Ozone

The first President Bush belittled Al Gore as "Ozone Man" for his early warning about the damage to the environment caused by human behavior. A decade later, the second President Bush sought to undermine a growing consensus that Mr. Gore's alarm should be heeded. Mr. Bush called instead for "sound science." There was no sign of gloating Friday, though, when the former vice president was awarded a most prestigious sign of vindication - a Nobel Peace Prize that affirmed not only the legitimacy of his views on global warming but also the threat that rapid climate change poses to world peace and security.

Summer's off to a smoggy start in Maryland and across the country, it seems. Since the first official day of summer June 20, there have been nine days when ozone pollution made the air unhealthful for at least some Marylanders to breathe, according to Clean Air Partners , which publishes air-quality forecasts.  In that period, the Baltimore metro area has seen six days bad enough to pose problems either for sensitive individuals or everyone....

ORLANDO, Fla. Seeing is believing. So is feeling and smelling.Hair cleansed by the new Asti Clean Machine looks, feels and smells so good that it's hard not to believe its inventor's claims that the machine is a "breakthrough" invention in the beauty industry.The Clean Machine was developed by Margareta Loyd, founder of Asti (Advanced Salon Tectonics International), an Altamonte Springs, Fla., company that develops and manufactures hair-care products.Through a process knows as triatomic oxygenation, the machine introduces ozone gas into water.

Just in time for the start of ozone season, the Environmental Protection Agency officially reminds us that Baltimoreans are still breathing unhealthful levels of pollution in their air in late spring and summer. The city and its suburbs were among 45 metro areas nationwide that EPA listed on Tuesday as being in "nonattainment" with air quality standards set in 2008 for ground-level ozone, or smog. Ozone is the byproduct of chemicals emitted in vehicle exhaust and from a wide variety of other sources, including power plants and factories.

There is bad news in the air: NASA scientists have found the highest-ever levels of ozone-destroying chemicals over the Northern Hemisphere, building up much faster than expected. These scientists were so worried by their findings that they released preliminary results before all the data is in and analyzed. And while NASA's Michael J. Kurylo said scientists are "trying to avoid calling the problems in the northern hemisphere an ozone hole," it now appears that this could happen sooner rather than later.

That NASA report on the surprisingly rapid deterioration of the ozone layer over the Northern Hemisphere was followed by a similarly rapid turnaround in Bush administration attitudes. Atmospheric scientists have complained since 1970 that chlorine- and bromine-based chemicals were stripping the Earth of its protection from harmful ultraviolet radiation, but even after the discovery of the Antarctic "ozone hole" in 1985, the White House has held back on banning the chemicals.Now, at last, that has changed.

IT COMES as no surprise to Marylanders with asthma or other breathing ailments that much of the state is frequently blanketed with harmful smog. Thanks to new labels and testing methods applied by the Environmental Protection Agency, ozone pollution in the Baltimore and Washington metropolitan areas previously rated "severe" is now deemed "moderate." The upgrade may reflect a modest improvement, but no one can breathe easier until far more aggressive steps are taken to clear the air. Ozone and other air contaminants that are destroying the health of thousands of Marylanders, especially the most vulnerable, must be battled on many fronts.

WASHINGTON -- The latest Nobel Prize in chemistry confirms that 1995 is shaping up as a vintage year on Capitol Hill for the denigration of knowledge.Prior to the Nobel, announced last Wednesday, the legislators killed their own think tank, the Office of Technology Assessment, and also voted to terminate or financially cripple several government agencies that collect information about environment and health. Now still playing out is the latest episode, the ozone follies, starring an improbable legislative foray into the triumph of chemistry that won the big prize this year.

For more than a decade scientists have been warning that the release of man-made chemicals into the atmosphere was depleting the protective, high-altitude layer of ozone that blocks the passage of harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Now researchers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration say they have conclusive evidence that such a process is indeed taking place.The findings vindicate the efforts of environmentalists and others over the years to eliminate production of the kinds of chemicals responsible for the destruction of ozone in the upper atmosphere as well as the multinational effort to reduce ozone depletion by the year 2005.

The enervating shroud of smog hanging over Central Maryland this summer is an irritating reminder that ozone pollution is not disappearing.Stagnant air trapped harmful ground-level ozone in the Baltimore-Washington basin, causing decidedly unhealthy air quality for more than a dozen days so far. That's more than in all of 1994, with another month left in smog season.Smog is not merely a result of human air pollution. It's highly dependent on natural weather conditions, as this summer's heat wave demonstrates.

