Air Gains May Be Undone by Ozone Harm, Panel Is Told

Global warming could “wipe out” all gains expected to result from a sweeping new air quality management plan approved for Southern California, a U.S. Senate committee was told Saturday.

Instead of meeting federal clean air standards for urban ozone pollution in 20 years, as called for by the plan, levels of the health-threatening air pollutant could be double the federal standard, even with an 80% reduction in current air pollution emissions in the four-county South Coast Air Basin.

The dire warning is based on new computer modeling by the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which approved the plan in March; it was disclosed for the first time Saturday by AQMD Executive Officer James M. Lents in testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, meeting at Lincoln Junior High School in Santa Monica.

Toxic Pollutant

Air pollution worsens as global temperatures and sunlight increase. Lents added that the depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer by man-made chemicals makes the air quality problem even worse. Ozone is a toxic pollutant at ground level but at high altitudes it protects life on Earth from the harmful ultraviolet solar rays.

“This is most alarming,” Lents told the panel. “Increases in global temperature and ultraviolet radiation could wipe out gains to be made from implementing these measures and destroy our chances of meeting the federal ozone standard,” Lents said in prepared testimony.

Lents’ dramatic announcement was the first time he has suggested that the hard-fought air quality management plan--which calls for stringent new controls on motor vehicles, industry and changes in Southern California life styles--could fall so far short of meeting its 20-year goal.

“Even with an 80% emission reduction, if recent predictions of future (global) warming and stratospheric ozone depletion occur . . . this would nullify most of the improvement which would be made through our 20-year cleanup plan. I believe this adds another dimension to the issue before you which has not received adequate attention,” Lents said.

Currently, ozone levels in the basin are often three times higher than the federal standard of .12 parts of ozone per million parts of air. Lents said the prospect that those levels would continue to be twice as high as the standard are based on a worst-case global warming scenario.

The National Academy of Sciences in 1979 said that a doubling of carbon dioxide could raise global temperatures 2.7 to 8.1 degrees Fahrenheit. While there is little scientific disagreement that global warming is being accelerated by this so-called “greenhouse effect,” views differ on the extent of that warming.

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution 150 years ago, carbon dioxide levels have jumped by 25%, largely due to burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil, but also from the cutting and burning of forests.

At the same time, man-made chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons used in air conditioning, refrigeration and in cleaning electronic components, are eating away at the paper-thin ozone shield 15 miles above the Earth.

Lents’ warning, adding yet a new concern to the litany of global environmental impacts resulting from the greenhouse effect and depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer, drew a quick response from actor and environmentalist Robert Redford, who testified before the Senate committee.

“This underscores the need to move quickly,” Redford said in an interview after the hearing. He said attempts by some Bush Administration officials to delay environmental controls on grounds that they may be too costly to industry were misplaced. “We have to take what we know and act, otherwise things he (Lents) is talking about are going to happen. It’s another example of the importance of long-range planning,” Redford said.

Redford, who founded the Institute for Resource Management in 1983, is planning a major U.S.-U.S.S.R. conference on global environmental issues next August in Colorado. The meeting will be attended by leading scientists from both countries as well as government officials and performing artists, who Redford hopes will carry the message to the public.

Sen. Timothy E. Wirth (D-Colo.), committee chairman, told the audience, “Global warming has emerged as the most vexing environmental, economic and social challenge facing California and the world.” Wirth has introduced legislation calling for the establishment of a national energy policy to address global environmental problems.

In California, the panel was told, global warming could result in rising sea levels that would threaten much of the coast and create an “inland sea” in the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta. The warming also could drastically alter the kinds of crops that can grow in the state, cause winter flooding and summer droughts, eliminate plant and animal species, and raise energy prices. Similar testimony was offered by some of the same witnesses last year in hearings before the state Legislature.