Unbreathable

Creating bicycle paths has also been mentioned. So has creating incentives to get citizens and businesses to invest in clean, renewable energy sources. But those who do want to install solar panels often find themselves thwarted by prohibitive costs and various bureaucratic entanglements.

What hasn't been discussed in detail is curbing larger sources of pollution, regional power plants and factories. Such action would involve stricter nationwide environmental standards that no Italian government has so far been inclined to consider seriously.

In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency, spurred by the Obama Administration, has proposed stricter standards for smog-causing pollutants, with legislation scheduled to take effect in August and be phased in over two decades. Its $19-to-$90 billion annual cost through 2020 would be borne largely by manufacturers, oil refiners and utilities. Failure of state and local government to follow through with the new regulations would result in fines and loss of federal highway funding.

In Lombardy, Codacons, a consumer and environmental association, has launched a class action suit against the region's governor, Roberto Formigoni, its president, Guido Podestà, as well as Milan Mayor Letizia Moratti. All three are being probed by magistrates for allegedly violating a 2002 decree, based on EU law, that calls on local and regional authorities to intervene against traffic when PM-10 levels surpass 35-day-a-year limit.

When I tell my husband that I intend to join the suit, he shrugs me off. "Don't expect to get anything out of that," he tells me.

I don't. I'm doing it out of anger.

In the meantime, I try to avoid breathing polveri sottili, and even that's a challenge. While asking for a Europe-approved anti pollution mask known as the EN 149 FFP2, a sales clerk selling articoli sanitari, or health products, just snickered. "We don't carry that stuff," she told me.

My neighborhood pharmacist is amused. He carries only normal paper masks, he tells me. When I tell him they're useless against micro-particles, he shouts to his back room assistant, "Giusy, don't we have Europe approved masks? The ones that work?" They both laugh. Meanwhile, the pharmacist coughs.

I read recently about nasal air filters, disposable devices made to block airborne particulates. They're generally considered far more effective than anything now available on the Italian market. Giampaolo Landi di Chiavenna, who heads Milan's health department, has said that if the device proves effective based on a test group of athletes and local police, he'll promote the nose filters for general use.

So far, though, it's only talk.

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