Join us to ask Glade to stop keeping their fragrance ingredients a secret!

Air freshener seems to be more and more prevalent in our society these days.  One market analysis forecast that home fragrance sales would reach $6 billion by 2012. I was unable to find an exact sales number for last year, but I have no doubt that it’s a shockingly high number, given the staggering array of air freshening devices available in the supermarket aisle. Aerosols, sprays, candles, plug-ins, oils, time releasers, each with dozens of different scents to choose from – the options are almost overwhelming.

“So, what’s the problem with all these fragranced air fresheners?” you ask. THIS is the problem: fragrance can be made up of more than 100 chemicals, most of which are synthetic, and some of these chemicals are harming our health.

Take these alarming statistics, for example (which, I should note, are from only one of the many, many studies I could cite about the impact of fragrance chemicals on our health):

One study in the U.K. of 14,000 pregnant women showed a link between the use of air fresheners and aerosol sprays and an increase in headaches and depression in the mothers, as well as ear infections and diarrhea in their babies. In homes where air fresheners and aerosol sprays were used on most days, women experienced 25% more headaches and 19% more post-natal depression than women in homes where such products were used less than once a week. Babies under six months old who were exposed to air fresheners on most days had 30% more ear infections and a 22% greater chance of diarrhea than babies exposed less than once a week[1]. While it is not clear which chemicals (or which combination of chemicals) found in air fresheners may be responsible for these effects, the results of this study raise concern about the safety and necessity of these products.

Let’s emphasize that frightening last sentence: We don’t know which chemicals are causing these serious health problems, or which products they’re in. That’s because most companies keep fragrance ingredients a secret with near-religious fervor. This is a big problem when it comes to air fresheners, in which fragrance can make up 70-80% of the overall composition of the product. That means we have no information on the vast majority of chemicals in the product we’re spraying in our homes.

Let’s use a real-life example with an iconic product to illustrate this problem: Glade. Glade is a household name, offering some of the most popular air fresheners on the marketplace. But the makers of Glade keep fragrance ingredients a closely-guarded secret, so we have no idea what makes up that Clean Linen or Lavender & Vanilla scent.

Which is ironic, because SC Johnson, Glade’s parent company, can’t seem to emphasize enough how dedicated they are to “honesty” and “transparency.” You may have seen the company’s CEO, Fisk Johnson, on the television screen talking about how the company discloses ingredients “right down to the dyes and fragrances.”  This commercial seems a little misleading to me.  These are just a few of their other quotes emphasizing that commitment:

“We know you value transparency, and we’re committed to sharing what’s inside our products.”

“Today’s families want to know what’s in the household cleaning and air freshening products they use in their homes.”

“That’s why we disclose all ingredients… So you know what you’re bringing into your home.”

Except when it comes to fragrance ingredients, apparently.

Here’s what the makers of Glade are willing to tell you. They released a master list of nearly 1,500 chemicals that they use in all of their fragranced products – but they don’t tell you which chemicals are in which products.

We had a feeling you wouldn’t want to wade through 1,500 chemicals, so we picked out a few choice chemicals on that giant, unwieldy list that we think you should know about:

• Synthetic musks: potential hormone disruptors which are persistent and bioaccumulative, and may break down the body’s defenses against other toxic exposures. These chemicals are showing up in our blood and breast milk.

• All 26 of the allergens currently disclosed on SCJ product labels in the European Union (EU). SCJ doesn’t disclose these allergens on product labels in the US because they’re not required to by law.

• Several additional allergens, which have been deemed of concern in the EU.

• Several chemicals of concern identified by an EU panel as having no publicly available human safety data.

• Terpenes, which can react with ground level ozone in the air to form cancer-causing formaldehyde.

• Petroleum – the same compound in gasoline.

But SC Johnson won’t tell us which products these chemicals are in? Seriously? WVE did a little of our own sleuthing work, and tested a couple of Glade products. Test results revealed synthetic musks and allergens. Test results also revealed the presence of phthalates, which the company committed to phase out two years before – SC Johnson claimed this was a contamination issue, but we have no confirmation that this issue has been resolved. Here’s the thing: The lab was only specifically testing for those chemicals because we asked them to. Unfortunately, we don’t have the money to walk into a lab and say, “Tell us everything that’s in this fragrance.” (Sure, companies deconstruct other companies’ scents all the time, but we don’t have that kind of budget.)

