Toronto Environmental Alliance

August 2, 2011
Russ Courtney
Newstalk 1010

August is starting off the way July finished, with high temperatures and humidex values above 30, but the summer could finish with fewer smog days.

Although it's been a scorching summer we've seen just a single smog day in so far this year in Toronto. During all of last year there were 8 smog days, compared to 27 in 2007, and 48 in 2005.

That's good news according to the Executive Director of the Toronto Environmental Alliance, but more needs to be done.

"We have fewer really dirty smog days but we still have many days where the air is dirty enough to harm people," says Franz Hartmann. "Not a lot of harm and not harm to most of us, but still enough to do harm."

Energy conservation, greater use of green energy, improved public transit, and reductions to greenhouse gas emissions get some of the credit for improvements in air quality.

For the rest of the week we'll see temperatures hovering around 30 degrees with the humidex making it feel like it's at least 34 degrees.

Last month was the hottest July on record with an average temperature of 24.37 degrees. The hottest day of the month was July 21st when the mercury peaked at 37.9. There were six heat alerts issued by Toronto Public Health.

As originally published here: http://www.newstalk1010.com/News/localnews/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10268219