Dee Lynch Add Comments View Commentsn (0)
Saturday in the Park
Publish Date :Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Jeffersonville's Every Family Festival (JEFF Fest) was a fun-filled event.  The KAIRE booth was busy with folks signing up to get our e-newsletters and Air Quality Alerts. We were fortunate to be stationed next to the Howard Steamboat Museum booth, where representatives were busy selling raffle tickets for a 2008 Smart Car. With live music onstage, delicious barbecue, a busy farmer's market and lots of activities to keep the kids happy, it's hard to imagine a more pleasant way to spend a Saturday afternoon in Jeffersonville. .
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Scott Render, E-Communications Manager, Mayor's Office, Louisville Metro Government Add Comments View Commentsn (0)
Free Honeysuckle Facials
Publish Date :Friday, June 13, 2008
 I don’t bring it up around my wife much, but one of my favorite things to do is ride my bicycle to work in a violent storm. That happened to me earlier this week. I’ve been riding to work for most of the last 18 years and storms always shake up the ride a bit. This time I was prepared. I’d put the weather map in motion on my computer and I knew it was coming. So, as I was taking my normal morning route from St. Matthews to downtown, it didn’t surprise me when splatters of rain starting hitting my rain jacket. Within seconds it is absolutely pouring, with bolts of lightning and pounding thunder. The wind is blowing hard from the west, the direction I'm riding, making it difficult to see and stinging my face. My route takes me through Seneca and Cherokee Parks – past sections of roadway where honeysuckle bushes line the way. This time of year the smell is crazy strong and amazing.
As I pull out of the park and come to the stoplight at Lexington Road and Grinstead the storm is still raging. I look over and see the small face of a young girl looking at me through her foggy car window. She is smiling. All at the same time I remember thinking - she’s young enough to know I’m having fun right now - people pay top dollar to get honeysuckle facials - and even though I’m getting soaked right now, this beats driving my car to work any day of the week.
In the last few months I’ve noticed many more people riding to work and more people ask me more detailed questions about how it works. I usually tell them - biking to work does a number of things for me at the very same time. It saves me money, it allows me to get my daily exercise on my way to work instead of taking away from my daughter and wife time, and it doesn’t add to pollution and congestion in the city. It’s also the hardest and most exciting and alive thing I do every day. I’m sure there’s a few more. Oh, it’s addicting, because it is. But I also mention you need to know a few things before you start out.
To learn more about biking to work, visit: http://bicyclingforlouisville.org/commuting/
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Dee Lynch Add Comments View Commentsn (0)
Still Time to Step Out for Asthma
Publish Date :Sunday, June 01, 2008
There’s still time to sign up to “blow the whistle on asthma” by participating in the American Lung Association of Kentucky Asthma Walk at the Louisville Zoo on Saturday, June 7. The fun, family-style event will start at 8 AM. Everyone who participates can stay after the event to enjoy a free day at the zoo. Those who raise pledges also qualify for a variety of different prizes and rewards.
To sign up for the Asthma Walk go to www.asthmawalk.org and follow the link to Kentucky. You can use this site to create your own mini-website. You will also find a number of handy on-line tools that make it easy to ask your family, friends and co-workers to support your efforts to fight asthma.
“The reason we want everyone in the community to step out against asthma is simple,” says walk director Kim McCubbin. “It’s not just patients and their families who are affected by asthma. We all pay a big price for it when we don’t do everything we can to control this serious and sometimes even deadly lung disease.”
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Dee Lynch Add Comments View Commentsn (0)
Calculate the Savings
Publish Date :Thursday, May 22, 2008
With gas prices now topping $4 a gallon in Louisville, more commuters are looking for ways to avoid paying a fortune at the pump. TARC provides a gas savings calculator, which is easy to use. Plug in the current price of gas (try not to cringe as you do this), the length of your commute and your vehicle’s average mpg. The totals may just be the motivation you need to look for a TARC route to work or find a van pool or ride sharing opportunity.
Already riding TARC? You may want to enter a TARC sponsored contest to find out what you are doing with the money you save by riding TARC.