Having something to hide seems to be the only reason companies don’t want to tell us exactly what’s in their fragrances, SCJ included. We know that companies have some pretty advanced technology that allows them to reverse engineer each others’ scents – so threats to intellectual property and trade secrets can’t really be the issue. And we know that there are companies like Seventh Generation that disclose all ingredients without any apparent negative impacts to business. So really – what are these other companies hiding?

We believe that we have a right to know what’s in the products we’re bringing into our homes, spraying in the air that we breathe, landing on the surfaces that we touch, and settling into the dust at our feet.

And we know that we’re not alone in this belief – a study just came out last month called Thinking Consumption: Consumers and the Future of Sustainability, and the headlining find on the study was that consumers rank ingredient transparency among the most important issues for brands:

Nearly 9 in 10 consumers globally (86%) say “ingredient transparency is extremely important or very important” for companies to address as part of their products, services, or operations, including 88% of consumers in emerging markets and 84% of consumers in developed markets.

Guess who sponsored this study, among other companies? SC Johnson, makers of Glade!

Seems like SCJ should take the advice that they themselves asked for – don’t you think?

And this study isn’t the only evidence that their consumers want them to come clean on fragrance ingredients. Since WVE launched our Glade: Stop Keeping Toxic Secrets campaign, thousands of people have called on SCJ to list all fragrance chemicals through direct emails and on social media.

So, let’s recap:

• SC Johnson, makers of Glade, say that they’re committed to transparency. Oh yeah, except when it comes to telling us which fragrance chemicals are in which products.

• Certain fragrance chemicals are harming our health.

• SC Johnson just sponsored a study showing that the incredibly vast majority of consumers want to know what’s in products.

• We’ve been telling them directly that we want to know what’s in fragrance.

Seems like a pretty easy decision to us.

Join our Glade: Stop Keeping Toxic Secrets campaign on Facebook or by emailing the company here.

Citing significant concerns about long lines at airports and flight delays caused by the furlough of air-traffic controllers, Congress is allowing the Federal Aviation Administration to override strict sequestration rules and re-direct funds within its budget. And they did so with lightning speed.

With their big fuss over aviation punctuality, lawmakers make it clear that they’re not feeling the pain felt by the majority of Americans. Their message: In the United States it’s fine to wait — and face a steep climb — for housing, health care, cancer treatment, a pre-school slot, domestic violence intervention services, federal work study, or job retraining. But our planes? They better take off on time.

Thanks to sequestration’s across-the-board cuts that began two months ago, the FAA had to cut $637 million from its budget between March 1 and September 30, 2013. It planned to achieve one-third of this cost savings by furloughing 14,000 air-traffic controllers, obligated at present to incorporate one unpaid day off for every ten days worked.

Congress is falling prey to what The New York Times calls the “special-interest demands for exceptions” — first meat inspectors, now air-traffic controllers. Next up, the Pentagon.

Even though the majority of sequester-driven cuts fall on programs that serve families, workers, and low-income Americans, the gasp emerging from local communities is barely audible in the media or on Capitol Hill.

That’s because the majority of folks enduring the across-the-board cuts — program beneficiaries and the workers who serve them — are fighting to survive. They don’t have huge sums at their disposal to pay lobbyists or publicists.

Our lawmakers’ struggle to ease the pain of weary travelers is doing nothing to soften sequestration’s overall blow. More than a piecemeal approach is required.

Congress must cast off its confounding allegiance to zero-sum budgeting where one person’s win is another person’s loss and stop side-stepping questions about the role of government. With all their constituents in mind, not just a powerful few, lawmakers must forge comprehensive legislation that tackles the way our nation makes our revenue and the way we set federal spending priorities.

There are significant, un-tapped resources available. If only Congress will muster the political and moral will.

