Sick boy. Back with anti-YouTube and Facebook fun when he’s better.

…all the way home.

We’re back in hazy Southern California where my minivan is blasting ash out of it’s air conditioning.

The town seems back to normal, but you can tell something just isn’t right. The kids are home and happy, but an occasional cough from my son tells me the air is still unclean.

I know I tend to take extreme measures to solve a problem sometimes, but this entire episode really has me wondering if living in this place isn’t shortening all of our life spans. I’m having trouble, as a mother, saying “well, the job is here” in the same breath as “he coughs until he vomits and begins to wheeze.”

I don’t have a solution, other than to lobby Hollywood to move its special fx and digital animation to say…Cheyenne, Wyoming, where I hear the air is perfect.

Or to become the breadwinner.

Who wants to hire me?

Today is Blog Action Day, the one day a year we all try and talk about the same issue: the environment.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to post…what to post-but it’s actually very simple.

I want clean air for my children. In particular, I want clean air for my son and his allergy-induced asthma. From Blog Action Day, here is a list of charities and resources to help combat pollution:

Below you will find details of the four officially supported charities for Blog Action Day 2007 – the Environment. If you decide to donate your day’s earnings, you will find donation details below, however you are free to choose a different charity from those below.

Greenpeace International
Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning organisation that acts to change attitudes and behaviour, to protect and conserve the environment and to promote peace by:

* Catalysing an energy revolution to address the number one threat facing our planet: climate change.
* Defending our oceans by challenging wasteful and destructive fishing, and creating a global network of marine reserves.
* Protecting the world’s ancient forests and the animal, plants and people that depend on them.
* Working for disarmament and peace by tackling the causes of conflict and calling for the elimination of all nuclear weapons.
* Creating a toxic free future with safer alternatives to hazardous chemicals in today’s products and manufacturing.
* Campaigning for sustainable agriculture by rejecting genetically engineered organisms, protecting biodiversity and encouraging socially responsible farming.

Why we chose Greenpeace
Perhaps the best-known environmental organization in the world, the public both knows and trusts Greenpeace.

www.greenpeace.org/international/
Donate online

The Nature Conservancy

The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people by:

* Slowing the rate of global warming and finding viable options for the Earth’s natural diversity, human communities and economic investments to survive its inevitable impacts;
* Linking innovative land and sea conservation strategies to improve survival of our coasts and oceans now and for future generations;
* Advancing responsible forest management practices, high-impact conservation transactions and public policies that protect, restore and manage the world’s forests, including rainforests in South America and Asia.
* Building freshwater conservation approaches and policies so that human needs for water can be met while sustaining healthy freshwater ecosystems;
* Developing solutions that allow fire to play a role in places where it benefits nature, and keep fire out of places where it is destructive; and
* Stopping the threat to Earth’s diversity posed by invasive non-native plants, animals, and diseases through a combination of prevention, early detection, eradication, restoration, research and outreach.

Why we chose The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy conserves the Earth’s ecologically important lands and waters in local places across all 50 U.S. states and in more than 30 countries all around the world. The Conservancy focuses on creating lasting, tangible results by using the best possible science — the Conservancy employs over 700 conservation scientists who do daily work in lands and waters worldwide to create conservation solutions that benefit both nature and people.

The Conservancy is non-confrontational and works respectfully and collaboratively with all sectors of society to achieve meaningful conservation results. By showing that tangible, large-scale conservation results can be delivered, the Conservancy provides hope that the Earth’s special places can be restored and preserved for future generations.

www.nature.org
Donate online

National Wildlife Federation (NWF)
National Wildlife Federation inspires Americans to protect wildlife for our children’s future.

What do wolves, salmon, panthers, bison, whooping cranes, waterfowl, polar bears and other creatures big and small have in common? They have the National Wildlife Federation as their champion.

“We helped return wolves to Yellowstone National Park.
We are guiding efforts to protect the places endangered whooping cranes, grizzly bears and Florida panthers call home.
We defend America’s safeguards and safe-havens for wildlife.
We build consensus-based solutions for wildlife where we can. We take the case for wildlife to courts when we must.
We represent wildlife everywhere, from Congress and the White House to the fields and streams of America’s wilderness and beyond.
We confront the threats of global warming and seek solutions to reduce the impact on people and wildlife.”

