Have you heard the question “What’s in the water?” I’ve encountered that question recently posed in the context of a situation when odd, inexplicable things had been happening at an organization. Then, new, seemingly fresh and rational personnel are hired, but those people quickly seem just as odd and inexplicable, less fresh and innovative and then things just stay the same kind of weird. How can that possibly happen?! And we exclaim, “What’s in the water?” It’s as if people are being medicated through their drinking water into a kind of sub-par state of being. “They drank the Kool-Aid” is another way of saying that same thing, I guess, except less innocuously referencing a terrible tragedy in South America some time ago. Judging by the amount of filtered water, bottled water, and such that people purchase, it does seem as if we are very, very concerned about what is in our water. What about the air? What’s in our air?
The Direction of the Wind
In my daily routine, each time I walk outside I try to pay attention to the wind. Which way is the wind headed? I feel the breeze on my skin or watch the swaying of the grass and trees. I tilt my body until I face straight into it, to know best the precise direction. Ialso ask how is the wind blowing right where I am versus farther away? Sometimes the wind is gentle close but raging nearby, on higher ground, where trees ‘talk’ and sway.
The directions of the wind can be predictable, but it is becoming less so. Winds around the Monterey Bay are often from the north or northwest, mainly cool breezes. Winter storms especially sweep in with gales from the northwest. Bomb cyclones come from that way. Atmospheric rivers tilt the direction more from the west. Especially cold storms come more from the north. Once the breeze starts coming from those other two ways, things get weird.
The downslope, Santa Ana winds of southern California (aka devil winds) make things really weird to our south. Those winds are from the east and can be very strong; fires rage, people freak out. Luckily, that phenomenon doesn’t happen here, but we do get occasional winds from the east. I swear I can smell the desert on those winds, the smell of creosote bush. Those breezes are warm and dry just like the winds from the south. I can very well recall the stormy winds from the south: those brought us the CZU Lightning Complex Fire as well as a couple other tattered hurricane remnants that created havoc across the state. When winds come from the south or east, beware of fire and keep your eye out for the odd human behavior associated with Santa Ana winds in southern California. We might also be concerned about the better-documented situation where those breezes carry the spores of fungi that cause Valley Fever, an air quality concern…borne on the wind as they say.
Air Quality
Once you recognize the direction from which the wind blows, the next question becomes what is that air carrying? When the wind blows ‘just right’ (from the northeast), we get a nasty soup of smog hanging out to sea, blown out of the Golden Gate and then generally downcoast where you get to appreciate that the Bay keeps us a bit sheltered and inland from those toxic breezes. Northeast winds are rare, but that smog carries lots of ugly chemistry. There’s stuff you don’t want to breathe for its toxicity, but there is also lots of fertilizer from car exhaust. Catalytic converters do a good job of turning exhaust into readily available nitrogen compounds that are fertilizing the landscape. Healthy? Nay. Fertilizer makes habitats more weedy, weeds grow bigger and make a bigger wildfire danger when they dry. The tall weeds outcompete native wildflowers. Fires carried by those weeds are devastating California’s deserts, endangering things like Joshua trees. The Golden Gate (NE wind) is one of our passages for nitrogen-laced air pollution, the other is the Pajaro Valley, belching out smog pushed by the more northerly breezes passing down through the southern end of the Silicon Valley.
Those ‘Fresh’ Westerlies
If you are like me, you feel lucky to have that great expanse of clean ocean air to keep us breathing well. Think again. We are seeing more and more pollution from China reaching our shores. Those giant cargo containers full of ‘stuff’ isn’t the only thing coming from the east. Coal fired power plants are making a yuckola mess of chemicals that are polluting California’s air. But, let’s not rest all of the blame on human’s insatiable appetite for stuff in the present. Some of the toxic air particles are from greed of the deep past: gold mining. Mercury was used in processing gold in California. That mercury flowed downstream and into the ocean; it is now being carried back to land in fog and rain, concentrating up the food chain and poisoning mountain lions in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Famous Air Quote
“We have some incredibly talented people that know environment and what we’re doing probably better than any people on Earth.
From day one, my administration has made it a top priority to ensure that America has among the very cleanest air and cleanest water on the planet. We want the cleanest air. We want crystal-clean water, and that’s what we’re doing and that’s what we’re working on so hard.”
I’m guessing you know the source of this quote by now. If not, you can probably guess from the recognizable style. We hope that President Trump, like all politicians, recognizes how much the vast majority of citizens value clean air, so that there is ample motivation to do something about it. If politicians don’t act on these things, we all suffer. Unfortunately, few journalists hold any politician accountable to their clean air record: after all, it is anti-business to do so, and the news needs money.
Our Work
Vote. Get an air purifier for your house. Buy less. Go outside and think about the breeze…the direction of the wind…the strength of the wind…and what is carried on those breezes.
-this post originally published as part of BrattonOnline.com – check it out! Updated weekly with keen insights into Monterey Bay and beyond.
Grey Hayes 