Clean air is fundamental to health and climate new normal such as extreme heat threats not only health but also human life and resilient economies. While human efforts have been made to deal with the air quality issues for some decades, yet air and climate pollution together continues to impose major economic and public health challenges in recent years on a global scale, as evidenced by the death tolls and hospitalized rates resulted from extreme heat over Europe and other parts of the globe in Summer 2026.
Kicking off on September 7, 2026, the Labor Day in the US, we clean air defenders and blue sky lovers at California Institute of Environmental Design & Management (CIEDM) are taking up a local grassroots action program to support and take part in the following three California and global awareness campaigns for protecting air quality from air and carbon pollution. The weeklong program runs from September 7 to 11 to coincide the dates of observance and celebration of the awareness campaigns, and to take place at the Arcadia Ecohome and its Microforest, located in Los Angles – Long Beach Metropolitan area, one of the most polluted metropolis in the U.S.:
- Climate Action Counts Month observed throughout September, sponsored by the California Volunteers, Office of the Governor
- The UN International Day of Clean Air for blue skies, or simply World Clean Air Day, observed on September 7, sponsored by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and
- World Green Building Week (WGBW) observed on September 7-11, sponsored by the World Green Building Council (WGBC).
The CIEDM program actions include:
- Registered our local event with UNEP and WGBC for capacity and network building.
- Schedule CIEDM activity calendar to take place at the Arcadia Ecohome for supporting and partaking in another three climate and clean air related awareness campaigns later in September, namely, International Day for Ozone Layer Preservation, Sun Day, Community Climate Action Day – Los Angeles, on, respectively, September 16, 21 and 26, 2026.
- Submit interest in joining Climate and Clean Air Coalition’s hubs to provide voluntary services to the industry.
- Conduct a cleanup of all glazing surfaces of clean energy applications as I built the Arcadia Ecohome as my showcase project for community education and advocacy. Active solar applications include rooftop solar PV, solar thermal for water heating, and outdoor solar lights; passive solar ones include trombe walls, solar cooling towers, and a solar greenhouse. The cleanup is expected to maintain the performance of those applications so as to reduce the load on the power grid and thus carbon emissions.
- Engage forest management, soil enrichment and tree maintenance at the Arcadia Ecohome Microforest to improve the forest’s health and thus capacity of ecoservices to filter air pollutants and sequestrate carbon.
- Engage an online campaign mainly through spreading of social media news and articles and sharing our SME, or subject matter expert, comments to relevant news and articles, including what we are doing as grassroots.
Actions on climate change and air pollution together, can generate economic benefits and protect public health, securing cleaner air for all. In response to the calls by the three awareness campaigns for climate and clean air, we are actively responding the calls upon everyone to accelerate action for clean air, from governments to businesses and to individuals.
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