Why we chose NWF
Among large environmental organizations, NWF does the best job of responsibly spending its supporters’ money, according to SmartMoney magazine. NWF was honored for spending nearly 90 cents of every dollar it receives directly on educating, inspiring and assisting people to conserve and restore wildlife and wild places.

www.nwf.org
Donate online

The Sierra Club
The Sierra Club Foundation is a public charity whose mission is to provide financial support to the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations for tax deductible work. “We fund a range of environmental projects which fall into the three general categories of public education, litigation, and training.” The Sierra Club Foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals.

Why we chose The Sierra Club
Along with Greenpeace, the Sierra Club is a widely recognized and trusted charity with a long history of work in the environmental field.

www.sierraclub.org/foundation
Donate online

The Conservation Fund
The Conservation Fund is the nation’s foremost environmental nonprofit dedicated to protecting America’s land and water legacy for current and future generations. Seeking innovative conservation solutions for the 21st century, the Fund works to integrate economic and environmental goals. Since its founding in 1985, the Fund has helped its partners safeguard wildlife habitat, working landscapes, community “greenspace,” and historic sites totaling nearly 6 million acres. With 1% fund raising costs and 97% program allocation, The Conservation Fund is recognized as the nation’s top rated environmental nonprofit by both the American Institute of Philanthropy and Charity Navigator.

Why we chose The Conservation Fund
The Conservation Fund, with its 1 percent fundraising costs and 96 percent program allocation, was recognized as the nation’s top environmental nonprofit by two prominent charity watchdog organizations. Charity Navigator, in its Guide to Intelligent Giving, awarded The Conservation Fund its exceptional “four star” rating for exceeding industry standards and outperforming other environmental charities. For the fourth year in a row, the American Institute of Philanthropy gave the Fund its highest  grade for unsurpassed effectiveness and efficiency. In both charity rankings, the Fund earned one of the top scores among the more than 40 environmental nonprofits included.

www.conservationfund.org
Donate online

I’m laying in bed typing next to my listless 4-year old. He’s thrown up on my pillow tonight. My towels. My hair. He’s managed to cough his way into various vomits he’s not even waking up to notice.

The test results are in and while I wish I could say my son’s allergen-induced asthma was caused by the pollen outside or the cat inside, no such luck. After all, that would be the easy way to do things, and that’s just not how we work around here.

No, our little Count Waffles the Terrible tested negative for all the usual suspects. What we were not expecting was his cough-till-you-puke flem-fest pusher to be named pollution. No really, he’s allergic to the air. The chemicals. The irritants. The exhaust. The smoke. The smog.

I had my suspicions. The doctor even talked about it long ago when he was first diagnosed with his minor, and now outgrown tree allergy. I think I just refused to really face facts.  I would mention my baby boy’s allergies were irritated by pollution, but we never really found out for sure…until now.

I like to think I’m eco-conscience. We’re not crazy green around here but Daddy does drive a Prius and I throw the newspaper and water bottles in a totally different trash can than the other stuff. We’ve always used the “free” detergents and soaps. Mostly because we’re not a perfumey-flowery smelling family.

Honestly though, with today’s discovery at the Allergy and Asthma Institute, my head is spinning. I’m angry, I’m sad. I’m confused. I’m upset in a way I’m not sure I’ve ever been upset before. You’ll notice I’m not ranting.

I gave birth to a child in a major metropolitan city notorious for its air quality. I now have a child suffering, actually cuddled in bed next to me right now, suffering because of where he lives and what the people around him do. I’m not talking suffering like he has to take an inhaler or gets a runny nose and watery eyes. I mean…he’s up all night coughing until he gags over and over and over and over again. We’re on night #4.

Tonight, during one cough-till-you-puke session, he began to cry. On all fours on my bed, hovering over a towel filled with his vomit, he cried and asked “but how am I going to play tomorrow?”

It broke my heart. It hit me in that mother spot so deep inside you have no choice but to feel physical pain.

I’ve always been the activist type, happy to take up the cause and fight like hell.

For the first time ever I am worked up over an issue in a way I can honestly say I’ve never been worked up before. Again, you will notice…I’m not ranting.

I don’t have any answers yet. Odd for me because, as you know, I have all the answers. I don’t even have all the questions yet.

I know my child is suffering. I know I must do something. The rest must be around here somewhere.