Conclusion

(link: http://solarviews.com/eng/earth.htm)

Air Pollution caused by transportation is a big problem, and we need to take small steps to get to a solution that will be suitable for everyone. The likelihood of this problem of being resolved is determinant on the people that live on this planet. If we all work together we can achieve a better quality of life, but resolving this issue will take time but we need to further our knowledge to find ways that we can incorporate to fix this issue, and maybe we can fix the problems that arise from air pollution. The lesson to be learned here is that we need to take care of our earth because we only have one and it cannot be replaced. We have become a population that is consumed with technology that helps us advance, but it also taking a toll on the planet. In Los Angeles we need to change the ways we use transportation as well as other regions that can lower the amount of pollution that vehicles release, and this can be achieved by people being aware of this problem because we are the ones that need to fix it.  

References

Barth, Matthew, and Kanok Boriboonsomsin. "Traffic congestion and greenhouse gases." ACCESS Magazine 1.35 (2009).

Berg, Linda R., Mary Catherine. Hager, and David M. Hassenzahl.Visualizing Environmental Science. 4th ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2013. Print.

Wachs, Martin. "Learning from Los Angeles: transport, urban form, and air quality." Transportation 20.4 (1993): 329-354.

http://www.city-data.com/us-cities/The-West/Los-Angeles-Geography-and-Climate.html

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=327059

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es062314d

Air Pollution from Motor Vehicles: Standards and Technologies for ...

 By Asif Faiz, Christopher S. Weaver, Michael P. Walsh

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162504001076

http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/153/5/433.short

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/315/5818/1537.short

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01944368908975398#.VPvbvPTcx30

Solutions to air pollution caused by transportation

 

Some of the potential solutions to this problem are increasing the amount of use for hybrid or electric vehicles. Changing our ways of driving would definitely help the cause, and can ensure a better future for air quality. Another solution is using public transportation more and carpooling with others, this would help ensure decreasing the amount of vehicles being driven, and can decrease the amount of traffic and congestion on the streets and highways. Also investing in public transport would be a big help, implementing trains like how New York has their train system, or how Europe has is large train system, this would help with not having to have so many cars and would lessen the heavy traffic. Utilizing bikes would contribute to the cause as well from having the large amounts of vehicles that are being driven. These solutions are minor, but can be a great impact to fixing out air pollution problem and people realizing more about the issue can help with making these solutions more grand and a right choice for people. Policies and organization that are helping the cause have been implemented over the years, like California for example they make everyone have smog checks that has worked over the years in decreasing the amount of smog develops from vehicles. Also the Clean Air act and the Environmental Protection Agency have helped with controlling the amount of pollutants that are being released into the air. These solutions over time are having an impact that is slowly bettering our air quality, even though it is still bad, but solutions are being created and they are having small impacts that will help with the bigger problem. 

http://irvine-smogcheck-autorepair.com/
http://greenliving4live.com/2013/08/hybrid-cars-positive-effect-environment/
http://www.commuterconnections.org/commuters/ridesharing/what-it-is/

Larger Consequences that arise from air pollution from transportation

(link: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html)

This problem is not only seen in Los Angeles, it can be see through out the world, in developed and developing countries, like London and China that are developed have a similar problem, and in the developing countries they are trying to catch up to us and other 1^st world countries that they are using more harmful mechanisms that only make the problem larger. This becomes a global problem since pollutants from transportation are the leading cause of air pollution. And the global impacts from these pollutants that are also greenhouse gases create a big shift in the climate. Global Warming is one of the big global consequences that really needs to be addressed and because transportation is the leading cause to air pollution, these released pollutants are incorporated to the Warming trends happening all over the world, and we can see these changes affect many regions and cause massive problems, like the meting of the ice caps and extension of animals. This just creates a larger problem and changes the way every organism lives.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/01/21/mit-climate-scientist-global-warming-believers-a-cult/

The Problems with Air Pollution form Transportation

(link: http://vault.sierraclub.org/sprawl/report02/transportation_choices.asp)

Going back in time we can see how this issue of transportation has been a problem for many Centuries. We are now in the 21^st Century, and looking at some history of transportation can help us figure how this became such a big problem. Starting from the 1900s, we received our first transportation crisis, which arose from the increasing of automobile purchases, and this led to overcrowding of streets and highways. The second transportation crisis happened after WWII and this one happened because of the increasing of people and homes that needed to be created, which created more congestion in the streets and the third crisis during the 20^th Century which was not that long ago was because people were over exceeding the number of cars per household, which becomes a problem because for each of these crisis’ policies had to be implemented and the solutions called for more highways. The increase of automobiles only increased the amount of pollution in the air because of the emissions that were released from the different types of transportation. Some of the issues that occurred were that Los Angeles was being effected by photochemical smog, which is a brownish-orange haze that is formed by the different pollutants that are released from automobiles, building, etc., these pollutants are particulate matter, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and ozone, and different types of mobiles release a big amount of Nitrogen Oxides and Carbon. These pollutants are also the cause of a dust dome that surrounds the Los Angeles region and this haze can be seen from atop of a mountain or driving down the freeway and getting close to LA you can see it from afar. These large amounts of transportation also cause congestion in the streets and especially in the highways, so traffic a big issue in Los Angeles. These problems cause issues for everyone especially humans; air pollution harms the health of people, which can lead to higher levels of asthma, cancer, and affects lung development as well. This issue is improving slowly, like Los Angles implementing smog checks, which lowered the levels of smog in the air, and other ways as well.

   “This histogram is shown in Figure 4, which shows that most trips produce about 330 grams per mile (g/mi) of CO2 emissions, corresponding to approximately 26 miles per gallon of fuel economy. Other trips, however, produced far less or far more CO2 emissions per mile, depending on the specific driving pattern. This variation comes from the driver’s behavior, the roadway type, and the level of traffic congestion. Further, other vehicle types will have quite different CO2 emissions depending on their weight, power, and other vehicle factors” (Barth & Boriboonsomsin 4).

Area of the Problem

(link: http://www.mappery.com/map-of/Los-Angeles-California-City-Map)

The Area that we are looking at is the City of Los Angeles, CA. The problem here is that large urban cities tend to have not the greatest air quality because of all the air pollutants that are released from many sources, one of which is from transportation. We are looking at the problem as a local issue since we reside in Los Angeles and it is very important for us to address why this is a problem and what the effects are from air pollution, and how transportation contributes to the problem. The biome of Los Angeles can be characterized as having a Chaparral type of biome, and this type of biome consist of having hot/dry summers and cold/moist winters. We can describe this city as being one of the largest cities of the United States, and it is a metropolitan and urban place where many people reside. The problem with this city is that it is overpopulated and almost everyone drives an automobile, which increases the amount of pollution that we are breathing, and because of the huge use of automobiles air pollutants affect our air.