[Rantman] Ozone worse in the heat -- "good up high, bad nearby" -

[rPauli]

If you live around hot, stagnant air - with lots of sunshine - then 
ozone is problem and will be getting worse.

It will hurt your lungs, sting your eyes and if you have any health 
problems, you should not exercise.   It has caused the price of foods to 
increase and most all plants are harmed to some degree.

If you have a health problem, especially in the lungs, heavy ozone 
pollution could sicken and kill.
Ozone is just one part of polluted air - and maybe so bad that NPR has 
two reports on ozone pollution just today

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/08/03/am-air-quality-advisories-becoming-standard-practice-in-cities/
http://www.npr.org/2011/08/03/138890522/nasas-eyes-in-the-sky-study-pollution-on-earth

Ozone is made when combustion gases mix in the heat and sunshine.  It is 
like a soup cooking in the atmosphere where O2 oxygen is made into O3 
ozone - a different form of oxygen.  You cannot see it, but if it is 
smoggy and hazy, then it is most likely there.  The ground level ozone 
does some serious damage to humans and plants before it slowly rises up 
to the stratosphere where it acts as a protective shield to the planet. 
Even a slight bit is unhealthy, more is very bad.   Ozone is kind of 
caustic, like a bleach.  Used to disinfect swimming pools and as an 
industrial deodorant, it works great.   However,  sitting around in the 
air for a few days waiting to get stirred upward, it is harmful to just 
about any life form that touches the air.

Right now if there is an ozone alert - you should not exercise.   And if 
you are indoors, it is only about 10% less bad than outside, but there 
are some filters that remove ozone.  Some cars have them - Volvos 
mostly.   We can stop using industrial ozone, but the very best thing we 
can do is to curtail exhaust gases from combustion.  Ethanol and other 
biofuels may be particularly bad in making ozone.

You can see today's level at the EPA site: http://airnow.gov/

To check the air now for your region just remember one web site:  airnow.gov
Today Atlanta, GA is really bad, and also Dallas and Phoenix.
http://airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow.national_summary

More information on the subject:

Ozone -  "good up high, bad nearby"
http://www.epa.gov/airquality/gooduphigh/

Most ozone is made at ground level.
http://www.epa.gov/airnow//airnow/ozone/o3.html

Check the EPA web site
http://www.epa.gov/glo/standards.html
http://www.epa.gov/glo/
http://www.epa.gov/ozone/

Serious effects of ozone were spelled out during the 1984 Olympics held 
in a smoggy Los Angeles.   The high ozone levels seriously affected 
athletes.  Also, people realized that rubber tires and plastics exposed 
to air were falling apart from an ozone decay.

IN 1988 The National Crop Loss Assessment Network determined that at 
least a small percentage of some crops are lost to ozone damage -- and 
as much as 20% of certain crops from higher levels of ozone.  It harms 
plants and causes leaves to wilt and weaken.   But after learning these 
facts, there was nothing to do but limit ethanol, gasoline and coal - so 
the agency was dismissed and the ozone findings ignored.

    National Crop Loss Assessment Network (NCLAN) program, designed to
    assess the economic impacts of gaseous air pollutants on major
    agricultural crops in the United States:

    http://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_Report.cfm?dirEntryID=42649
    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0167880987900247
    http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/files/repositoryfiles/ca4007p9-62962.pdf
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15092543


An excellent site for ozone issues, including images of damage is 
maintained by a tireless New Jersey blogger - Gail Zawacki:
http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/p/basic-premise.html


R Pauli
August 2011


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