Chip Jacobs, author of SMOGTOWN, on California's Solar Scorecard in The New York Times

Chip Jacobs, co-author of Smogtown, offers his view on "California's Solar Scorecard" in the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times: "Californians: meet your sun. Or, rather, remember it. Despite living in America’s premier green state, most of the state’s homeowners continue to rebuff solar power as a way to shrink their electricity bills, and simply plug into their local public utility much as their parents did. With costs still too high for individual homeowners, the beneficiaries of all those subsidies are corporations and utilities. The numbers paint the apathetic picture. Out of 7.7-million single family homes statewide, only about 50,000 have roof-mounted photovoltaic cells. In Los Angeles, the nation’s eighth sunniest city, only 1,627 homes boast solar hookups.

Just as distressing as that skimpy adoption rate, not one recognizable leader — not L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, not Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — has done enough from the bully pulpit recently to highlight home-based solar. The presumption seems to be that when the Wal-Marts of the world and the utilities themselves better harness renewable sources (think massive solar installations and wind farms), everybody will have.

Besides, we’re lobbing money at the problem. The state plans to spend $3.3 billion, including $2.2 billion under the ratepayer-funded California Solar Initiative, to add 3,000 megawatts of sun-generated power by 2016. To date, about 256 megawatts have come on line — a real achievement considering that during the 1980s and 1990s, only nine megawatts were added here in America’s solar capital.

Trouble is, corporations and institutions will scarf up most of that new capacity, when record state and federal subsidies can almost halve consumers’ equipment costs. Why? First, the outreach has been spotty. Second, even with those sweeteners, a typical home solar setup can run $24,000, and most people don’t have that disposable cash to lower their long-term electricity expenses after the Great Recession.

It didn’t have to be this way. Californians remember the electricity brownouts of the early 2000s. They know slowing climate change will mean new taxes, as it already has in L.A., and that new power plants are unlikely. A recent state law requiring utilities to pay homeowners for excess solar power they generate might have helped, but critics believe it’s too stingy — and utility-oriented — to ignite consumer excitement.

So it’s more hypocrisy in the Golden State, where we promote eco-living with low-carbon restaurants and carpool lanes and yet fail to inspire millions to tap that gargantuan generator in the sky."

SMOGTOWN Authors Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly Win "Green Prize" from Santa Monica Public Library

The Santa Monica Public Library has selected Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles, to receive the 2009 Adult Local Impact Award. For three consecutive years the Library has awarded a Green Prize for Sustainable Literature. I'm pleased to inform you that the Green Prize committee has selected your book, . This year, according to librarian Nancy Bender, "the decision to award Smogtown the Green Prize was unanimous; the Committee found it a fascinating take on Los Angeles history."

All of the Santa Monica Public Library award winners will be announced publicly at the Green Prize Awards Presentation on Saturday, October 3 at 1:00 p.m. The presentation will take place in the Main Library's MLK Jr. Auditorium at 601 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica, CA. For more information on Smogtown, check out http://www.lasmogtown.com/

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 Excerpt on the Mother Nature Network

The brilliant environmental website Mother Nature Network is now featuring an excerpt from Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles, by journalist Chip Jacobs and environmental spokesman William J. Kelly. This critically acclaimed book chronicles the history and impact of smog in LA, exposing the dirty facts behind the unparalleled crises and the ways in which the city tried to combat it. For more information about Smogtown, check out this blog about air pollution, the environment and more by authors Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly.

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's L.A. Story Featured on SLATE

Amanda Fortini takes fascinating look at Smogtown, by Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly, on Slate: "In Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles, journalists Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly document the rise of this tenacious phenomenon and the various, often-bungled attempts to eradicate it. The narrative that emerges is more than a tale of a region and a populace besieged by smog; it is also a parable for a nation beset by environmental and social problems. Though smog may have been, as the authors write, 'not only a blight on the skyline but on the boom mindset,' it was not, apparently, blight enough to impel the citizens of Los Angeles to make any material or long-term sacrifices. In the end, the smog crisis is a parable with a pessimistic moral: To a large degree, the authors write, people breathed the air they deserved."

SMOGTOWN in BOOKFORUM

Ian Volner takes on Smogtown, by Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly, in the new issue of Bookforum: "A meticulous chronicle of the city’s signature airborne grime and of the civic and social forces that emerged to stop it. The authors, Los Angeles–based journalists Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly, bring LA back to its unglitzy basics in a story of greed, pollution, and molasses-slow political change. Their history describes a decidedly dreary Los Angeles: Patio furniture fades, flowers die, and a man’s coral-colored tie turns bluish-purple over the course of an afternoon—all due to the smog that rolled into the city quite unannounced one morning in 1943. 'The blocked skies,' write Jacobs and Kelly, 'were tantamount to acne on a beauty queen.' . . .But the point of Smogtown is well made: that the truth really is inconvenient. Nearly fifty years after the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, we are coming to know the cost of environmental stewardship in blood, sweat, and dollars. The story of Smogtown is that of a city vying against time to reconcile incommensurables. Any city, or any country, is only as amenable to improvement as its citizens are prepared for change. It’s an uphill slog the whole way."

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."