May is Bike to Wherever Month and May 19, 20, 21, and 22 Are Bike to Wherever Days! Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition has great ways to join in the fun all month long. Whether you bike to work, school, shops, parks, libraries, or just wherever, biking is good for you and our environment. Bicycling is one of the biggest ways you can reduce Climate Change as well as improve your health! Take a “Pledge to Ride” and get a BTWD goody bag and a chance to win prizes! Learn more.

Did you know that over 65 million Americans have asthma and allergies? Whether you have asthma or provide care from someone who does, here are some ways to find out more about the conditions, their effects, and how to deal with them:

• Learn about Breathe California’s asthma programs, including classes, workshops, assessments, and Camp Superstuff – our children’s summer asthma camp.
• Find out 31 ways that you can increase your confidence when using or administering asthma and allergy medicines, including inhalers and injections, from our friends at the Allergy and Asthma Foundation of America.
• Access asthma-related charts and data sets with information about asthma prevalence, emergency visits, hospitalizations and asthma deaths on state and county levels from California Breathing, a program of the California Department of Public Health.

Since its founding in 2008, our allies at the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council have changed the face and trajectory of tobacco control in the US. The organization’s leaders and dedicated team, passionate about the systemic targeting of the Black community by Big Tobacco, have helped effect policy changes on local, state, and national levels. These have culminated in the recent FDA draft rule to get rid of menthol in cigarettes and flavors in cigars. Eminent tobacco researcher and activist Dr. Stanton Glantz thanks them for their work here.

The American Lung Association’s newly released 2022 “State of the Air” Report lists the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland metro area as being among the top 5 most polluted in the nation. The report states that almost 9 million more people were impacted by particle pollution than last year, and that more “very unhealthy” or “hazardous” air quality days occurred than in the last twenty years. Air pollution can lead to the onset of asthma, decreased lung function, heart disease complications, cancer, and even death. Learn more.