SMOGTOWN Authors Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly to Appear at Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly's Smogtown has been named a runner-up in the 2009 Green Book Awards, an annual competition honoring books that contribute to greater understanding, respect for and positive action on the changing worldwide environment. The authors will be appearing on two different panels this weekend at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on the UCLA campus. Chip will be on a panel about L.A.'s forgotten/unknown history and Bill will be on one focusing on climate change. The authors will also be available for a meet, greet, and sign after both panels.

SMOGTOWN Named One of the Top Ten Books on the Environment by Booklist

Booklist, the book review arm of the American Library Association, has announced the ten best books on the environment this year and Smogtown, by Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly, has made the list: "A fun book about smog? Jacobs and Kelly capture the aura of 1950s sci-fi movies in this lively history of Los Angeles’ monstrous smog." Smogtown was also recently featured in Capitol Weekly magazine. For all the latest news on this fascinating history of pollution in Los Angeles, check out the Smogtown blog.

SMOGTOWN Co-Author Chip Jacobs on President Obama's Auto Emission Policy

Chip Jacobs, author of Smogtown with William J. Kelly, takes part in a New York Times roundtable online, discussing President Obama’s decision to allow states to enact anti-global warming auto emission standards stricter than federal rules: "On Nov. 2, 1967, when Obama and I were both little kids, California became the first ever to win the authority to ramp up anti-smog standards, and there was jubilation from Sacramento to Santa Monica. Today, those standards, which many others have copied around the world, have helped make California cars 99 percent cleaner than they used to be. You would’ve figured the American automakers would’ve embraced the message Californians sent. You might’ve thought they would’ve done what the Japanese car makers did: start building cleaner cars cleaner from the production lines up. For all that, Ford, G.M. and Chrysler apparently heard a different tune, and perhaps the distress they’re in now is another word for karma."

SMOGTOWN: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles Featured in LA Times

Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly's Smogtown gets a hometown rave from the Los Angeles Times: “Smogtown is a regional history for the layperson, focusing slightly more on civic drama and scandal than hard science and legislative details. The cover promises "A Cautionary Tale of Environmental Crisis," and the archival photos show "smog suits" for sale on downtown streets and children clutching dolls in their own miniature gas masks. Jacobs and Kelly bring a combination of alt-weekly sensibility and public service gravitas to their account. Evidenced by chapter titles like "Bouffants & Stethoscopes" and "The Wizard of Ozone," the authors apply humor to a grave subject, though entertaining thematic organization sometimes trumps clear chronology. However, the book is not lacking in historical heft. Instead, style delivers substance in true Hollywood fashion, with character-driven plots draped in glamour and sensation. Whether we learn about photochemical pollution via a renegade Caltech scientist or travel with a group of Beverly Hills socialites as they embrace environmental activism, the history of smog has never been so sexy.”

SMOGTOWN, A Cautionary Tale of Environmental Crisis, Reviewed in Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly takes a look at Smogtown: The Lung Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles by Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly: "Encapsulating deftly the worldview, historical context, and public psychology of Southern Californians over a number of decades, Los Angeles journalists Jacobs and Kelly examine the approaches they've made to the region's chronic pollution issues, many of which presage current, nation-wide trends in both pollution and its “Greening.” With casual language and a cinematic sense of the dramatic, Jacobs and Kelly detail the buildup to the famous orange-brown L.A. smog of the 1950s and '60s: “Just at that moment, the beast started to evolve... Sometime in the late 1950s, legend had it that a hen laid an egg that L.A. pollution unaccountably turned green.” Highlighting the pioneering people and groups that blazed the trail for the environmental movement, Jacobs and Kelly also explore the progress and setbacks established by policymakers, including a famously conflicted Ronald Reagan. Finished with a particularly powerful, forward-looking epilogue, this friendly, accessible history should appeal to any American environmentalist."

And check out Chip and Bill's great smog blog, Smogtown: Breathe If You Dare!

SMOGTOWN: "A Zany and Provocative Cultural History" of Pollution in Los Angeles

Kirkus Reviews takes a look at Smogtown: "This colorful history of smog in Los Angeles begins in the 1940s and ends with a warning call for action. Self-proclaimed "survivors" of "L.A.'s greatest crisis, " journalist Jacobs and California Energy Circuit senior correspondent Kelly (draw on newspaper articles, scientific case studies, policy books andoral-history archives to dredge up the story of smog in all its hazy—andsometimes humorous—permutations. It all began on July 8, 1943, when a blinding, "confounding haze" spread around unsuspecting Angelenos, birthing a decades-long battle against a toxic, shape-shifting monster. The side effects were sinister and wide-reaching: increased car accidents andcancer rates, ruined crops, suicides and even smog-induced mental conditions, like "globus hystericus," the formation of an imaginary lump thataroused the need to swallow constantly. Most remarkable, note the authors, was the push to develop sprawling, car-dependent communities even while L.A.officials and scientists were trying to combat the deleterious effects of automobile emissions. Jacobs and Kelly cover many familiar events and figures,such as the Rodney King riots, the early work of Ralph Nader and the legacies of Gov. Jerry Brown and then-Gov. Ronald Reagan. Awareness increased in theearly '70s when doctors compared inhaling air on the most smog-ridden days as"tantamount to puffing a pack or two of cigarettes a day." By 1982 legislation was passed that required car smog checks every two years. In this tale of underhanded deals, gritty politics, community organizing and burgeoning environmentalism, the corruption is plentiful and the subplots replete with intrigue. . . The authors offer a zany and provocative cultural history."

Booklist gives SMOGTOWN a Starred Review

The September 1 issue of Booklist offers a rave starred review of Smogtown: The Long-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles, by Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly:

"Remember those great 1950s horror movies, when some superpowerful creature menaced a city while the citizens panicked, law enforcement officials bumbled, politicians pontificated, and plucky scientists worked at a fever pitch to find something, anything, to kill the monster? That’s pretty much the feel of this remarkably entertaining and informative chronicle of the birth and—so far—inexorable evolution of smog. On July 8, 1943, smog attacked Los Angeles without warning (well, not much warning). People didn’t know what to make of this gray mist that blanketed the city, and when it didn’t go away (or went away and then came back), the citizenry began to react in strange ways: there were rumors, for example, that this smelly cloud was some sort of chemical attack by the Japanese—less than a year after Pearl Harbor, this claim didn’t sound so silly. By 1947, when it looked like smog was here to stay, the governor of California created the country’s first smog agency. The following year, a documentary about smog was released in theaters, animated by some guy named Walt Disney, and a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter was writing investigative pieces about the stinky mist. Later, smog helped launch Ralph Nader’s crusading career, and today it’s a central theme in the environmentalism movement. This book is just amazing, a gripping story well told, with the requisite plucky scientists (including Arie Haagen-Smit, a Dutch biochemist who was “the Elvis of his field”), hapless politicians, and a nebulous biochemical villain who just will not be stopped."