Any member of Congress unwilling to engage in this task should locate the exit closest to them. There’s no room on this flight for useless baggage.

This past President’ Day my oldest child turned 18 and instead of celebrating his young adulthood with him, I was across the country standing on the National Mall with more than 40,000 strangers. While I may sound like an uncaring mom, the opposite is true. I’d gone to Washington DC precisely because I care so much about the world our children will inherit. This sea of people was at the Capitol asking the President to stop the Keystone XL pipeline and address climate change without further delay. Participating in this rally led me to reflect on the freedoms of speech and assembly that I normally take for granted. And reflecting took me back eighteen years to 1995 when my son was born.

At the time, I was working at the Goldman Environmental Prize –a San Francisco-based award given to grassroots environmental activists — and the previous summer had researched a nomination that my colleague at the Sierra Club, Steve Mills, had told me would “knock my socks off.” The nomination was for a Nigerian named Ken Saro-Wiwa. He was a well-known author, television producer and a loving parent recently imprisoned after leading non-violent demonstrations for a healthy environment in his native Ogoni region. Located in the Niger Delta, Ogoni land is rich in oil, and Saro-Wiwa was advocating that the region’s main oil extractor, Shell, clean up its act. Leaky pipelines crisscrossed fields and villages, spilling oil onto valuable farmland and contaminating waterways. Meanwhile, the natural gas by-product of oil extraction was flared into the atmosphere around the clock at ground level. Geraldine Brooks, then an intrepid reporter for the Wall Street Journal (and now a Pulitzer Prize winning author) had visited Nigeria’s Ogoniland and provided me with first-hand accounts of the widespread devastation.

Not surprisingly, Saro-Wiwa was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for Africa in April of ’95 and the news reached him in his bleak jail cell. His younger brother, Dr. Owens Wiwa came to San Francisco to collect the award and deliver a speech on Ken’s behalf about the Ogoni’s non-violent struggle for environmental justice. I left my newborn baby for the first time to attend the emotional ceremony. Seven months later, despite fervent pleas from a consortium of human rights groups and environmental activists around the world, we did not succeed in saving this innocent man of letters. Ken Saro-Wiwa was tried by the military dictatorship’s kangaroo court and, in a true act of barbarism, hanged.

At the Forward on Climate rally, I exercised and appreciated my freedoms as an American. As I contemplated Saro-Wiwa’s senseless death, I was struck by the parallels of the Ogoni struggle for environmental justice with our own. This time the non-violent struggle is against the ill-advised oil pipeline Keystone XL. This time the threatened farmland and waterways are in the middle of our country.

It is said that “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” But while we are still protesting much of the same damage done by oil companies, our understanding of climate change has shifted fundamentally in the last 18 years. In 1995, unless you were a scientist, the idea that human beings were actually capable of irreparably changing the earth’s climate was at best a vague and distant threat. Today, there is nothing vague about Superstorms or distant about severe drought. Now, an unstable climate threatens every person everywhere and building Keystone XL only brings us that much closer to the edge of global calamity. Keystone is ultimately an environmental justice issue that knows no borders. Canceling it will be an important step towards climate sanity.

Freedom of speech and assembly meanwhile are precious rights and in order to protect our irreplaceable planet we need to exercise them more than ever before. The sacrifices of people like Ken Saro-Wiwa who have gone before us and the legacy we bequeath our children and grand-children who come behind us deserve nothing less.

“In the metropolitan areas that we studied there is significant overlap between Latino jobs and green jobs,” said the study’s author and NCLR senior policy analyst Catherine Singley Harvey. “Green jobs pay more than traditional Latino occupations. Also, green jobs typically have workers with some college, but not a college degree.”

The green collar sector can encompass many jobs, all with the ultimate goal of creating communities that rely less on fossil fuels: actual green energy companies that manufacture products; such green companies’ administrative staff and marketing and sales teams; staff to instill solar panels, upgrade old buildings, water systems and infrastructure; those who work in the field and conduct feasibility studies; and research.

“By making a 40 percent investment in energy efficiency, we could create over half a million jobs,” said Shamar Bibbins, senior political associate for the non-profit organization Green for All.

