Oneof California's great accomplishments of the last 30 years has been taking theinitiative to clean up its air. Emission standards for cars and production plantshave all become stricter. Car manufacturers are producing cars up to 95 percentcleaner than in the 1970s, which has dramatically improved California's airquality. The rest of the nation is focusing on California to see what they, too,can do.

With constantly congested freeways and roads, it is a pain todrive anywhere. Simply sitting in traffic, the car is polluting the air. Whywaste gas and pollute the air at the same time? Car emissions can be lowered evenmore by reducing the carbon dioxide output or by carpooling. If you give a frienda ride, you will be both a nice person and a friend to the earth.

The airquality in Southern California is not perfect, but it is better than it was.Cars, factories and power plants create chemicals such as nitrogen oxide, sulphurdioxide and carbon monoxide, but lawmakers are putting their ideas together totry to lessen the damage pollutants do to the air. One California Assemblywomanis sponsoring a bill that would require the state Air Resources Board to developvehicle emission standards to cut carbon dioxide by the 2008 model year. Otherstates could entertain such proposals as well. It would be nice to see a clearblue sky everywhere.

Carbon monoxide is produced from fossil-fuelcombustion sources, and automobiles contribute more than all other sourcescombined. Sulphur dioxide is emitted from coal burning, oil combustion and someindustrial processes. Nitrogen oxides are produced from fossil fuel combustion,and biomass burning. Some of these forms also contribute to the greenhouse effectand depletion of the stratospheric ozone. If we were to reduce the use of objectsproducing carbon monoxide and depend on other resources that would not burn asmuch fossil fuel, air quality would improve.

If great ideas were combinedand put into effect, the air could and would be cleaner. I think polluting hasbeen happening for so many years that we have a greater chance of not cleaning upthe air because it takes too long for us to change our habits. There are ways todecrease air pollution, such as not driving as much, cutting back the hours offactories, making emission standards tougher, and researching different energysources.

With the world's growing population, the environment is changing,and health hazards are a problem in many places. Air pollution is just one of themany problems affecting people. As time goes on pollution will either get better... or worse.