By Tom Frantz The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District (air district) recently released their annual report to the community. It is a collection of misleading information describing the [...] Continue Reading
Clearing the Air
Clearing the Air: Wood Stoves are Killers
By Tom Frantz Guess what is dirtier than an old diesel truck hauling dead cows to a rendering plant in West Fresno? The answer is a wood stove. According to a Danish paper on the dangers of wood [...] Continue Reading
Clearing the Air: Wheezing and Choking in Malaga
By Tom Frantz A trip down South Chestnut Ave, in Fresno, will take you past Malaga a half mile north of Highway 99. A little over 200 homes, a school, and a park make up this small, [...] Continue Reading
Clearing the Air: Demanding Clean Air in 2017
By Tom Frantz As the new year begins, residents of the San Joaquin Valley continue to gasp air permeated with pollution levels well above national and world health standards. During the winter, high [...] Continue Reading
Clearing the Air: Air Quality & Trump
By Tom Frantz The regressive policy proposals of Donald Trump will almost certainly be implemented during his first year in office. These will likely include federal changes weakening low-income [...] Continue Reading
Clearing the Air: Rich vs Poor | Air Quality and Environmental Justice
By Tom Frantz According to the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District web page, the Valley has reduced the average number of days a resident experiences ozone levels above the national [...] Continue Reading
Clearing the Air: Will Carbon Capture and Sequestration Save the Planet?
By Tom Frantz In the fight against global warming, there is a pressing need to take carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the air and put it into the ground. Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emission rates alone [...] Continue Reading
Clearing the Air: Global Warming and Pizza
By Tom Frantz There is an important bill in the state legislature this year, SB 1383, which would mandate a 40% reduction of methane from dairy sources by 2030. If passed and signed, the California [...] Continue Reading
Clearing the Air: California continues to heat the planet
By Tom Frantz Now that California has been declared the sixth leading economy in the world, where does it rank in terms of climate disrupting emissions? It turns out that California, in 2014, was the [...] Continue Reading
Clearing the Air: A Mass Murderer Lurks in the Valley
By Tom Frantz In June of 2016, the United Nations Environmental Director, Ibrahim Thiaw, gave a speech detailing the effects of air pollution on the world’s population. He said, “If air pollution were [...] Continue Reading
Clearing the Air: Air District Claims Success While Air Quality Worsens
By Tom Frantz The American Lung Association (ALA) has once again confirmed, in their annual report, that San Joaquin Valley residents are breathing the worst air in the nation and subsequently [...] Continue Reading
Clearing the Air: Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation
By Tom Frantz Recent visitors to the Sierra Mountains above the San Joaquin Valley are shocked to see the dead and dying trees of these once magnificent forests. This devastation is spreading from [...] Continue Reading