Earlier this month, Bibbins was invited by NCLR to discuss the report’s findings and the green collar sector in general. As it turns out, Knoxville, Tennessee, is the No. 1 city of green collar job growth! Its mayor, Madeline Rogero, is widely recognized for promoting green projects in the city, according to Susanna Sutherland, director of Knoxville’s Policy and Redevelopment Department.

Knoxville’s foray into this space began in 2007 when the then mayor, now Governor Bill Haslam, created a taskforce. That taskforce released 31 action items, many of which turned into projects that created jobs in the city. Among them, has been an upgrade to the convention center as well as solar panel installations and an innovative storm water project.

The biggest obstacle, Sutherland said, has been “to get people enrolled in the community college.” While many green collar jobs do not require a Bachelor’s degree, they do require some college or job training. Also, some immigrant workers need a course to brush up on their English skills.

But the interest is there: Knoxville has held many informational and training sessions that are largely attended by Latino and other workers of color.

“We need to invest in workplace development programs, not cut them,” NCLR’s Singley said.

For green collar jobs postings, click here on the Green For All’s website. NCLR’s full report can be seen here.

Moms and families could not have asked for a better champion of clean air and children’s health than Lisa Jackson. She put the first-ever limits on mercury and other toxic emissions from coal-fire power plants, and tightened standards on soot in our air. Under her leadership, the EPA recognized that greenhouse gases endanger public health, leading to the first-ever proposed limits on carbon pollution from power plants.

Lisa Jackson is truly a super hero mom, and we need to thank her for her outstanding work protecting our families from air pollution. And what would be the perfect goodbye gift? One more clean air win!

President Obama can give Lisa Jackson the best goodbye she could have – finalization of the carbon standard for new power plants. Carbon pollution is dangerous for children because it makes smog pollution worse, which raises the risk of asthma attacks and can permanently damage and reduce the function of children’s lungs.** Last August, the EPA received a record 3.2 million comments in support of limits on power plant carbon emissions. Despite this overwhelming public support, the carbon standard has yet to be finalized into law.

Tell President Obama to celebrate Lisa Jackson’s record and thank her for her outstanding service at the EPA by finalizing the carbon standard by signing our petition here.

A mom’s mission in life is to keep her kids healthy and safe. As EPA administrator and a mom, herself, Lisa Jackson made it her mission to try to keep all our kids healthy and safe from air pollution.

Thank you, Lisa Jackson. We will miss you at the EPA.

** Gauderman WJ, Vora H, McConnell R, Berhane K, Gilliland F, Thomas D, Lurmann F, Avol E, Kunzli N, Jerrett M, Peters J. Effect of Exposure to Traffic on Lung Development from 10 to 18 Years of Age: a cohort study. Lancet 2007; 369:571-577

As moms we care so much – and work so hard – to ensure that our children have a promising, secure future. Climate change threatens every single thing that we parents hope for them.

Climate change manifests as extreme weather.  It isn’t some technical mystery, but rather the scary stuff we’ve witnessed in our communities in recent years: wildfires fueled by epic drought, hurricanes fueled by warming waters, and rains that turn into violent floods. We are already witnessing the climate becoming more erratic and less predictable and we need to do everything we can, as soon as we can, to ensure that it doesn’t spiral completely out of control!

At the Center for Food Safety, we firmly believe that we need more moms at the negotiating table. Our voices have not been heard in the climate movement and we need to change that. Moms are practical and the Cool Foods Campaign gives you the tools to make climate-smart choices for our families – every day, three times a day. One third of climate-changing gases are caused by the food system, so a large part of the climate solution lies in voting with our dollars to support climate-friendly agriculture that will help our kids, instead of making the problem worse by relying on climate-changing fossil fuels.

And while voting with our forks is vitally important, it isn’t enough by itself. Sometimes you’ve got to march to make your voice heard loud and clear. The more moms that join us in Washington for the rally, the more policy-makers are going to listen and know that we are serious about this and we want climate action now.

So please stop and think about how important it is to do everything we parents can to stop climate change. After all, we are Moms and we are Rising to the challenge!

