Publicize Pollution, Stop Development –

“‘I entered the sweat lodge. I made my prayers strong and clear: to turn things around . Ideas and  thoughts came , then and later . They askedto be written.
An omen signed they be published. Thus have I done.
Jeffrey Strong-On-The-Path

Today I must drive down the mountain early. Up the hill I go, gazing out
my driver’s side window to the west at the continental divide covered with snow, and above, the now waning moon setting in the pink light of the nearing dawn. Picture perfect ponderosa, spruce and fi r forests cover hills and crisscrossing valleys like an apron spread before the majestic peaks. The air is so clear, making the scenery feel immediately near. I press on towards town, winding around
Big Horn, down to the lower s h e l f and then I come to the t u r n .
To the east the horizon is red and below lies the plains and what
I call the “sea of lights,” being Boulder-Denver. The cold night air is pressing the smog
close to the ground and it looks like a fire is smoldering, such is the effect
of the many orange mercury vapor lights and the smog. The main arteries, the
Boulder-Denver turnpike, and I-25 are quite apparent, enshrouded as they are in their exhaust. I am reminded of an electron microscope photograph I once saw of the polio virus, something creepy, insidious and threatening. I swallow hard, my heart momentarily sinking; I have chosen to go down into this, this war zone, this sick, cancerous growth.
A familiar anger arises–why, with such an obvious pollution problem–why do
they keep building? More houses, more apartments, condos, commercial buildings,
malls and the like–why more, more, more? Don’t they realize that more people means more pollution? Or has quantity won out over quality? Oh, I’d like to make
some of these developers sit down and write a thousand times: more people means more pollution.

I shift into third gear as I hit the pavement on Sunshine Canyon. I don’t
like feeling angry and I think there are solutions. I come down Davidson Hill and
drop into the smog bank . It just seems kind of hazy. That’s the problem, down here in it, it just seems kind of hazy.
I remember Mayor Pena suggesting a contest to see who could come up with the best solution to cut pollution. My suggestion is simple: stick a camera up here or on Lookout Mountain or such and get the local media to show 20 second or so
panoramic views every hour or so, just like l i t t l e commercial spots on television.
A l i t t l e window in the corner with the pollution report followed by some suggestions of how you can reduce pollution, i.e. take the bus, walk, bicycle, carpool, make
less frequent trips with your car, recycling, etc… Perhaps a split screen with
a shot of a good c l e a r day versus today. This would give people
a very graphic way to understand this pollution problem. On those days when we
are blessed with clean air, generally due to favorable west winds, the television
spot might en- courage us to still take anti-pollution steps since our smut is just being blown down wind where it becomes someone else’ s problem. A few spots of some of these areas on such days would be appropriate. Some l i t t l e facts like “Last year
billion tons of noxious chemicals were released into the atmosphere,
million of which were due to automobile pollution. Start walking or thumbing y ‘ a l l . . . . . don’t wait ’til it’s toooooo late.” After all, this has become a global problem — acid rain, the greenhouse effect, dying forests, and the general decline of
air and water quality throughout the world. Perhaps a little free publicity by
the net works of the” s i c k fish bowl” we live in and the earth’s plight. Perhaps they could band together under a non-profit organization that would foster and generate these “spots” and take the lost advertising revenues as a tax write off. We desperately need the slap in the face that these pollution spots would provide: a wake-up call to turn things around.