By Melissa

Each day, the air quality in San Mateo County changes both in healthy and unhealthy ways, depending on how much people drive their cars. The San Mateo County website commute.org provides commuters with opportunities to ride public transit all over the county for free.  Check it out - you might be able to take a free shuttle to school or work. 

Having clean air keeps us healthy, but polluted air negatively affects our health.  In my opinion, during these past few weeks, the air in San Mateo County has been more polluted than ever.  Many people don’t realize it but they are hurting themselves by driving cars, trucks, or other mobile transportation that emit hazardous chemicals in the environment. By using these modes of transportation, pollution is being spread through the air.

Some health risks associated with air pollution are asthma and cancer. Pollutants in the air can trigger an asthma attack in children. Cancer risks in San Mateo County are due to the many pollutants in the air such asbenzene and ethylene dibromide.  By just inhaling these pollutants, people have a higher risk of getting cancer.

Instead of hurting our environment and ourselves, we can change this by taking simple actions that are more beneficial. Some practices that people can add to their every day lives are walking, biking, or carpooling with others for transportation.  There are also programs such as Spare the Air Day, where Bay Area residents are encouraged to carpool, bike, and use public transportation in order to reduce the amount of pollutants put out into the air by driving automobiles.  By participating in this, we as a community can improve our own health by just helping to improve the quality of our air.