Friday, August 29, 2014  A visitor to Los Angeles once stated,
“Los Angeles is the only place where you can actually see the
air that you breathe.” That statement pretty much sums up air
pollution not only in Los Angeles, but also in most metropolitan
areas, and that dubious distinction is not confined just to the
cities, it is seeping into the nation’s parks and recreational
areas. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—the agency
charged with protecting the quality of the nation’s air and
enforcing environmental laws in general—recently gave failing
grades to the National Parks relative to air quality.  In
California, the parks named are: Yosemite, Sequoia, Kings Canyon
and Joshua Tree; in Colorado, Rocky Mountain; in North Carolina
and Tennessee, Great Smoky Mountain; in Maine, Arcadia; and in
Virginia, Shenandoah. It’s becoming a national scandal in terms
of air quality.  One of the National Park Service’s officials
reported, “The fact that the behavior of society is messing up
the cities we have learn