WEBVTT 00:06.500 --> 00:45.633 [Heavy breathing accompanies images of urban areas shrouded in smog and pollution.] 00:45.633 --> 00:55.999 [Music] 00:56.000 --> 01:02.966 [Woman:] Sure, I hear a lot about it, but I just don't have time to worry about it. 01:02.966 --> 01:07.266 [Dramatic music] 01:07.266 --> 01:16.866 [Lawnmower chugs] 01:16.866 --> 01:20.832 [Man:] Well, if we lived in the city, you bet we'd be concerned about it. 01:20.833 --> 01:24.133 But it doesn't bother us much out here. 01:24.133 --> 01:30.366 [Music] 01:30.366 --> 01:35.399 [Man #2:] Look, there are plenty of people around who know a lot more about this than I do. 01:35.400 --> 01:38.533 Let the experts take care of it. 01:38.533 --> 01:42.799 [Dramatic music] 01:42.800 --> 01:47.133 [Hospital equipment whirs] 01:47.133 --> 01:51.699 [Narrator:] Nothing is more important to you than the air you breathe. 01:51.700 --> 01:57.900 Keeping it pure and clean is too important to leave to anyone but yourself. 01:57.900 --> 02:12.833 [The U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Public Health Service presents] 02:12.833 --> 02:17.766 [A National Medical Audiovisual Center Production] 02:17.766 --> 02:28.866 [Music] 02:28.866 --> 02:36.399 [Don't Leave It All to the Experts] 02:36.400 --> 02:41.166 [...] 02:41.166 --> 02:47.499 [Narrator:] This is our Earth. Our home. Our life. 02:47.500 --> 02:56.133 It's a finite thing, a sphere of specific size with certain basic resources distributed around its surface. 02:56.133 --> 03:01.566 There's just so much land, so much water, so much air. 03:01.566 --> 03:05.532 Yet our very existence depends on them. 03:05.533 --> 03:16.366 As we have progressed as a people, as we have had our children, built our homes, tilled our fields, 03:16.366 --> 03:25.432 erected our factories, and driven our cars, we have taken liberally of our Earth's resources. 03:25.433 --> 03:30.733 And we've scattered our waste products often without wisdom or restraint. 03:30.733 --> 03:37.699 Without consideration of the effects on the quality of our lives or the lives of our children. 03:37.700 --> 03:45.733 We have raped our land, fouled our waters, polluted our air, 03:45.733 --> 03:53.599 and through all this we have said, we are free men, and free men have the right to use resources as they choose. 03:53.600 --> 03:56.833 Now today, we know better. 03:56.833 --> 04:02.033 Now, with so much damage done, we're learning the price of negligence. 04:02.033 --> 04:09.066 Now we know, at last, that we must stop destroying the resources on which all of life depends. 04:09.066 --> 04:19.532 We must end the destruction and restore our environment, our land, and the quality of the air we breathe. 04:19.533 --> 04:23.799 Our first belated conservation effort started with the land. 04:23.800 --> 04:28.033 Now vast programs are underway to prevent further destruction 04:28.033 --> 04:31.099 and to restore what has been destroyed. 04:31.100 --> 04:32.866 And now the land has begun to come back. 04:32.866 --> 04:37.599 [Music] 04:37.600 --> 04:45.833 Next, we began to learn what pollution was doing to our rivers and streams and estuaries. 04:45.833 --> 04:49.099 We demanded action. 04:49.100 --> 04:54.500 And today we're beginning to get it. 04:54.500 --> 05:02.466 Of all the threats to our environment, air pollution is the most serious, and perhaps the most difficult to solve. 05:02.466 --> 05:05.332 There are ways to restore the damaged land. 05:05.333 --> 05:12.499 We can purify our drinking water, but we must breathe the air as it comes to us. 05:12.500 --> 05:20.033 And every day it comes to us more heavily burdened with harmful and sometimes dangerous pollutants. 05:20.033 --> 05:23.666 The problem is more than the stack belching smoke. 05:23.666 --> 05:33.499 That's the part we can see and the easiest to prevent, when we decide to prevent it. 05:33.500 --> 05:40.133 A greater threat is from unseen but highly damaging pollutants that are being pumped into our air 05:40.133 --> 05:45.566 by the burning of fuels, by manufacturing and industrial processes, 05:45.566 --> 05:52.332 and by generally disposing of the waste products of our civilization. 05:52.333 --> 05:55.533 Pollutants in the air harm our plant life. 05:55.533 --> 06:00.933 They cause deterioration of our paint and metal, stone and cement. 06:00.933 --> 06:05.199 They soil our clothing, draperies, and rugs. 06:06.700 --> 06:14.066 But most important of all, air pollution is a greater hazard to our health than most people realize. 06:14.066 --> 06:18.299 It contributes to the rising incidence of many diseases: 06:16.800 --> 06:20.566 asthma, bronchitis, lung cancer, 06:20.566 --> 06:27.032 and emphysema, the fastest growing cause of death in America today. 06:28.533 --> 06:30.433 And note this. 06:28.933 --> 06:34.366 While the problem is more serious in and around the areas where the pollution originates, 06:34.366 --> 06:36.932 it doesn't stop there. 