Children playing under clean blue sky, with our mission below: CCA is dedicated to restoring clean, healthful air to California...		 collage: polluting cars on california freeway, smog over los angeles, children playing, polluting smokestack, diesel schoolbuses  
 
 

  Overview

Pollution impacts our communities daily. Although we have worked to combat air pollution for over 30 years, and have achieved many significant victories, the problem remains as important as the day we started our work. Today, over 90 percent of Californians breathe unhealthy air.

Children are at particular risk from the serious health effects of air pollution; their lung development can be compromised, and pollution can cause many respiratory illnesses including severe asthma attacks. Asthma is now the most common childhood disease, the leading reason for school absences, and the most common reason for the hospitalization of children.

For people of all ages, air pollution can cause respiratory problems that include cancer. It can also cause heart disease, according to studies released in 2004 by the American Heart Association. We simply must do more to reduce air pollution and protect public health.

Our environment is also seriously impaired by air pollution. World climate change, the depletion of the ozone layer, and acid rain are all the result of human emissions.

To maximize effectiveness, the Coalition for Clean Air has structured its work into four major programs that we believe are critical to achieving the goal of clean air and protecting California’s public health.
  Ten Air Pollution Facts
1 90% of Californians live in areas that fail to meet state and federal air quality standards.
2 The Los Angeles area has the worst ozone levels in the nation, according to the 2004 State of the Air report by the American Lung Association. The top four cities were all in California- number two was Fresno, followed by Bakersfield and Visalia-Porterville.
3 Asthma, which is aggravated by and possibly caused by air pollution, is the number one reason children miss school in Southern California, and the incidence of asthma is increasing.
4 One in five children in the San Joaquin Valley has asthma so severe that they miss school.
5 By the age of two months, Los Angeles-area infants have already inhaled enough toxic pollutants to reach the EPA lifetime limit for cancer risk.
6 The lung damage caused by ozone exposure may be likened to the lung damage caused by cigarette smoking.
7 Breathing air in Southern California can reduce one's life expectancy by 1 to 2 years.
8 Vehicles are the number one source of smog-forming pollutants in California.
9 Pollutant levels inside vehicles may be 10 times higher than ambient air.
10 California is the fifth-largest producer of global warming emissions in the world.