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Menisa Marshall, Communications Director, American Lung Association of Kentucky Add Comments View Commentsn (0)
Taking Steps to Fight Asthma
Publish Date :Monday, May 12, 2008
Most parents would agree one thing that frightens them most is the idea of something bad happening to their children. Unless you’ve ever gone through the terrifying experience of seeing your child struggle to breathe, you may have no idea why it’s so important to take asthma seriously. Asthma is a reactive airway disease characterized by ongoing inflammation and sensitivity of the bronchial tubes with periodic attacks that make it hard to breathe. Its most common warning signs include wheezing, chest tightness and persistent coughing. Nationwide as well as locally, asthma is the leading cause of school days missed due to a chronic illness. At Kosair Children’s Hospital, asthma is #1 cause for inpatient admissions and the #3 cause of emergency room visits. Every day, 12 Americans die from an asthma attack.More than 20 million Americans have asthma, including over 366,000 children and adults here in Kentucky. Nearly 92,000 people in the Louisville metropolitan statistical area alone suffer from asthma (Jefferson, Oldham, Bullitt, Clark and Floyd Counties).We know that bad air quality is really bad news for anyone who has asthma. This is especially true for children. Even children who do not have asthma are hurt by bad air because they take more breaths than adults, plus their lungs are smaller and are still in a state of active growth.
To increase awareness about asthma and raise money for important asthma research and programs, the American Lung Association of Kentucky will hold its annual Asthma Walk Saturday, June 7th at the Louisville Zoo. The goal is to raise $200,000, which will help support programs such as community education for children and adults who have asthma, asthma certification workshops for health care providers, clean air advocacy initiatives and medically-staffed summer camps for children who have asthma.
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Dee Lynch Add Comments View Commentsn (0)
Become More Air Aware
Publish Date :Monday, April 28, 2008
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Weather Service urge Americans to "Be Air Aware" during Air Quality Awareness Week, April 28 - May 2, 2008. The Air Quality Awareness Week homepage has an entire week’s worth of links, including forecasting maps and important heart and lung health information. There’s even an air quality quiz.
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Dee Lynch Add Comments View Commentsn (0)
Earth Day Inspires Three Easy Ways to Make a Difference
Publish Date :Tuesday, April 22, 2008
The KAIRE “Breathemobile” (our hybrid Ford Escape) has been seen at many Earth Day events this past week: Earth Day at the University of Louisville, Louisville Zoo's Party for the Planet and Earth Day at the Falls of the Ohio. At each location, KAIRE staffers have been signing up folks for the KAIRE Network and giving out tire gauges and BREATHE t-shirts. In honor of Earth Day, Matt Stull of the Air Pollution Control District shares some ideas for all of us to live a little greener.
It’s become quite fashionable these days to talk about going green. Kroger and even Wal-Mart have recently followed Whole Foods and begun to offer reusable grocery bags instead of asking everyone “paper or plastic”. The coal companies are touting things like FutureGen… a fancy word for some kind of coal-burning power plant that has fewer harmful emissions. NBC devoted a week of its programming to environmental issues… complete with several “The More You Know” segments aimed at encouraging greener behavior.
And in the number one sign that green is in… Oprah The Magazine had a 5+ page spread in March on how you can be kinder to this planet we call home. (Yes, I read Oprah Magazine. My wife bought it, if you must know. I only picked it up for the articles. Wait, that’s another magazine.)
Maybe you’re out there saying, “I’m already making enough changes… trying to drink less, exercise more, etc.” If you say you don’t have the time to go green… I beg to differ. Here are three easy things you can do to leave a little lighter footprint on Ol’ Mother Earth.
1) Light Up Louisville: I know this might be blasphemy in a town where Thomas Edison once lived… but it’s time to toss out the incandescent light bulb. Compact fluorescent lights are the way to go these days. They’re a little more expensive than the conventional bulbs… but the energy savings make them pay off over time. And they have some serious environmental benefits. But don’t trust me… ask the Federal government’s Energy Star people: http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls
If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.
2) Care for your car: Do you know what a tire pressure gauge looks like? You should find out. If your tires aren’t at the correct pressure, you’re wasting some of that $3.50 gas… and releasing extra pollution as well. Things like air filters and oil changes are also important. According to the Federal Highway Administration,
“a well-maintained vehicle produces up to 20% less ozone-related emissions over a 10-year period than a poorly maintained vehicle.”
3) Remember the Three “Rs”: No, Jethro, I’m not talking about readin’, ‘ritin’, and ‘rithmetic. I’m talking about reduce, reuse, recycle.
The point is… we have too much trash. Our consumer society is throwing away too many things that can be used again. And not only is that a problem at the landfill and on the roadside… but it takes energy to make new stuff. And that energy-making causes pollution that we don’t need. So after your next Diet Coke or after a more “adult” beverage… reach for the recycling bin.
Now, those tips don’t sound too tough. And they might make you feel a little better in the process.
