In communities across California, residents are grappling with poor air quality, often without a clear understanding of the pollutants in their environment. In Vallejo, a neighborhood near a cement mixing plant struggles with constant dust on the inside of homes, including kitchen cabinets, counters and tables. Other communities contend with traffic and aircraft emissions, industrial pollution and seasonal wildfire smoke.

When desert winds stir up dust from the Salton Sea’s exposed lakebed, nearby communities suffer from increased air pollution. The deterioration coincides with reduced flows into California’s largest lake, a new research paper in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics finds. 

As California works to meet climate and air quality goals, a key to the transition will come from biomass, which is renewable organic material from plants and animals.

Switching to low carbon fuels for transportation, cooking, heating, power generation and other needs would help fight climate change but also reduce racial and ethnic disparities in exposure to air pollution, according to researchers at University of California, Davis.