Glamorous homes, booming industries and sunny beaches have put Los Angeles on the map as one of the most desirable places to reside in the country.
But the large influx of crowds and the bustle that keeps the city pulsing creates a less-advertised damper on the city’s list of highlights: It is ranked in the 90th percentile of the United States’ most hazardous places to live and breathe, according to Environmental Defense, a national non-profit environmental group.
The production of air pollutants and waste in major U.S. cities such as Los Angeles and New York have been long-time antagonists in the country’s constant struggle to maintain a healthy environment. While government agencies do pass environmental laws and regulations, the country’s success in sustaining its natural resources and ensuring health safety has rarely been determined beyond local estimates.
Only recently, with the publishing of the Environmental Sustainability Index 2005 by a team of Yale and Columbia University researchers, did the United States learn of its middle ranking in terms of worldwide countries and their potential for sustaining the environment.
Of 146 countries, the United States was 45th — the exact spot it held in the 2002 index scoring 52.9 out of 100.
The U.S. trailed far behind such countries as Costa Rica, Lithuania and Malaysia. Finland, Norway, and Uruguay finished first, second and third in the rankings, respectively.
The results of the index garnered mixed responses from campus environmental groups, and simultaneously encouraged students to continue their efforts to better the environment with greater fervor.
“The way (politicians) will respond is from what the little guy does,” said Trevor Johnston, a member of the UCLA branch of CALPIRG.
“The only reason we have a bad environmental policy is because there aren’t enough people standing up to fix it.”
In creating the index, the Yale and Columbia team said its goal was to influence environmental policy by displaying which countries are doing well and which ones are not.
“The most fundamental change we seek is greater seriousness concerning environmental sustainability,” said Marc Levy, associate director for the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University, which co-produced the index.
“This kind of in-depth investigation and index is often routine with economic, health education and other policy realms,” Levy said. “Until we start doing the same in the environment, we will have bad results.”
Environmental sustainability is determined by several components, such as whether the country’s environmental system is improving, human stresses on environment, vulnerability of a country’s population to environmental disturbances, and cooperation of governments in improving environmental standards worldwide.
Though the United States scored above average in some aspects, the index reported the country was below average for regional environmental stresses; the study indicated particular lags in greenhouse gas emissions and waste generation.
On a typical day in Los Angeles, 9.5 million cars each release 2.3 kilograms of carbon dioxide per liter of gasoline burned into the atmosphere. This emission, along with methane and nitrous oxide, contributes heavily to the rise in global temperatures, according to the Environmental Defense Web site. Statistics such as these lend to a better understanding of the current environmental situation.
In addition, the index revealed that developed countries did not necessarily have an advantage in ranking higher on the scale. The United Kingdom, Italy and Greece all had lower scores than the United States.
News of the nation’s 45th-spot ranking was surprising to environmental organizations including certain UCLA student groups.
“Considering we have about the highest GDP per capita second to Luxembourg, it’s appalling that we can’t implement better environmental policy,” said CALPIRG’s Johnston.
But others were unfazed by the results. Philip Wegge, a graduate student and vice president of the UCLA branch of Engineers Without Borders, said, “Wealthy countries become rich by exploiting the environment, so it seems fair that the U.S. is ranked low.”
The Yale and Columbia research team suggests that individuals and local communities can put pressure on elected officials to strengthen clean air policies or to manage solid waste more effectively.
“We all essentially agree that environmental sustainability is a worthy goal, but we haven’t done the more difficult tasks that come with taking that point of view seriously,” Levy said
Despite the efforts of student groups, results will not be immediate, Levy said.
“This is not a case where a single report can revolutionize decision-making overnight,” Levy said, adding that “what matters is setting clear targets on where a country wants to end up in the long term and then to chart specific actions to get there.”
One of the projects taken on by CALPIRG is an attempt to get a bill passed which would make solar power a standard offer for all new homes built in California.
“This would channel energy into your household appliances and you end up making up the cost of installation,” Johnston said.
According to the bill, solar power is capable of generating pollution-free electricity. Every megawatt produced from solar energy would prevent more than 300 pounds of smog-forming pollution and more than 870,000 pounds of pollutants that contribute to global warming from being released each year.
Engineers Without Borders contributes to helping the environment by inviting several lectures to the campus to speak on sustainability issues. In addition, the group goes to middle schools to teach children how to measure water quality and to recycle.