During the summer months, the morning news will spend a few seconds covering that day’s air quality outlook. There is typically an on screen scale of 1 – 10, and each meteorologist alerts viewers to that day’s air quality ranking. Populations with respiratory issues will be more or less affected because of that day’s air quality index. An advisement for those people to act accordingly will likely follow. If you have ever pondered the causes of such news worthy air quality variations, we now have an answer. Experts say “your automobiles” (Arkansas). According to the EPA, in typical urban areas, cars, buses, trucks, and off-highway mobile sources such as construction vehicles and boats produce at least half of the Hydrocarbons and Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) expelled into the air (EPA 2). These Hydrocarbons and Nitrogen Oxides are two of many chemicals and particulate matter that make up air pollution. Although automobiles do not account for 100% of these Hydrocarbon and Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) emissions, there ranking as a 50% contributor is quite significant. Automobiles are in fact the largest single producer of air…