A Big Book
In fact, the report carries some crucial lessons about the air we breathe.
Lesson number one is that we have and can make progress against air pollution. Progress has been most obvious in areas -- California comes to mind -- that have had the most aggressive clean-up approaches.
Lesson number two is that, despite the progress, we still have major air pollution problems. Indeed, the problem is undoubtedly worse than recorded by the report's conservative methodology, because on the issue of ozone, it rates communities based on the "old" national ozone standard, which was updated earlier this year. When we start analyzing communities and the new standard (and Clean Air Watch hopes to do that in the near future), we will see evidence of an even more widespread problem.
Finally, progress appears to be stalled, and that means we need new protections -- in the form of tougher clean-up requirements, and possibly changes to improve Clean Air Act.