06:36.933 --> 06:44.166 Air pollution spreads quickly, moving quietly from place to place. 06:44.166 --> 06:46.866 No one is immune. 06:46.866 --> 06:52.099 Not the homemaker, not the suburban dweller. 06:52.100 --> 06:58.166 Certainly not the city dweller. 06:58.166 --> 07:06.499 [Chairman:] The true dimensions of the threat that air pollution poses to our civilization are just beginning to be understood. 07:08.000 --> 07:10.133 So that's why we're here today. 07:08.633 --> 07:15.199 We're here to make up our minds how serious we are about having clean air to breathe. 07:15.200 --> 07:20.866 Today, we have the best chance we have ever had to control air pollution in this country. 07:20.866 --> 07:24.066 We have this chance because your representatives in Congress 07:24.066 --> 07:30.199 joined in unanimous passage of the Air Quality Act of 1967. 07:30.200 --> 07:39.033 The Air Quality Act is a formula using our best technical and scientific knowledge to deal with air pollution on a regional basis. 07:39.033 --> 07:42.166 This is the only sensible way to deal with it. 07:42.166 --> 07:48.699 We all know where communities are clustered together that pollution from one can affect its neighbor's air. 07:48.700 --> 07:51.500 [...] 07:51.500 --> 07:56.133 So, this is how the Regional Control Program will operate. 07:56.133 --> 08:04.566 The Department of Health, Education and Welfare will draw boundaries around those places where air pollution is a serious problem. 08:04.566 --> 08:09.366 These places will be known as Air Quality Control Regions. 08:09.366 --> 08:18.032 At the same time, the department will provide the states with detailed reports on the harmful effects of the different kinds of air pollutants. 08:18.033 --> 08:22.466 These reports are called Air Quality Criteria. 08:22.466 --> 08:27.799 They'll be based on the latest and best available scientific information. 08:27.800 --> 08:36.100 The federal government also will provide information about the available methods for controlling the sources of these pollutants. 08:36.100 --> 08:39.300 Then it will be up to us, to the state governments, 08:39.300 --> 08:45.533 to use this information in setting the standards of air quality that we want to reach in our region 08:45.533 --> 08:49.566 and in drawing up plans for reaching these goals. 08:49.566 --> 08:52.699 The plans will list the sources to be controlled, 08:52.700 --> 09:01.166 the degree of control we intend to achieve, and the amount of time we're going to allow to achieve it. 09:01.166 --> 09:05.099 Now, there's a definite schedule we must follow. 09:05.100 --> 09:07.800 Once the boundaries for a region are drawn, 09:07.800 --> 09:13.566 and the governor of the state has received the criteria and control method reports from the federal government, 09:13.566 --> 09:21.466 he has three months to notify H.E.W. that his state intends to set standards for the region. 09:21.466 --> 09:24.599 He then has six months to set the standards, 09:24.600 --> 09:28.433 and another six months to draw up the plans for achieving them. 09:28.433 --> 09:35.066 The standards and plans will be submitted to H.E.W. for review. 09:35.066 --> 09:41.066 In all this process, the states are required to hold public hearings. 09:41.066 --> 09:45.099 This is so that every interested person can be heard. 09:45.100 --> 09:47.733 And not only heard but listened to. 09:47.733 --> 09:51.533 That's the whole point and purpose of the public hearings. 09:51.533 --> 09:54.399 And that's why we're here today. 09:54.400 --> 10:03.333 [Narrator:] The public hearings required by the Federal Clean Air Act hold the key to whether your region will have clean air or not. 10:03.333 --> 10:07.133 State officials will propose goals for air quality. 10:07.133 --> 10:11.033 They will propose plans for reaching those goals. 10:11.033 --> 10:15.366 These will be the views of experts in your state government. 10:15.366 --> 10:17.966 Other experts will be representing industry, 10:17.966 --> 10:23.032 because many industries will be affected by the regional control programs. 10:23.033 --> 10:25.733 They may have to add new equipment. 10:25.733 --> 10:28.499 Some may have to change processes. 10:28.500 --> 10:35.900 So industry may be expected to bring forward engineers or medical experts or cost accountants or technologists, 10:35.900 --> 10:39.100 or all of these and others. 10:39.100 --> 10:43.900 Each of these experts will be presenting a highly professional point of view. 10:43.900 --> 10:50.633 They may challenge the proposed goals or seek to modify enforcement plans. 10:50.633 --> 10:53.333 All of this is good. Fine. 10:53.333 --> 11:00.499 There is every reason why industry should make its position known, and make it known forcefully. 