Somebody’s got too much time on their hands and not enough logic in their press releases at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. We’ve been hoping to get a thunderstorm while traveling, so we’ve been paying attention to the weather forecasts in areas we’ll be traveling in.¹ This morning there was an air quality advisory in some of the counties in Michigan we’ll be visiting.

Besides being in all-caps, which I guess is understandable² I don’t think they’re taking their own alert very seriously.

Pollutants are expected to be in the unhealthy for sensitive groups range… people and businesses are urged to… [engage in positive activities such as] biking to work.

…

It is recommended that active children and adults—and persons with respiratory diseases such as asthma—limit prolonged outdoor exertion.

The counties listed in the advisory are mostly very rural areas. Any biking to work is going to be “prolonged outdoor exertion”. And what does it mean that active children and adults limit their prolonged outdoor exertion, and also inactive persons with respiratory diseases limit their prolonged outdoor exertion, but any other inactive persons with other diseases, go ahead, exert yourselves on this day of expected poor air quality?

I get the feeling that whoever put this alert together doesn’t take it seriously.

I’d even be willing to bet that they either did or did not bike to work.