Sign up to join us at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. at noon on Sunday, February 17. RVSP here! If you would prefer to RSVP by e-mail, send your response to Coolfoods@centerforfoodsafety.org

Now that you’ve done that, treat yourself to a sweet little Valentine’s Day video:

Cool Foods Valentine from Cool Foods on Vimeo.

Original solar truck

In its decade of existence, Greenpeace’s Rolling Sunlight has been around the block. More than ten years ago, when Greenpeace wanted to demonstrate how solar power could work to provide energy from a cleaner source, we decided to build something that showed what would be needed to power the average US household. It wasn’t Greenpeace’s first solar display. There have been others along the way, in several countries, including “Cyrus” in the United State in the 1980s, which required the rental of a big rig and a special drivers’ license.

In building Rolling Sunlight, as this rendition came to be known, we knew that unlike standard household application, we would have to move the entire thing in order to show as many people in as many places as possible how little they’d need to have their own power. So our 256 square feet of solar panels needed to go onto a truck, which comes with its own complications, such as burning fuel (even if it’s biodiesel when possible), and having to carry around heavy batteries, since unlike a house it can’t feed back into the grid for credit. All that weight, moving more than 162,000 miles over the last ten years, has taken a toll. Before working in a relief capacity in New York, Rolling Sunlight primarily toured the country visiting college campuses, festivals and fairs raising awareness about solar energy.

Rolling Sunlight: Repair after Superstorm Sandy

So when Rolling Sunlight arrived in Rockaway Beach, NY to provide power to residents hard hit by Sandy, it limped into place with a few broken welds. And yet, despite all the bumps and miles, the solar panels were able to provide and are still providing power to residents there who who remain without power. Now a coalition of solar companies and organizations have distributed solar generators to areas still without power, a safe and efficient alternative to gas generators. The Rolling Sunlight even helped power a warm Thanksgiving feast for the Rockaway community.

Energy from the sun. Simple. Especially when you don’t have to move it around.

Volunteers hand out hot soup to residents at a donation collection/distribution center in the Rockaways days after Hurricane Sandy, where residents are still living with out power, heat, and other basic services, on November 2, 2012. (Photo by Michael Nagle)

In the 6th grade, my Dad magically pieced together a believable rainforest diorama an hour before the bus arrived because my little sister “forgot” it was due that day.  More recently, I’ve witnessed my boss leave from downtown DC to the Maryland suburbs in half an hour during rush hour to get to his kids baseball game.

Parents do these and many other amazing things every day.  They have the power to silence rude strangers with one stare.  They use their super sensitive hearing to catch teens sneaking in during a broken curfew and they can make time stand still when grounding said teenagers.

Unfortunately, one of the few things parents can’t do is prevent air pollution from harming their children.   Not that they wouldn’t try if given the chance—my Dad made for a pretty awesome ninja when I told him years ago there was a monster hiding the bed but let’s be real:  Parents fighting dirty air would be like Batman fighting the Joker, ten Storm troopers AND Ursula from the Little Mermaid without his utility belt—it would simply be a losing battle.

Even more frightening than make-believe villains is the reality of the disparities in of impact of air pollution.  While the amount of money a family has or where they live do not determine how much love the parents in these families have for their children, studies have shown that these factors of income and socioeconomic position do determine the impact air pollution has on children’s health.  According to the study by the National Resources Defense Council,

The good news is that it’s not all doom and gloom.  As it turns out, strict EPA clean air standards can help communities breathe easier. According to the EPA, improved air standards have the ability to prevent 130,00 asthma attacks and 2,800 cases of chronic bronchitis a year.  Strict air standards empower parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents nationwide to guard against the harmful effects of air pollution.   Please contact your Senators and Congressional representatives and ask them to support strict EPA clean air standards.

But everyone knew that the town dump or incinerator was near where they lived. That railroad tracks cut their communities off from other parts of town and that the trains frequently spilled harmful substances while passing through. That extractive mines, coal-fired power plants, nuclear weapons storage facilities, and industrial animal farms (mostly hogs, catfish and chickens) just appeared in their midst, polluting neighborhoods with toxic fumes and millions of gallons of waste.

