Culver City became the 39th city to urge national leaders to use the Clean Air Act to reduce greenhouse gas pollution to head off climate change. The Culver City Council passed a resolution joining cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit and Miami that are part of the Center for Biological Diversity’s national Clean Air Cities campaign.
“Climate change will bring more extreme heat days to Southern California and with them more ground-level ozone, which is linked to increased asthma and other respiratory illnesses,” said Culver City Councilmember Meghan Sahli-Wells, who introduced the Clean Air Cities resolution. “The Clean Air Act is a powerful tool in our toolbox to address this crisis now. But we need to use it urgently and ambitiously.”
With many Culver City residents concerned about fracking at the nearby Inglewood Oil Field, earlier this year Culver City passed a resolution calling on the state to ban fracking until safety regulations are enacted.
A UCLA study released earlier this year projects that climate change will triple the number of days above 95 degrees in downtown Los Angeles. The number of high-temperature days will quadruple in portions of the San Fernando Valley and rise fivefold in an area of high desert in Los Angeles County. The projections are for 2041 to 2060.
According to a release by the Center for Biological Diversity, higher temperatures are expected to cause more heat-related deaths and an increase in ground-level ozone, linked to increased incidences of respiratory disease and death. Approximately 1.25 million children and adults in L.A. County have been diagnosed with asthma, according to data from the California Health Interview Survey.
The Center’s Clean Air Cities campaign is working around the country to encourage cities to pass resolutions supporting the Clean Air Act and using the Act to reduce carbon in our atmosphere to no more than 350 parts per million, the level scientists say is needed to avoid catastrophic climate change.
Learn more about the Center’s Clean Air Cities campaign and get the facts about the Clean Air Act.
Be sure to like Culver City Patch on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our free daily newsletter for email updates.
