Episode 2, Power Lines

Smog is one of the oldest stories in Los Angeles.

When I was first recruited to work for Channel 2 News several decades ago,

I got rides from LAX into Hollywood and it took several trips before I ever saw any mountains.

The smog was so thick I wouldn't have known they were there if I hadn't seen them from up in the sky.

Sure, the atmosphere is a lot clearer now, and that's a great achievement, but there's still a lot

you can't see and what's out of sight can be out of mind, especially when the problems are

happening to somebody else. L.A. still has America's worst air pollution, and even though it's

almost invisible, it's responsible for massive health problems and for greenhouse emissions.

I'm on Alme.

This is In Our Backyard, a six-part series about climate change in Southern California.

California. You can't see LA's contribution to climate change, but you can hear it as millions of vehicles in the greenhouse gases.

By default, we're hosting a climate change laboratory for advanced research, for struggles with regulations,

and for environmental justice. It's like the COVID pandemic, the least powerful people

suffer the worst of the repercussions. Before we get into the story, let's start with the basics.

Just what are greenhouse gases and how do they do their damage? I thought I knew

until I talked with Ed Aval, he's professor of clinical preventive medicine and division chief

for environmental health at USC. Well, so formally speaking, when people think about greenhouse gases,

they always start with carbon dioxide. But that's not the only greenhouse gas of importance.

That happens to be the most important one in terms of volume, how much is out there.

But there are other greenhouse gases that are important. Methane, for example, is very important.

Methane is only a very small percentage of the pie if you were to cut out pieces. But methane

...