“All the trees are burned, and our sky is grey. We’ve been coughing for awhile on this summer day. We’re not safe and cool, ’cause we’re just like LA. No Colorado dreamin’, on such a summer day!”

These are the revised lyrics to the Mamas and Papas iconic California Dreamin’ tune from the ’60s. California and Oregon and, closer to home, Routt County are on fire and baking in an over-heated oven, sending smoke particulates and ozone pollution across the United States.

Tiny smoke bits are damaging lungs and burning eyes. The ozone poison created by volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) and heat makes breathing hard and coughing inevitable. Are headaches and sore throats and tight chests a result of a COVID infection or bad air? That’s what we Coloradans are facing this July, and probably August, September, and October.

It used to be that a big difference between Denver and LA was Denver’s bright blue morning sky. Especially in summer, Angelenos wake up to grey ocean haze and auto and oil and gas drilling pollution clouding skies in a gloomy depression. Many days in Los Angeles, the mountains that ring the LA basin are invisible because of the low lying, smoggy haze. Now Colorado’s Front Range is overcast day and night. Our mountains are a dim backdrop to our cities. These depressing skies will mark our summers from now until forever for most of us.

The Front Range’s ozone pollution is off the charts. According to reports, our air quality is unhealthy for just about everybody. We should stay inside to protect against breathing so much pollution. For kids especially, this reality is onerous. Summer is the time for outdoors activities: baseball, tennis, volleyball, swimming, hiking, bike riding, and camping. Cross country practice starts in high schools in August. Now the best we can offer children already too cooped up by COVID is watching Olympic sports on television presented by COVID-stressed Tokyo.

Despite the off-the-charts ozone and particulate pollution, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) backed off implementing restraints on driving cars and shutting down oil and gas extraction. It’s reported that the Colorado Chamber of Commerce lobbied the CDPHE and others in state government to cease and desist air quality mandates based on its understanding of its members’ business interests.

Businesses have indeed been stressed from COVID. But there’s a routine that’s at least now familiar in throttling back traffic via remote working. ‘Even-odd day’ license plate number driving to work seems reasonable.

Even better, RTD should follow some transportation experts’ recommendations to cut fares or offer free rides on these high pollution days. RTD’s revenues are down from the COVID pandemic and ridership hasn’t recovered. Fast action now could make RTD an air quality hero, part of its mission after all, and get people back in the habit of using buses and trains.

The RTD chair says that the district must carefully evaluate its rate structure to figure out its future budgets. But air pollution and climate change aren’t waiting for cautious decision-making. The last week in July is predicted to be on red and orange alert for unhealthy air. RTD can make a serious statement about its commitment to reducing pollution and traffic and improving air quality by immediately taking steps to increase ridership with low to free rates.

Here are some guidelines on our air pollution. It’s worse closer to the foothills and south towards Chatfield reservoir as the bad air banks up against the mountains and follows the Platte River from the east and north part of the Front Range south. The ozone problem increases during the day as heat acts on VOCs

If vision is reduced to five miles, pollution is really bad. That’s when people with heart and lung disease, asthma, and other health vulnerabilities need to retreat indoors. Exercise, generally a good thing, is bad when the air is of poor quality.

Unfortunately, it’s been a collective effort to act slowly on air quality. The climate change chickens have come home to roost. The impact directly affects what we’re waking up to every morning, and it’s not Irving Berlin’s “blue skies smiling at me, nothing but blue skies do I see.”