[Heavy breathing accompanies images of urban areas shrouded in smog and pollution.]

[Music]

[Woman:] Sure, I hear a lot about it, but I just don't have time to worry about it.

[Dramatic music]

[Lawnmower chugs]

[Man:] Well, if we lived in the city, you bet we'd be concerned about it. 

But it doesn't bother us much out here.

[Music]

[Man #2:] Look, there are plenty of people around who know a lot more about this than I do.

Let the experts take care of it.

[Dramatic music]

[Hospital equipment whirs]

[Narrator:] Nothing is more important to you than the air you breathe. 

Keeping it pure and clean is too important to leave to anyone but yourself.

[The U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Public Health Service presents]

[A National Medical Audiovisual Center Production]

[Music]

[Don't Leave It All to the Experts]

[...]

[Narrator:] This is our Earth. Our home. Our life.

It's a finite thing, a sphere of specific size with certain basic resources distributed around its surface.

There's just so much land, so much water, so much air.

Yet our very existence depends on them.

As we have progressed as a people, as we have had our children, built our homes, tilled our fields,

erected our factories, and driven our cars, we have taken liberally of our Earth's resources.

And we've scattered our waste products often without wisdom or restraint.

Without consideration of the effects on the quality of our lives or the lives of our children.

We have raped our land, fouled our waters, polluted our air,

and through all this we have said, we are free men, and free men have the right to use resources as they choose.

Now today, we know better.

Now, with so much damage done, we're learning the price of negligence.

Now we know, at last, that we must stop destroying the resources on which all of life depends.

We must end the destruction and restore our environment, our land, and the quality of the air we breathe. 

Our first belated conservation effort started with the land.

Now vast programs are underway to prevent further destruction

and to restore what has been destroyed.

And now the land has begun to come back.

[Music]

Next, we began to learn what pollution was doing to our rivers and streams and estuaries.

We demanded action.

And today we're beginning to get it.

Of all the threats to our environment, air pollution is the most serious, and perhaps the most difficult to solve. 

There are ways to restore the damaged land.

We can purify our drinking water, but we must breathe the air as it comes to us.

And every day it comes to us more heavily burdened with harmful and sometimes dangerous pollutants.

The problem is more than the stack belching smoke.

That's the part we can see and the easiest to prevent, when we decide to prevent it.

A greater threat is from unseen but highly damaging pollutants that are being pumped into our air

by the burning of fuels, by manufacturing and industrial processes,

and by generally disposing of the waste products of our civilization.

Pollutants in the air harm our plant life.

They cause deterioration of our paint and metal, stone and cement. 

They soil our clothing, draperies, and rugs.

But most important of all, air pollution is a greater hazard to our health than most people realize.

It contributes to the rising incidence of many diseases: 

asthma, bronchitis, lung cancer,

and emphysema, the fastest growing cause of death in America today.

And note this.

While the problem is more serious in and around the areas where the pollution originates, 

it doesn't stop there.

Air pollution spreads quickly, moving quietly from place to place.

No one is immune.

Not the homemaker, not the suburban dweller. 

Certainly not the city dweller.

[Chairman:] The true dimensions of the threat that air pollution poses to our civilization are just beginning to be understood. 

So that's why we're here today.

We're here to make up our minds how serious we are about having clean air to breathe.

Today, we have the best chance we have ever had to control air pollution in this country.

We have this chance because your representatives in Congress 

joined in unanimous passage of the Air Quality Act of 1967.

The Air Quality Act is a formula using our best technical and scientific knowledge to deal with air pollution on a regional basis.

This is the only sensible way to deal with it.

We all know where communities are clustered together that pollution from one can affect its neighbor's air.

[...]

So, this is how the Regional Control Program will operate.

The Department of Health, Education and Welfare will draw boundaries around those places where air pollution is a serious problem. 

These places will be known as Air Quality Control Regions.

At the same time, the department will provide the states with detailed reports on the harmful effects of the different kinds of air pollutants. 

These reports are called Air Quality Criteria.

They'll be based on the latest and best available scientific information.

The federal government also will provide information about the available methods for controlling the sources of these pollutants.

