What we can learn from the American Lung Association’s “State of the Air” report

It has become part of the rites of Spring, along with television’s May “sweeps,” the Kentucky Derby, and Cinco de Mayo.

It didn’t make headlines here, but maybe it should have: last week France and the United Kingdom signed a joint declaration pledging cooperation in the fight against global warming.

Perhaps this is a good time to remind one and all of little-told stories that can have a big impact on the air we breathe -- and even see.

Well, it was bad enough that the Bush administration chose to disregard the advice of EPA's own independent science advisers in setting a weak new national health standard for ozone.

It didn’t make headlines here, but maybe it should have: last week France and the United Kingdom signed a joint declaration pledging cooperation in the fight against global warming.

Perhaps this is a good time to remind one and all of little-told stories that can have a big impact on the air we breathe -- and even see.

Well, it was bad enough that the Bush administration chose to disregard the advice of EPA's own independent science advisers in setting a weak new national health standard for ozone.

A year after Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth won an Oscar -- amid expectations that the champagne toasts and trendy carbon-neutral academy ceremony might shame our lawmakers to move quickly on global warming -- Congress still appears to be waiting for someone to yell “action!”