For more than 30 years these same communities have been educating themselves, organizing their neighbors, and challenging what we think of as environmentalism to expand the definition to include issues of racial and economic equality, as well as the right to be treated equally before the law. They now know that chemical manufacturing, transport and storage, waste water treatment, hazardous waste disposal, power utilities and other high polluting industry are found disproportionately in or near the places where they live, work, worship, go to school and recreate. And today they have the language to fight it.

Women, mothers, grandmothers, sisters and daughters have long been at the forefront of this ever-expanding movement for environmental justice. They notice the rising rates of asthma, illness and sickness, the foul smells in the air, and taste in the water. They notice that their communities are being disproportionately exposed to toxins, and the adverse health impacts that result. For one local group in Gainesville, GA – the Newtown Florist Club – the first alarm bell was when they noticed the increase in the number of funerals they were being asked to provide floral arrangements for.

In coastal areas and Alaskan Villages, they notice the rising water levels, the depletion in fish and shellfish varieties, and degraded oceans, lakes and stream quality. They notice this in the Yukon basin of Alaska, along the Gulf Coast, and most recently in Brooklyn and Staten Island, NY, and in Atlantic City, NJ, and other Eastern Seaboard areas, where Hurricane Sandy swept through, devastating many communities in its wake.

These women have taken their concerns to the White House, state capitols, and the United Nations. They have organized their neighbors, passed local ordinances and established state environmental justice bodies. They have pressed every presidential administration since George W. Bush to do more to stop the disproportionate exposure to pollution, to enforce environmental laws in these often-overlooked places, and to reduce the burden of pollution that their communities have to bear.

They have prodded this President as well, and will continue to press their case until the air quality improves, until their families and communities are no longer disproportionately exposed to air pollution and other toxins.  So we invite you to join us today by adding your blog post to ours to create a groundswell of concern to protect our families, our communities and our right to be treated fairly.  We seek environmental justice for all.

Vernice Miller-Travis is a groundbreaking leader of the environmental justice movement. As a research assistant to Charles Lee, research director at the UCC Commission for Racial Justice, she helped write and publish the seminal 1987 report, Toxic Waste and Race in the United States. As a program leader at NRDC, a program officer at the Ford Foundation, and then as the co-founder of We ACT for EnvironmentalJustice in her hometown of Harlem, NY, she continues to work to advance environmental justice for the many communities who continue to suffer under the burden of pollution exposure, public health disparities, and rising mortality rates.

Daniel Weiss, Center for American Progress

“Heavy Weather: How Sandy, Other Climate Destruction Harm Middle and Lower Income Americans”  “The devastating Hurricane Sandy caused a huge swath of destruction in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States on October 29.”

Alexandra Allred

“A Mother of a Legacy” “I made ‘Mom History’ in 1994 when I became the first ever U.S. women’s bobsled champion at the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, NY.”

Maisha McGill

“Sandy: Devastation, Destruction, Reality Check” “Is climate change a real crisis?”

 

Catherine Singley, National Council of La Raza

“Latinos and the Environment: Moving From Concern to Action” “History will almost certainly mark the 2012 election as a turning point after which the Latino vote was one of the most powerful forces shaping the nation’s political landscape.”

Ayanna Johnson, National Consumers League

“The Rising Costs of Asthma and the Need for Medication Adherence” “Children have experienced increasing rates of asthma especially those living in areas with unclean air.”

Kat Maramba, Clean Air Defense Campaign

“A New Villain: Air Pollution” “Unfortunately, one of the few things parents can’t do is prevent air pollution from harming their children.”

Sarah Howard, Collaborative on Health and the Environment

“Can Air Pollution Contribute to Diabetes or Weight Gain?” “Long-term exposure to traffic-related air pollution is associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes in a number of studies.”

Gina Badalaty, The Mom Blog

“Clean Air and Autism,” “As I attended various presentations on topics related to biochemistry and autism, I heard one term over and over: ‘Toxic insult’.”