11:00.500 --> 11:08.466 But the problem of air pollution is too important to you to let the public hearings become merely forums for the experts. 11:08.466 --> 11:15.266 The decisions to be made will affect the quality of your life for a long time to come. 11:15.266 --> 11:20.399 The law requires that you be heard, if you wish to be. 11:20.400 --> 11:24.033 Don't let this important opportunity go by default. 11:24.033 --> 11:26.733 [Chairman:] Individuals have an important role to play. 11:26.733 --> 11:28.866 So now is the time to be heard. 11:28.866 --> 11:30.866 Young man right there in the third row... 11:30.866 --> 11:37.232 [Audience member 1:] Mr. Chairman, we've heard many interesting proposals and comments here today. 11:37.233 --> 11:43.099 But for the past few days I've spent some time studying this problem on my own, 11:43.100 --> 11:46.900 and I'd just like to question the standards that are being proposed. 11:46.900 --> 11:51.166 The criteria published by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare 11:51.166 --> 11:57.099 say that the proposed level may have certain harmful effects for older people. 11:57.100 --> 11:59.366 I'd like to quote from these criteria. 11:59.366 --> 12:04.332 [Narrator:] The public hearings in your region may not be held next week or even next month. 12:04.333 --> 12:10.066 But if you want clean air, you should begin work now, not wait for the hearings. 12:10.066 --> 12:13.866 There won't be time then to prepare arguments and work out strategies. 12:13.866 --> 12:18.666 The time to begin doing that is today. 12:18.666 --> 12:25.032 It's time to begin now to make your own decisions about the quality of the air you want to live with. 12:25.033 --> 12:28.599 And the kind of regulations you want drawn up to ensure that this quality 12:28.600 --> 12:34.500 will be achieved in a reasonable time and maintained as your community grows. 12:34.500 --> 12:42.000 It's time now for citizen leaders to begin a continuing dialogue with the public officials who will be responsible, ultimately, 12:42.000 --> 12:44.033 for the decisions that are made. 12:44.033 --> 12:50.299 [Audience member 1:] ...air we want to breathe, then take whatever steps are needed to ensure that we have this quality. 12:50.300 --> 12:54.233 This is vitally important to us as families. 12:54.233 --> 12:58.833 Therefore, we must take an active part in letting our public officials know 12:58.833 --> 13:04.033 exactly what we expect them to do and give them our backing when they need it. 13:04.033 --> 13:10.166 [Applause] 13:10.166 --> 13:11.966 [Chairman:] The gentleman on my left over here. 13:11.966 --> 13:19.699 [Audience member 2:] Mr. Chairman...Mr. Chairman, I'm kind of worried about some of the discussion here today 13:19.700 --> 13:24.266 on moving industry further out, away from the city. 13:24.266 --> 13:28.466 Now, I'm President of the Fairmont Citizens Association, 13:28.466 --> 13:32.866 and well, frankly my neighbors and I just don't think that this is the answer to the problem. 13:32.866 --> 13:38.232 As a matter of fact, without stricter controls, this would only lead to more problems. 13:38.233 --> 13:43.899 [Narrator:] The Clean Air Act is your law, passed for your protection. 13:43.900 --> 13:47.733 But the act won't clear up air pollution by itself. 13:47.733 --> 13:52.199 It will be effective only if you want it to be effective. 13:52.200 --> 14:01.466 It's time now to begin learning more about what air pollution does to your community and what it can do if it isn't checked. 14:01.466 --> 14:07.999 It's time to learn more about control methods and the levels of pollution that are harmful. 14:08.000 --> 14:12.666 Now is the time to make your voice heard in public hearings, 14:12.666 --> 14:16.666 in meetings with community and government leaders, 14:16.666 --> 14:18.399 and in the press. 14:18.400 --> 14:24.733 Join together in groups, for acting as part of a group gives you a position of strength. 14:24.733 --> 14:29.899 [Audience member 3:] And I represent the local chapter of the General Federation of Women's Clubs. 14:29.900 --> 14:32.800 I'd like to explain our position. 14:32.800 --> 14:36.366 We support most of the standards being proposed here today. 14:36.366 --> 14:38.699 But we believe our children deserve... 14:38.700 --> 14:44.300 [Narrator:] Public concern is what it will take to ensure clean air in your community. 14:44.300 --> 14:47.600 Arouse others to the seriousness of the problem. 14:47.600 --> 14:54.100 Be knowledgeable about clean air, and sound off! 14:54.100 --> 14:58.866 The air around us can be made clean and kept clean. 14:58.866 --> 15:01.999 It's really up to you. 15:02.000 --> 15:22.966 [Music] 15:22.966 --> 15:28.766 [The End, M-1739] 15:28.766 --> 15:38.166 [Produced for National Air Pollution Control Administration, Consumer Protection and Environmental Health Service]