Up in the Air
Global warming is unequivocal. But it is not all doom and gloom in Los Angeles, where air quality has improved, and the desire to confront the challenges of climate change has growing support from Californians and the LMU community.
By Aaron Smith
Take a nice deep breath
It feels good - assuming you're not also inhaling ground-level ozone, carbon monoxide, lead or another of the common air pollutants that threaten our health. If you're taking that breath on the campus of LMU or in many other parts of Los Angeles, the good news is that the air is probably cleaner now than it was 25 years ago. According to the California Air Resources Board, these types of pollutants have been significantly reduced since the early 1980s, even as the state's population increased by 12 million and the number of cars doubled in the same period. But California's progress, won through the integrated efforts of public interest groups, the academic community and the state Legislature, is tempered by the stark realities of global climate change.
Global warming is "unequivocal," according to a report issued in October 2007 by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Eleven of the past 12 years have been the warmest since 1850. Average temperatures during the past 100 years have risen 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit, and they could increase by an additional 3.2 degrees to 7.8 degrees by 2100. If temperatures increase by 2.7 degrees, as many as 30 percent of all plant and animal species face extinction, warns the IPCC report.
Although the evidence of climate change is overwhelming, predicting exactly how California's ecosystems and economy will be affected in the future is impossible.
"We are early in the climate change game, as we have seen only some of the potential impacts. A lot more needs to be done than driving a hybrid car and putting in compact fluorescent light bulbs if people want to confront this issue," says Jeremy Pal, assistant professor of civil engineering and environmental science in LMU's Frank R. Seaver College of Science and Engineering. "If we act now and come up with new technologies or use existing technologies, we have time. It depends on a lot of factors."
Pal, whose research is in water resources, hydroclimatology and climate prediction, change and variability, is among the hundreds of international experts who contributed to the work of the IPCC. On the strength of the scientific work by Pal and his peers, the group was named a co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace, with former Vice President Al Gore, in October 2007.
Forecast Cloudy
In California, more than half of the fossil fuel emissions of carbon dioxide are related in some way to transportation. Fossil fuel combustion accounts for 98 percent of carbon dioxide emissions. Other gases, such as methane, nitrous oxide and hydrocarbons, also contribute to climate change. And many greenhouse gases remain in the atmosphere for decades, even centuries, so the problem cannot be eliminated quickly, according to scientists. Thus, the problems we experience today do not reflect the full effects we may see years from now.
Pal believes that implementing existing technologies and developing new ones can substantially help to curb some of the worst consequences.
"We need to act in the next five or 10 years or there will be consequences that will be difficult to reverse," Pal says. "It's not a question whether greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere, or whether humans have an impact on that - there's no question about that. The questions are, 'What do we want to do about it? Are we willing to sacrifice our lifestyles?' We also need to realize that this is a global issue."
Indeed, while the United States has the highest emissions of greenhouse gases of any nation, as much as 25 percent of the particulates in Los Angeles air pollution comes from China, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, giving special urgency to the grassroots call to "act locally, think globally."
California has traditionally been a pioneer in efforts to reduce air pollution, with a long history of actions undertaken in response to the threat posed by climate change. Most recently, the state sued the federal government to gain permission to impose its own tough standards on automakers to curb global warming. And most Californians, far from laid-back about environmental issues, stand behind such aggressive actions. A survey conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California found that eight in 10 Californians support the state law that requires automakers to further reduce the emission of greenhouse gases from new cars in California by 2009.
"When you watch the news and they say 'poor air quality tomorrow,' it can be easy to get depressed," says Lambert Doezema, assistant professor of chemistry in the Seaver College of Science and Engineering. He is an atmospheric and analytical chemist whose research investigates the chemical precursors to ozone formation called hydrocarbons.
"In reality, people have been working very hard on this for a number of years, and actually the air quality in Los Angeles has gotten much better in the past 30 years. In Los Angeles, vehicle emissions are the most important source of hydrocarbons. One of the breakthroughs is getting our cars smog-checked. That's been a huge help in getting the worst polluters off the road. Even though there are more vehicles on the road, there is less pollution coming from the vehicles," Doezema says.
Studying Pollution in L.A. and the Classroom
Doezema leads three student projects focused on ground-level ozone formation, one of the more dangerous components of smog. Most of the research occurs outside of the classroom. The projects include analyzing hydrocarbon trends over a five- or 10-year period to see if improvements have coincided with certain legislation; conducting studies along La Cienega Blvd., a major thoroughfare in west Los Angeles, to see if oil and gas emissions have been underestimated; and recreating several frequently cited landmark studies to determine if their differing sampling techniques had an impact on the results.
The research "is a great opportunity for undergraduate students to work on real-world projects," Doezema says. "It's amazing for a [university of LMU's] size to have this many people working on all these various aspects of environmental issues. At least 10 faculty, for example, are working on environmental problems in the Ballona Wetlands."
Pal also brings the challenges of climate change into the classroom. "We can only sustain about 10 percent of our population with the water we have. We import about 90 percent of our water from other regions such as the Colorado River, the Owens Valley and the Bay area," he says.
"Water demand is highest in the summer, but precipitation typically occurs in the winter. Fortunately, the snowpack in the mountains acts as a natural reservoir and becomes available to us after it melts in the spring and summer, when the demand is higher. With a warmer climate, less precipitation falls in the form of snow, and any snow that falls melts earlier. That would cause us to get our water earlier in the year, when there is less demand. Do we need to build more reservoirs to store the water? Can we better utilize reclaimed and recycled water? These are some of the environmental engineering issues I ask students to think about," Pal says.
Pal is impressed with the commitment to environmental issues on campus. "Even in the short time that I've been at LMU, I've seen changes in LMU policy and in the students' attitude." As an example, he cites Ecologically Conscious and Organized Students, a new student organization that promotes green policies on campus. And LMU has joined more than 400 other colleges and universities in signing a climate commitment policy to take steps to reduce greenhouse emissions.
The challenges are daunting, but the energy and will to do something about climate change are evident and growing, Pal and Doezema agree. The future quality of the air we breathe, and thus our quality of life, is still up in the air.
Aaron Smith is a Los Angeles-based writer. His "Untangling Alzheimer's" appeared in Vistas (Winter 2007).