Smog, Lies and Pineapples: How LA Cleaned up Its Air and What’s Left to Do
Key takeaways
- May 9, 2026 Share This Article Republish People walk around downtown Los Angeles as smog fills the sky in 1958.
- It was just “the environment,” her stepfather would remark to her, sheepishly.
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May 9, 2026 Share This Article Republish People walk around downtown Los Angeles as smog fills the sky in 1958. Credit: Herald Examiner Collection/Los Angeles Public Library Related In Lahore’s Smog Season, This Gen Z Doctor Is Centering Climate Change Ignoring Federal Law, House GOP Targets California’s Nation-Leading Vehicle Pollution Rules California Slashed Harmful Vehicle Emissions, but People of Color and Overburdened Communities Continue to Breathe the Worst Air Share This Article Republish Most Popular California’s Battery Array Is as Powerful as 12 Nuclear Power Plants. Here’s What’s on the Horizon. Trump Administration Targets Bison on Federal Grazing Lands California Will Soon Have More Than 300 Data Centers. Where Will They Get Their Water? As a child growing up in Southern California, Ann Carlson remembers mountains obscured by haze and yellowish brown air that stung her eyes and made her lungs ache.
It was just “the environment,” her stepfather would remark to her, sheepishly.
It would be decades before Carlson learned the complicated causes of the noxious air, what was to blame—oil companies, automakers and, yes, the environment—and the wide range of people wearing a lot of different hats who deserve the thanks for decades of improvements in Southern California air quality.