Peter Rugh, Occupy Wall Street Environmental Solidarity

“After Sandy, the Struggle for a Just and Sustainable Recovery Begins?” “Occupy Sandy’s efforts however, are no substitute for the public resources necessary for meeting affected people’s needs.”

Angela Garrone, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy

“The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Mountaintop Removal Coal Southern Alliance for Clean Energy”  “Those fighting for the mountains and those who make the mountains their home have won a crucial victory.”

Rev. Canon Sally G. Bingham, Interfaith Power and Light

“Clean Air for Creation” “Clean air is central to life on Earth, but our continued dependence on fossil fuels is a threat to clean air and to God’s Creation.”

Gina Carroll, Moms Clean Air Force

“Social Justice: Business as Usual” “If social justice still matters, particularly increasingly urgent environmental disparities, it’s up to us to make it our business as usual.”

Jeff Levi, Trust for America’s Health

“Clean, Unpolluted Air Should be a Birthright” “Far too many American families are living and working in neighborhoods with dangerous levels of air pollutants that deteriorate their health and quality of life.”

Rebecca Watts Hull, Mothers & Others for Clean Air

“Beyond ‘Code Orange’” “With childhood obesity also hitting record levels, how are families to balance the benefits for children of outdoor play with the need to reduce their exposure to harmful air pollution? And should they have to?”

Cassady Sharp, Greenpeace

“Rolling Sunlight” “The solar panels were able to provide and are still providing power to residents [in Rockaway Beach, NY, post-Sandy]who who remain without power.”

Dave Room, Edutainment

“Pacha Supports Family Conversations about Obama, Sandy and Clean Air” “What if Sandy and Irene and other destructive storms are nature’s way of signalling that we need to stop polluting our air?”

Patricia Moore, RAN Volunteer

“Rising Above Dirty Air: From a Grandmother” “It is hard to think of breathing as a luxury—but for my granddaughter that is her constant reality.”

Cara Baldari, First Focus

“The Childhood Asthma Leadership Coalition” “Asthma is the single most common chronic condition among children in the United States.”

Diane Bailey, NRDC

“Can air pollution contribute to autism?”
“Yes, air pollution may be a factor contributing to autism.”

Kristin Schafer, Pesticide Action Network

“Moms stand up for pesticide-free air in California’s Central Valley” “When a child’s health is on the line, moms will often stand up in truly courageous ways.”

Jacqueline Patterson, NAACP

“Clean Air: A Civil and Human Right” “Unfortunately, the denial of the right to clean air disproportionately affects communities of color and low income communities as they are more likely to live in counties in violation of air pollution standards.”

Katie Fink, NAACP Volunteer

“Proposed Baltimore Energy Answers Incinerator” “Proposed Baltimore Energy Answers Incinerator” “An incinerator that emits lead, mercury, CO2, and NOx is not good for anyone in Baltimore, especially the low income and predominantly Latino population in South Baltimore who already carry a significant lead burden..”

Dorthea Thomas, NAACP Volunteer

“What Happens When Sisters Go Green?” “Between both civil rights and feminist movements, women of color have always been catalyst of change in our nation.”

Claire Barnett, Healthy Schools Network

“It’s a No-Brainer: Children Need Healthy Air (and More) in School”  “Members of Congress would not tolerate these conditions for themselves or their children. But it is already a fact of life for too many children.”

Pacha’s Pajamas

“Time to Commit to Clean Air: Join the Conversation with Pacha and MomsRising”

Race, Class, and Climate Change in the Wake of Hurricane Sandy, Sara Sciammacco, Environmental Working Group

Demanding Clean Air and Environmental Justice, Harriet Shugarman, Climatemama

Time for President Obama to Lead Climate Change Fight, Lloyd Leonard, League of Women Voters

Slash Your Carbon Footprint, CelloMom

Asma a causa del tráfico: ¿Será tu hijo parte del ocho por ciento?, Diane Bailey, La Onda Verde de NRDC

Traffic-Induced Asthma: Could your child be part of the eight percent?, Diane Bailey, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)

El calentamiento global y el clima extremo: una tragedia anunciada, Adrianna Quintero, La Onda Verde de NRDC