Baltimore's air is healthier to breathe than it used to be, but the region still has some of the nation's worst smog and soot pollution, according to the American Lung Association. In its annual report on the state of the nation's air, the advocacy group says the greater Baltimore-Washington region had nearly 41 fewer days of high ozone levels during 2010, the most recent year for which verified federal air-quality data are available. But the region still had the 13th most bad smog days out of 277 metropolitan areas across the country.

The high-pressure system that has roasted much of the Northeast in recent days brought with it other unpleasant summer visitors: soot and smog. For most of the week, a "Code Orange" alert has been in effect in Maryland as seniors, young children and those with health issues such as asthma that might make them sensitive to polluted air have been advised to stay indoors. That's because such pollution, known as ground-level ozone — formed when sunlight interacts with certain emissions (chiefly from cars and electric-power generating plants)

With some of the highest temperatures of the summer predicted through Tuesday, Baltimore city's health department issued the year's first Code Red Heat Alert and announced Sunday that the city will open emergency cooling centers and provide free bus passes to help residents seek shelter from the heat. Interim Health Commissioner Olivia D. Farrow declared the alert after the National Weather Service forecast a potentially hazardous combination of high temperatures and humidity for the next two days.

Spring is the season to start thinking about air conditioning, or at least to put in a call and have the gizmos looked over. What you really need to think about this year is that the inner workings of cooling systems in this country are due for a big change come Jan. 1 - in an effort to comply with an international green treaty and spare the ever-depleting ozone layer. There are at least five things you should know in the cooling department. What's Montreal got to do with it? There's an international treaty - the Montreal Protocol - that, if adhered to, could lead to the recovery of the ozone layer by 2050.

Miller time, again State Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller's decision to run for re-election in two years isn't terribly shocking. He's been acting (and fundraising) like a candidate for months. But it does raise a difficult question: When is enough enough for Maryland's longest-serving Senate president? Mr. Miller's headlock on his chamber is undeniable. He understands the politics of his colleagues (and the politics of most issues) better than anyone in Annapolis. The substance of issues does not seem to interest him nearly as much, but in the end, he generally gets his way. Maryland governors can serve no more than two terms.

Clem Florio, a former prize fighter and newspaper handicapper who was a fixture at Maryland race tracks for 40 years, died of pancreatic cancer Sunday at a Hollywood, Fla., hospice. He was 78. "He looked, spoke and acted like he stepped out of Guys and Dolls. He was Damon Runyon to the core," said Ross Peddicord of Frederick, The Sun's former racing writer. "Racing was his whole life, and he practically lived in the Pimlico, Laurel and Bowie press boxes." Born in Queens, N.Y., he grew up in Ozone Park near Aqueduct Raceway.

WASHINGTON -- A hole in the earth's protective ozone layer did not develop this past winter over the Northern Hemisphere, despite an alarming buildup of ozone-destroying chemicals over parts of the United States, Canada and Europe, federal scientists said yesterday.But satellite and high-altitude airplane measurements over the pastseven months still detected a "significant" thinning of the ozone layer that is likely to worsen over the next decade, scientists said.An early warming in the Arctic region in February and March counteracted the buildup of ozone-destroying chemicals in the upper atmosphere that had been detected only a month before, said Dr. James G. Anderson, a chemist from Harvard University who participated in the NASA-directed study.

WASHINGTON -- Even if the world drastically curtails the use of ozone-destroying chemicals, a large volcano could touch off a catastrophic worldwide ozone loss sometime in the next 20 or 30 years, scientists warned last month.A volcano similar in size to the 1982 El Chichon eruption in Mexico would accelerate chemical reactions between ozone and millions of tons of chlorofluorocarbon chemicals that will continue to float in the atmosphere for years after use of the substances has ended, said Guy F. Brasseur, a physicist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

Vaccine Mumps outbreak could lead to 2nd booster shot Most of the college students who got the mumps in a big 2006 outbreak had received the recommended two vaccine shots, according to a study that raises questions about whether a new vaccine or another booster shot is needed. The outbreak was the biggest in the U.S. since states began requiring a second shot for youngsters in 1990. Nearly 6,600 people became sick with the mumps, mostly in eight Midwest states, and the hardest-hit group was college students.

Maryland has dirty air and it's going to stay dirty longer, thanks to the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Once again, the Bush administration has chosen industry over science, and the public will pay the price. Shame on President Bush. EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson's decision last week to lower the pollution standard from 84 to 75 units of ozone for every billion units of air means improvements in air quality here will be slower than they should be. It was a judgment likely to save industry billions in pollution control investments but one with serious consequences for the health of thousands of Americans.