California Air Resources Board

Date: Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Time: 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.
Location: CalEPA Headquarters, 2nd floor, 1001 I Street, Sacramento, California

Video & Event Photos

Learn about real-world air pollution problems and innovative solutions from individuals who will be bestowed with California’s premier air quality award for their career contributions. The Haagen-Smit Clean Air Award is named for the late Dr. Arie Haagen-Smit – best known for linking the smog in Southern California to automobiles and as the “father of air pollution control.” Awards recognize those who continue Haagen-Smit’s work through perseverance, leadership and innovation in the areas of research, environmental policy, science and technology, public education, and community service.

Three of the five 2018 recipients gave 20-minute talks. Presentation slides are available below.

Five Decades of Air Quality Studies in Central California

John Watson, Ph.D., Research Professor at Desert Research Institute.

How have nearly 50 years of experiments and air pollution monitoring in California’s San Francisco Bay area, the Central Valley, and the Mojave Desert helped us? Learn how research and field studies have produced cost-effective emission reduction strategies and improved air quality.

Clean Air - Healthy World: Building Tomorrow's Achievement on our Successes of the Last Fifty Years.

Barry Wallerstein, D.Env., Senior Policy Fellow at School of Public Policy, UC Riverside.

California's clean air history provides valuable insight into future policy needs and a road map for achieving clean air in all communities and a healthy future for the world. Further integration of the time-honored air pollution control program with the global climate change program is critical to save our environment and protect everyone's right to breathe clean air. We can address local air pollution issues and global climate change in the same policy discussion.

Getting to Zero: A Strategy to Drive Emissions Down Rapidly and Effectively.

Hal Harvey, CEO of Energy Innovations.

Carbon math shows us, unambiguously, that we need to undertake the largest, fastest carbon abatement policies, and do so promptly. “All of the above” energy policy fails at this imperative. Instead, we need to understand, and pursue with vigor, the policies that do the most to: transform our grid to zero carbon; make our vehicles zero-emission; drive buildings to zero-net-energy; and switch to zero waste manufacturing. This strategy will be enunciated, along with the policy path to get there.

2018 recipients not presenting:

Paul Crutzen, Ph.D., Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Chemistry

Anne Douglass, Ph.D., National Aeronautics Space Administration