{"id":546914,"date":"2026-03-26T18:41:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T18:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/546914\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T18:41:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T18:41:14","slug":"the-inspiring-infuriating-even-comic-tale-of-how-we-defeated-l-a-s-smog-and-why-we-may-have-to-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/546914\/","title":{"rendered":"The inspiring, infuriating, even comic tale of how we defeated L.A.’s smog and why we may have to again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"smoglandia-dropcap-a.png\" <\/p>\n

A city of swans, that\u2019s us.<\/p>\n

From the world\u2019s vantage point, Los Angeles can look like a place that glides serenely along beneath a beatific sun.<\/p>\n

But we know better. We know that underneath, we\u2019re laboring frantically to keep going \u2014 sometimes, even just to stay afloat.<\/p>\n

Right now, especially now, we\u2019re working hard, so very hard, to recover our mojo. We\u2019ve been dealt a nigh-unbearable hand when two of our communities were utterly savaged by fire. Our legendary powers of invention and reinvention are being mightily tested, and still, to use Maya Angelou\u2019s phrase, we rise \u2014 most of the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cSmoglandia,\u201d my podcast<\/a> and column series, that runs online here and in print over four days, starting Sunday, offers a look at a historic huge comeback model. It\u2019s the slow-motion success story that made L.A.\u2019s air not immaculate, but at least livable.<\/p>\n

We achieved this sometimes by kicking and screaming, sometimes by the ballot box, sometimes by just following regulations that politicians and policy-makers created and enforced, like smog checks and carpool lanes, and sometimes by letting science and technology do their thing.<\/p>\n

Can we still get big things done? Can we remedy our disasters? There are quite a few examples in our rearview mirror past.<\/p>\n

Some are nature\u2019s doing. The 1933 Long Beach earthquake, magnitude 6.4, killed more than a hundred people, but it also made seismic safety a requirement throughout the state. After the 6.7 Northridge earthquake in 1994, seismic retrofitting became a rule for many buildings, not an option.<\/p>\n

Some disasters have been made by human hands. Our two modern-day civil disturbances, or riots \u2014 whatever we call them \u2014 in 1965 and 1992 were in part the blowback for decades of repression and inequities in public institutions, for rigid and racialized policing for people of color.<\/p>\n

The drought cycles that began decades ago forced Southern Californians onto \u201cwater diets\u201d indoors and outdoors. Water technology made us passive water savers with devices like low-flush toilets, without too much sacrifice or even awareness on our part. Even though a million more people live in L.A., the city uses pretty much the same amount of water it did 40 years ago.<\/p>\n

When it comes to smog, let\u2019s not congratulate ourselves too much; it was technology that did the heavy lifting, not demanding much in the way of sacrifice or even change in our behavior. Cleaner cars have wrought wonders in getting rid of photochemical smog, when all we need to do is buy one.<\/p>\n

The Caltech biochemist Arie Haagen-Smit, \u201cDr. Haagen-Smog,\u201d who proved the connection between cars and smog, laid out the psychology of crisis 50 years ago, \u201cThe public wants clean air. Yes, they want clean air \u2014 if they don\u2019t have to go to too much trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"In <\/p>\n

In the smog battle a Los Angeles commuter wears an only slightly satiric gas mask on Oct. 2, 1966. <\/p>\n

(Los Angeles Herald Examiner Photo Collection \/ Los Angeles Public Library)<\/p>\n

The trouble in this moment is human-made, and it comes primarily from President Trump, who makes no secret of his dislike for just about anything Californian.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles has gotten a fairly good handle on smog from cars, and it\u2019s turned its attention to other sources \u2014 heavy-duty trucks and cargo ships in ports, and even pollution from the cooking emissions from L.A.\u2019s groovy restaurant scene.<\/p>\n

And this is the moment that Trump has slammed the brakes on nearly 70 years of bipartisan federal waivers that let the state set stricter air pollution standards \u2014 and made the state\u2019s air cleaner and safer. Trump also stopped the state from its ambitious long-range plan to retire diesel trucks and gasoline-fueled cars. And he\u2019s doing again what he did in his first term: reversing fuel-economy standards for cars<\/a>, which could put bigger and more polluting vehicles out there on our roadways again.<\/p>\n

Even in this, California leads the way: at least 10 other states have joined California\u2019s lawsuit against the president whom Gov. Gavin Newsom unsparingly called \u201ca wholly owned subsidiary of big polluters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSmoglandia\u201d is a great California yarn, and one with the ending still unwritten.<\/p>\n

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