The search for unpolluted air can be frustrating at best. The US government does provide a clean air map on their website – www.epa.gov/iaq/whereyoulive.html. This map only tracks the types of pollution the US government deems worthy of tracking – Carbon Monoxide, Nitrogen Dioxide, Ozone, Lead, PM-10, and Sulfur Dioxide. PM-10 is particulate matter less than or equal to 10 microns. What about particulate matter greater than 10 microns? Too bad Nitrogen Dioxide is NO2 rather than N2O which is Nitrous Oxide or Laughing Gas.
Using this map and other “Best Cities to live in” information from various sources, Terry and I decided to move to Northern Colorado. Living here was fine until the county got aggressive about spraying the weeds. Too bad they couldn’t be like other Colorado counties which do not spray for weeds, but use other methods such as goats.
There are other factors involved in finding unpolluted air, such as
• Not having neighbors who use fabric softener in their dryers
• Not having neighbors who spray their lawns with herbicides and/or pesticides
• Not living next to farms or vineyards which are chemically sprayed
• Not living where the government is going to drop chemicals in order to try to eliminate a few mosquitoes.
And even if you could control all these factors, every time you go to the mall, you’ll get overwhelmed by all the perfumes and colognes; not to mention those who threw 10 dryer sheets in with their laundry, just to be sure they smell country fresh.
Canada seems to be ahead of the United States in reducing the amount of chemicals people use. Nova Scotia has their anti-perfume law and several locales throughout Canada ban lawn spraying. The only thing I’m banned from spraying on my lawn is water.
One idea for getting out of pollution is to head to the hills or 14-ers as they call them around here. (14 stands for the number of thousands of feet high a hill is.) The idea is to get up out of the pollution.
Another idea is to move as far west as possible, so that the breeze is only blowing off the ocean. But there’s no guarantee the winds won’t switch and they’ll blow out to sea instead. Taking this idea to the extreme, you could live on an island. Then no matter which way the wind blows, it will be blowing off the ocean. Islands sell for $300 thousand to $30 million or more and can be found on the web by searching for “Islands for sale”. There are even some real estate agents that only sell islands. The problem with buying an island is that when the oceans rise due to global warming, your island might cease to exist – a real estate investment down the drain.
The island theme spawns another idea which is to have a land-based island. That is, a piece of land surrounded by national forests, BML land, or Nature-Conservancy Land. If you’re really rich you can be your own 100 acres. Of course then you’ll need to put most of the land into conservancy easements in order to continue paying taxes on the land. And did I mention you’ll need an F-15 or transporter just to get to town?
Book 3 My World of Air
Written by Dale Stubbart Blessed by Terry Stubbart