Then it will be up to us, to the state governments,

to use this information in setting the standards of air quality that we want to reach in our region

and in drawing up plans for reaching these goals.

The plans will list the sources to be controlled,

the degree of control we intend to achieve, and the amount of time we're going to allow to achieve it. 

Now, there's a definite schedule we must follow.

Once the boundaries for a region are drawn,

and the governor of the state has received the criteria and control method reports from the federal government,

he has three months to notify H.E.W. that his state intends to set standards for the region.

He then has six months to set the standards,

and another six months to draw up the plans for achieving them.

The standards and plans will be submitted to H.E.W. for review.

In all this process, the states are required to hold public hearings.

This is so that every interested person can be heard.

And not only heard but listened to.

That's the whole point and purpose of the public hearings.

And that's why we're here today.

[Narrator:] The public hearings required by the Federal Clean Air Act hold the key to whether your region will have clean air or not. 

State officials will propose goals for air quality.

They will propose plans for reaching those goals.

These will be the views of experts in your state government.

Other experts will be representing industry,

because many industries will be affected by the regional control programs.

They may have to add new equipment.

Some may have to change processes.

So industry may be expected to bring forward engineers or medical experts or cost accountants or technologists,

or all of these and others. 

Each of these experts will be presenting a highly professional point of view.

They may challenge the proposed goals or seek to modify enforcement plans. 

All of this is good. Fine. 

There is every reason why industry should make its position known, and make it known forcefully. 

But the problem of air pollution is too important to you to let the public hearings become merely forums for the experts.

The decisions to be made will affect the quality of your life for a long time to come.

The law requires that you be heard, if you wish to be.

Don't let this important opportunity go by default.

[Chairman:] Individuals have an important role to play.

So now is the time to be heard.

Young man right there in the third row...

[Audience member 1:] Mr. Chairman, we've heard many interesting proposals and comments here today. 

But for the past few days I've spent some time studying this problem on my own,

and I'd just like to question the standards that are being proposed.

The criteria published by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare

say that the proposed level may have certain harmful effects for older people.

I'd like to quote from these criteria.

[Narrator:] The public hearings in your region may not be held next week or even next month.

But if you want clean air, you should begin work now, not wait for the hearings.

There won't be time then to prepare arguments and work out strategies.

The time to begin doing that is today.

It's time to begin now to make your own decisions about the quality of the air you want to live with.

And the kind of regulations you want drawn up to ensure that this quality

will be achieved in a reasonable time and maintained as your community grows.

It's time now for citizen leaders to begin a continuing dialogue with the public officials who will be responsible, ultimately, 

for the decisions that are made.

[Audience member 1:] ...air we want to breathe, then take whatever steps are needed to ensure that we have this quality.

This is vitally important to us as families.

Therefore, we must take an active part in letting our public officials know 

exactly what we expect them to do and give them our backing when they need it.

[Applause]

[Chairman:] The gentleman on my left over here.

[Audience member 2:] Mr. Chairman...Mr. Chairman, I'm kind of worried about some of the discussion here today 

on moving industry further out, away from the city.

Now, I'm President of the Fairmont Citizens Association,

and well, frankly my neighbors and I just don't think that this is the answer to the problem. 

As a matter of fact, without stricter controls, this would only lead to more problems.

[Narrator:] The Clean Air Act is your law, passed for your protection. 

But the act won't clear up air pollution by itself.

It will be effective only if you want it to be effective.

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. 

It's time to learn more about control methods and the levels of pollution that are harmful.

Now is the time to make your voice heard in public hearings,

in meetings with community and government leaders,

and in the press. 

Join together in groups, for acting as part of a group gives you a position of strength.

[Audience member 3:] And I represent the local chapter of the General Federation of Women's Clubs.

I'd like to explain our position.

We support most of the standards being proposed here today.

But we believe our children deserve...

[Narrator:] Public concern is what it will take to ensure clean air in your community.

Arouse others to the seriousness of the problem.

Be knowledgeable about clean air, and sound off!

The air around us can be made clean and kept clean.

It's really up to you.

[Music]

[The End, M-1739]

[Produced for National Air Pollution Control Administration, Consumer Protection and Environmental Health Service]