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Dee Lynch Add Comments View Commentsn (0)
Walk to Lunch Solves Parking Dilemma
Publish Date :Thursday, April 17, 2008
Recently, there’ve been some drastic changes to our parking lot at work. And by changes, I mean half the spots are gone. Add to that an increased number of visitors to our little government headquarters. Unless you’re here before the crack of dawn, you’re parking in Kamchatka, pretty much. So folks have become a little, er, territorial about their parking spaces. When people decide to go out for lunch, that great parking space is not going to be there when they return. That has lead to strategizing, as in, “If I leave now, do you think there will be a spot when I get back?” and an overall resistance to being the driver when we go out to lunch. Because we may not have fancy offices or big expense accounts, but for the moment, by golly, we’ve got a parking spot worth bragging about! Even those with reserved spots are feeling the pinch in the quest for a slice of concrete.
“Brown bagging it” has gotten old and this parking problem promises to linger for a while, so a few of us have discovered a pleasing alternative. We walk to lunch. I know it sounds a little archaic to some and plain common sense to others, but if it takes a situation like this to get people out from behind their desks and onto the sidewalks, well, then, it’s one of those “good things” Martha Stewart chirps about. I also realize the irony in walking so that one doesn’t have to walk as far later when the workday is over, but I’ve accepted that some aspects of human nature are unexplainable, including the acquisition and care of great parking spots. Then again, we could all take the bus and avoid the whole parking dilemma, but I digress . . .
Luckily, we are just a few blocks from Bardstown Road and have an array of restaurant and fast food choices. Here’s where I could begin a lecture on what seems so far to those of us spoiled with driving everywhere is really a short distance, and then enlighten you on the healthy aspects of walking, but I’ll let a bazillion media outlets do the talking for me. More likely, I would launch into an explanation of how this is good for the air, but since you’re already visiting the KAIRE website, I’m going to assume that you already know that. And funny thing, the walk is as interesting as and more fun than reading the menu at the local deli. I’ve noticed wonderful things, architectural details, a riot of flowers blooming along a fence line, a pesky squirrel that likes to taunt one of my colleagues. One day we looked down and saw the coolest pattern on the sidewalk formed from nothing more than fallen leaves and the footfalls of pedestrians like us. None of this would get a glance if we were flying by in a vehicle.
So, even if you aren’t playing the “circle the parking lot” game at your office, you might try walking the neighborhood at lunch. Keep safety in mind, dress for the weather and consider going as a group. You never know what you might see. And you won’t have to give up your prized parking space.
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Dee Lynch Add Comments View Commentsn (0)
Garden Show Prize Donated to Local Charity
Publish Date :Wednesday, April 09, 2008
On a snowy day in March, KAIRE gave away a serviceberry tree at the Trend Appliances Home, Garden & Remodeling Show. The winner of that tree graciously donated it to the Home of the Innocents. Shane Corbin with the Air Pollution Control District and Andy Smart from Plant Kingdom took advantage of Tuesday’s sunny, dry weather to plant the tree on the Home of the Innocents campus. The serviceberry tree is an excellent small yard tree which provides natural habitat for birds and other wildlife along with shade, beauty and air quality benefits. Thanks to Andy and Plant Kingdom for donating the tree and the installation.
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Jeff Schneider, Director of PR and Marketing, Greater Louisville Sports Commission Add Comments View Commentsn (0)
Ironman Stresses Importance of Local Air Quality
Publish Date :Friday, April 04, 2008
As a life-long athlete and resident of Louisville, I feel the air quality in our city is so much better than it was when I was growing up. As a matter of fact, the other day I was talking to an out of town client and I told him, “Fifteen years ago one would not have been able to see the stars because of the pollution in the air. Now, however, it's refreshing to look up and see the twinkles in the stars.”
As the person who brought Ford Ironman Louisville to the city, and as a competitor in that same event, I can say without reservation that I heard of no air quality issues among my competitors. With Louisville becoming one of the most popular destinations in the United States for cyclists (Louisville has one of the oldest cycling clubs in the U.S. dating to 1840), continued improvement of the city’s air quality is important. With so many outdoor events that are interested in Louisville, we'd hate for our air to be an issue.
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KAIRE Team Add Comments View Commentsn (0)
How Do We Look?
Publish Date :Monday, February 04, 2008
KAIRE’s website has recently undergone a makeover. You may have noticed a few changes in the look and feel of the website. We're making it easier than ever to find the information you're looking for. Air Quality Alerts (when they are forecast) will be featured in the top right corner of your screen. Perhaps you know someone with asthma or a caregiver for someone with breathing problems. You can easily refer a friend to the website and make sure they get the benefit of Air Quality Alerts and clean air tips by clicking "Please tell a friend about this site" on the blue bar across the top of your screen. KAIRE is committed to bringing you air quality information in a friendly, easy-to-read format. So tell us what you think of our new look. We'd love to hear your ideas for features and blog topics for our website.
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