COUNTDOWN TO EARTH DAY

April 5, 2004

The Mir Space Station and the Moon orbiting the Earth. Photo credit: NASA

“For the first time in my life I saw the horizon as a curved line. It was accentuated by a thin seam of dark blue light - our atmosphere. Obviously, this was not the ocean of air I had been told it was so many times in my life. I was terrified by its fragile appearance.”

Ulf Merbold

Federal Republic of Germany

An estimated 110 million Americans (nearly half the population) live in areas which have - at different times during the year - levels of air pollutants that the government considers harmful. In other countries, the situation is much worse.

According to the American Lung Association, air pollution accounts for 60,000 premature deaths each year in the U.S.A.

Learn more about what the Federal government is doing regarding air pollution. You can read the Clean Air Act by following this link.

http://www.epa.gov/air/oaq_caa.html

A Plain English Guide to the Clean Air Act is found here:

http://www.epa.gov/oar/oaqps/peg_caa/pegcaain.html

Find out about companies in your vicinity, and the amount and type of pollutants they release into our air and water with an easy search of data compiled from EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory.

http://www.rtknet.org/tri/area.php

Finally, you can use your internet search engine to find out more about what your state