Community Air Quality Education! Bootcamp #4!

Another fantastic All About Air Quality Bootcamp in the books! A huge thank you to the Inland Empire community members who attended our fourth Bootcamp in Ontario, California. It was an engaged group with excellent questions!

A partnership with Coalition for Clean Air (CCA), All About Air Quality Bootcamp has been one of our team’s favorite projects. The Bootcamps are two-day education intensives for local community advocates who are working on or interested in air quality issues. Day one sets up attendees with foundational air quality science information and teaches important terminology, talking about pollutants, their sources, weather impacts, air monitoring, and more. The second day digs into air management and policy, as well as communication and environmental justice, run by our partners at CCA.

Bootcamp participants getting to know each other at a Welcome Dinner

This Bootcamp was fortunate to have a number of guest speakers, starting with Dr. Jill Johnston, Associate Professor of Population and Public Health Sciences and Spatial Sciences at the University of Southern California. Dr. Johnston spoke about the health impacts of air pollution.

Our second guest speaker was Dr. Will Porter, Assistant Professor of Atmospheric Dynamics and Modeling at the University of California, Riverside, who spoke about the work that he and CCA have been doing on the Objective Measurement/Monitoring/Mitigation of Emissions from Goods Movement and Impacts on Air Quality (OMEGA) project. Dr. Porter dug into the analysis results from hyper-local air quality data collected around Ontario.

Blowing bubbles to demonstrate how pollution moves through the air.

We also hosted Dr. Ron Loveridge, former mayor of Riverside, CA, and Associate Professor of Political Science at University of California, Riverside who spoke about the history of regulating air quality in the Inland Empire.

Our final speaker was Dr. Mike McCarthy, founder of Radical Research and adjunct professor at Pitzer College, who has been researching all things warehouse. Dr. McCarthy has pulled together a wealth of information about the state of warehousing in the Inland Empire, one of the major drivers of air pollution in the area. 

Bootcamp attendees!

Finally, a huge shout-out to Pastor Ted Burnett for his efforts to bring together this amazing group of attendees and provide space for the event. All About Air Quality Bootcamp is supported by the “California Climate Investments” (CCI) program, a statewide initiative that puts billions of Capand-Trade dollars to work reducing greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening the economy, and improving public health and the environment—particularly in disadvantaged communities. This Bootcamp was also made possible by the Ontario Airport, who provided the food and beverages. And we can’t wait for the next one!

Does All About Air Quality Bootcamp sound like a fit for your community? Get in touch with us!