Clear and Present Danger
The Air That We Breathe
Just when it looked like we might win the war on smog, a new and more deadly form of air pollution stalks Los Angeles
by WILLIAM J. KELLY

As the plane banks from the Mojave Desert over the San Bernardino Mountains and heads into the Los Angeles basin, I begin to lose my 20,000-foot view of the rocks and forests below.

They barely poke through the haze, a dense and uneven soup of gray caused by the daily routines and demands of a growing economy, which burns 21 million gallons of motor fuel and 2.7 million cubic feet of natural gas a day.