-based paint is not offered for sale in california anymore there we have to accept the inferior product in return for cleaner air and you might not think it's enough to matter but just go and look at home depot or lowe's how much paint are we talking about gallons and gallons and gallons of the stuff if all that was hydrocarbons evaporating into the air we would have a much more serious problem than if it's water evaporating into the air there are as i say one or two limited exceptions would you for example want to paint the outside of a boat's hull with water-based paint it would basically soften up and fall off wouldn't it you have to use oil-based tank there there's no alternative so a few exceptions like that basically no more oil-based paint i included in your answers using your fireplace what's that about well you burn firewood whatever the smoke going up the chimney contains actually some volatile hydrocarbons along with other air pollutants including particulate matter which is well known to be hazardous to our health every home basically has a fireplace of course as climate change proceeds year by year there are less and less days in the winter when it is even remotely cool enough to consider having a fire in your fireplace so one problem is in a way gonna kind of take care of another but those fireplaces if we all use them contribute to a major part of the problem did you know los angeles county i don't think orange county has followed suit yet but in los angeles county new construction a new home it is now illegal to build a fireplace into that home no more fireplaces of course they can't take your existing fireplace away from you you can go on using it but did you know all across southern california there are actually no burn days the aqmd announces when the air quality is not good enough and it's illegal to light a fire in your fireplace on those days as far as i know there's been no active enforcement yet but technically cops see smoke coming out of your chimney you can be ticketed if it's a no burn day most people don't even know that this law exists and they wouldn't know where to find the information about whether it's a no burn day or not anyway but it's there it's in place and as we continue we move more and more towards enforcing these kind of rules there are things that are in the works things that are planned but haven't actually taken effect yet lawn mowers the aqmd is planning to ban gasoline-powered lawn mowers you'll have to use electric ones or actually push it yourself it's amazing no one in southern california wants to push their own lawnmower it's not that hard by the way you can do it why lawn mowers they're tiny yes they are the gasoline motor on a lawnmower or even a leaf blower is very small but does it have all that fancy pollution equipment that the bigger motor in a car does doesn't does it there's no pollution control equipment a lawnmower emits more air pollution than your car does your car is burning more fuel but it's got it's got all this pollution control equipment the lawnmower has none of that it's just emitting everything same for the leaf blood so yes we have made lots of changes continuing to make more changes the aqmd is constantly looking for more ways to address air quality in southern california south coast by the way implies everything from santa barbara to the mexican border which is why improving the smog by capping oil seeps in santa barbara allowed a company to produce more pollution from a refinery in wilmington it's all part of the same management area and the overall account book is what they're looking at so how bad is it now well southern california air is still up there at the top of the list of air quality around the states but it has changed a lot we used to have other bad states and then california way up here in a class by ourselves that's what it was like in the 60s 70s and going into the 80s even in the 90s now we're about here we're about the same as other bad areas of the country every now and again we manage to drop down until we're second on the list it makes the news we stay second on the list of bad air quality for maybe a day or two and then we go back to our first place position again but still this is a lot better than that we have made incredible strides having said that we've still got a long way to go so what can we anticipate for the future as the aqmd keeps working will we get ourselves down off of the bad list and have great air quality sadly the answer to that is no almost all the improvement that can be made has been made the aqmd will work harder and harder and harder and produce smaller and smaller and smaller gains why is this problem insoluble geography we have two major geography problems here in southern california and geography is how the world works can't change it okay first one at latitudes around 30 degrees north and 30 degrees south two bands around the globe and we're in the northern one these latitudes the air in the atmosphere the whole 10 mile thick atmosphere the air is basically descending coming down on us my geography students have to learn all about this in detail uh let me try to give you the short version it's the rising hot air at the equator that has spread out and is now coming down 30 degrees north and 30 degrees south so it's constantly day after day sinking downwards now as air comes downwards the pressure increases so the air shrinks into a smaller space which means that the amount of heat energy in it is concentrated into a smaller space so as it comes down it gets warmer and drier does that ring a bell with our climate warm and dry now that air can't go all the way to the ground you know where we push the air too so it kind of comes down to a thousand feet above the ground maybe two thousand i don't know and kind of hangs there so you've got this belt of warm air pressing down constantly descending it down at the bottom the bottom thousand feet is where we're emitting all this pollution into the air can that air near the ground rise and escape into the greater atmosphere and be blown away it can't that warm air pushing down from above is like a lid it blocks the upward movement the any of the ground cannot get away so you get this sharp line we call it an inversion cooler air below warmer air above the cooler air cannot break out upwards through the warmer air to escape into the rest of the atmosphere and that applies to say anywhere at these at these latitudes all around the planet that's one geographic factor yeah but we have a breeze coming in off the ocean can't the breeze blow the stuff out into the desert away to other states get it out of here well look at the map urban southern california here is completely surrounded by mountains the santa monica mountains the san gabriel mountains the san bernardino mountains the san jacinto mountains and the santa ana mountains so you've got this lid up above the mountains stick up above that there as you see here the wind comes in off the ocean and the smog therefore backs up to the mountains that can go no further so here in summary is the southern california smog the warm air lid above the breeze pushing in from the ocean the mountains blocking any exit so that's as far as the smog gets to go that's why the smog is usually worse towards the mountains pasadena sierra madre riverside san bernardino usually worse there than down near the coast santa monica redondo beach seal beach hunting beach and so on but those two factors there's nothing we can do about we can't change our latitude and we can't remove the mountains so we're stuck with it believe it or not air quality has been a problem here even before modern civilization do you know what the native americans who lived in this area used to call the los angeles base translated the valley of the smoke a few campfires and we have an air quality problem because of our area's geography once we have a huge population living here i don't care how careful we are we're never going to have good air unfortunately