Clean Air How Can We Get It

3. Clean Air: How Can We Get It?

One of the primary requisites for a healthy and long life is clean and pure air. Unfortunately, this is one area that we sometimes have little control over. We can always choose the food we want to eat and decide when to exercise or fast, but the air we have to breathe is what is given us.

This does not mean, however, that we are helpless in obtaining pure air. Here are some practical suggestions that will help you live in a cleaner environment:

1. Demand strict enforcement of all existing air pollution laws. Push for stronger standards and increased funding for air-quality control organizations.
2. Reduce your fuel consumption and automobile dependency. Use unleaded gas. Drive less, and have your car checked to see if it is emitting high levels of pollutants.
3. Allow no smoking in your personal environment, and work for antismoking ordinances in public places and business areas.
4. Try to live in a low-urban environment. Have your home away from heavily traveled roads and highways. Make sure that home gardens are at least 100 feet from any street. The further you live from traffic congestion, the healthier you will be.
5. If you live where the air quality is low, take trips and vacations to where the air is clean and your lungs can have a chance to detoxify.
6. Follow a nontoxic diet as suggested by Life Science. This will allow your body to better cope with the effects of pollution.
7. Exercise away from heavy traffic areas. Do not run alongside cars while jogging, and save all heavy exercising for as unpolluted an area as available to you.
8. Purchase products which produce little pollutants in their manufacture. Some of the worse pollutants are plastic industries and petroleum companies. Try to restrict the use of all such products.
9. Start to re-green your city and area. Plants and forests are our first line of defense against air pollution. You can help by setting out trees in your yard and city. Actively work to preserve all existing “green” areas in towns and cities.
10. Watch the fuel you burn for heating. Low-sulfur coal fuel oil can slow pollution down. Have your home furnace or heating system checked for maximum efficiency so that fewer byproducts are produced in the heating of your home.

Fighting air pollution is not hopeless. Already the quality of the air has somewhat improved since the early 1970s. However, our air has not become so much better than we can grow lax. Industries are continually petitioning for relaxed air standards, and it is up to the public to see that the antipollution laws are instead strengthened and enforced.

Every day of your life, you draw in 20,000 breaths. You have the right to expect that not a single one of these breaths should endanger your health. The air and atmosphere are our common heritage and resource, and we must insure that they stay clean for us and our children.