A picture is worth a thousand words.

As an avid outdoors person, I have visited some of the most beautiful places the United States has to offer. The majority of these are either state or national parks which are protected from development and litter. Unfortunately, these pristine areas are not safeguarded from air pollution. Since my childhood, I have trekked numerous mountain trails with my father and relish the wilderness and escape from everyday life. However, there is no escaping affects from urban smog. This link doesn't specify as to the source of the so called (haze,) but an educated guess would point to Los Angeles. People in metropolitan areas occasionally associate haze with the hot, stifling, dog days of summer. This is a sad misconception. Haze is air pollution any way you slice it.
A lovely place which I enjoy taking my family to is The Great Smokey Mountains National Park. The Smokies are sandwiched between Tennessee and North Carolina. The park is a biogenetically diverse wonderland which is home to 130 tree species and 65 different types of mammals. Yet, all the trees in the park cannot filter out the pollutants which block out the sun and destroy the mountain views. The major contributing factor of smog here is 13 coal powered electric plants that surround the park and were grandfathered in prior to the Clean Air Act of 1970. This situation has to change.
Smog is here to stay and is the fruit of our labor. Whether from automobile exhaust commuting to work or industrial pollution at the jobsite, we all contribute. It is our job to take steps to reduce the footprint we contribute to air pollution and elect officials that lead the charge.