How to Protect Our Communities from Climate Change and Extreme Weather Like Sandy, Francis Beinecke, NRDC

What Hurricane Sandy Should Teach Us About Climate Justice, Imara Jones, Colorlines.com

California Mom Channels Heartbreak into Fight Against Air Pollution, Lydia Rojas, American Lung Association Healthy Air Campaign Volunteer

Scenes from the Life of an Asthma Mom, Diane Pickles, American Lung Association Healthy Air Campaign Volunteer

Asthma Mom Yearns for Kids to Enjoy the Great Outdoors, Rachael Lemire-Murphy, American Lung Association Volunteer

New Lungs, and a New Lease on Life, Judy W., American Lung Association Volunteer

For Ashanti, Quality of Life Depends on Healthy Air, Taz W., American Lung Association Volunteer

Pollution Makes Me Sick. Literally, Dan D. American Lung Association Volunteer

Mr. President, Please Save Us From Soot! Mark and Lisa Conley, American Lung Association Volunteers

Traffic Pollution is Just a Piece of Chicago’s Air Pollution Puzzle, Travis K., American Lung Association Volunteer

Fighting for Healthy Air, Liz Foley, Consumers Union

Americans Deserve to Spend Their Days Surrounded by Clean Air, Elodia Resendez, Consumers Union Activist

The Clean Air Act Protects the Nation’s Most Vulnerable Communities, Sean Walser, Consumers Union Activist

The Small Business Take on Clean Energy Investments and Clean Air Standards, John Arensmeyer, Small Business Majority

A Breath of Fresh Air… or Not, Green Grandma

Safe Air to Breathe Shouldn’t Be a Luxury, but for Many Communities, It Is, Shannon Baker-Branstetter, Consumers Union

Air Pollution: Our National Parks in Peril, Todd Larsen, GreenAmerica Blog

The Consequences of Polluted Air, David Gladstone, Consumers Union Activist

One of the biggest impediments to health and well being is the air we breathe: 40,600 deaths per year are related to outdoor air risk factors and 13 percent of the country’s disease burden could be prevented by environmental improvements. And, the environment can disproportionally affect children, who are often at greater risk from exposure to bad air during their developmental years.

In addition, cardiovascular and respiratory disease is caused or exacerbated by exposure to unhealthy air.  In fact, the number of people with asthma, a chronic lung disease, has grown at an alarming rate, as the number of people diagnosed with the disease grew by 4.3 million from 2001 to 2009. Asthma, just one of the diseases triggered by poor air, takes a tremendous toll on the health and wealth of the nation: each day nine Americans die from asthma and, in 2007, asthma was linked to 3,447 deaths.

We can save lives and keep people healthy by implementing and enforcing the rules and regulations of the Clean Air Act. Most notably, an analysis by TFAH and the Environmental Defense Fund found that four rules – the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, the Utility Mercury and Air Toxics Rule, the Industrial Boiler Rule, and the Cement Kiln Rule – could yield more than $82 billion in Medicare, Medicaid and other health care savings for America through 2021. These rules are expected to lower emissions rates of a number of air pollutants, including mercury, arsenic, acid gases, smog, soot and others, which would reduce rates of premature mortality, chronic bronchitis, non-fatal heart attacks, cardiovascular hospital admissions, respiratory hospital admissions and emergency room visits related to asthma.

At the community level, Boston’s Children’s Hospital has already drawn this connection and worked to make their surrounding community healthier by creating a Community Asthma Initiative (CAI). By focusing on the air people at risk for an asthma attack breathe, the CAI has shown a return on investment of $1.46 to insurers for every $1 spent.

Unfortunately, there are only pockets of the country that have drawn these connections and are actively working to improve the environment to ensure people can be as healthy as they want. Quite simply, far too many American families have little choice but to inhale polluted air on a regular basis.

No American – regardless of age, race, socioeconomic status, or otherwise – should be faced with that reality. It is up to our policymakers and legislators to create, pass, enact, fund, support implement and enforce policies, like the Clean Air Act rules, Action Plan and community-based prevention programs, that will ensure the environment and air around us does no harm.