Smog!
We heard yesterday that there were dangerous levels of pollution in our cities. The inference was that it was all our fault because we were using our cars, bus's and HGV's too much, and I accept that that may well be the cause.
BUT, back in the 1950's when I were nowt but a lad, at about this time of the year we experienced Smog! Fog so thick that you literally could not see your hand infront of your face. Breathing was difficult, and it actually smelt of a sulfery tarry choking mess. I suppose it came from steam engines, factories and millions of coal fired house fires.
So how did that sort of pollution compare with today's? Was it worse or just different? This is not meant to be provocative, I genuinely don't know and it interests me!
My personal opinion tends towards thinking that bad as our inner cities may be, they are not as bad as they were in the 50's,- but on the other hand could it be that todays pollution may be invisible, but is perhaps more dangerous???
TF
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As the polution appears to be at its worst in inner cities. The answer is straightforward. . Only allow vehicles which are powered by Electricity to enter the inner city limits...... Vehicles which burn Diesel or Petrol are fine outside inner city limits.
Cheers..........K
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This is a subject that puzzles me too. OH remembers London smogs, I grew up in the country and can vividly recall the smell of the sugarbeet factory a few miles away as the crow flies, long since gone, on foggy days. Its misty here this morning no smells
even when foggy, we live in the town. Not so long ago (10 years ish) the government seemed to be 'promoting' diesel engines as I understood it, cheaper fuel certainly and there was a surge in diesel engines especially private cars. So has this got worse because
of additional diesel vehicles on the road? Was the research promoting diesel flawed (or financed by industry )? Or is vehicle use much higher than envisaged? Public transport is at best poor in most places so was this situation inevitable?0 -
Agree with TF views on the latest reports. Time for a proper review with calmer reporting and not periodic outbursts from the media
I so agree with this but how to have it without 'interested parties' forming the review? We need their specialism but don't always understand the subject in depth ourselves!!
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There does seem to be a degree of oscillation in policy on this matter. Traffic calming = congestion = more pollution. Abysmal and expensive public transport = more private vehicles. Online shopping = more delivery vans. What is required is some joined up
thinking leading to a co-ordinated action plan/investment to come up with a solution. Massive population increase doesn't help. Those 335,000 people aren't all travelling round on solar powered bikes and eating free-range yoghourt. Will a solution be socially
acceptable/politically expedient? Answers on a postacrd.0 -
Public transport is great in our area, and for some of us its better than cheap including the railway
the main problem with polution from
cars is that a large proportion of them would not need to be on the roads if the ocupants had not lost the use of their legs
and we were not
destroying our high streets by making more diesel delivery vehicles by buying on line0 -
My opinion is that it is a different pollution today, back then it was fossil fuel creating smog but today's pollution is unseen and deadly by minute particles caused by heavy traffic. Both have the same effect, both are injurious to the aged, infirm and
those with already breathing problems.People are lazy, witnessed by the majority that want to park outside the supermarket door, that drive past a 'Park and Ride', that drive kids to school even if adequate pavements are provided. Because its not seen its disbelieved.
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I think that this is a great thought provoking post.
I hope that those who have the responsibility to set the standards for pollution control for our and our children's future do it in a transparent way and not just pay lip service to further their career.
Living in the London emissions zone forced me to replace a trusty reliable hilux. I accept that it may not have been the latest of clean engines and so replacing its type was right for the environment. But what did grate on me was that car variant ( diesel
fueled ) was not banned. Also I was very aware of all the archaic diesel plant and machinery that the government and industry has and runs on a regular basis-including standby generators, that are far "dirtier".All that I ask is that any pollution control is in place for all to benefit and not just for the enhancement of someones political career.
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I recall in the days of "smog" that people succumbed to bronchitis and other lung problems, I don't think life expectancy was particularly good and this was also the era of heavy smoking. It would appear that people are now being affected by pollution of
a different kind. We were stuck on the M5 the other day surrounded by large vehicles and the air, even in the country side was unpleasant. It seems the calculations on diesel fumes didn't take into account increased traffic volumes moving at very slow speeds.
Looks as though a major re-think is needed, we need transport but it will have to be powered by different means.0 -
If you want to see real pollution of the air look no further than ocean going ships. The photographs of the Russian fleet passing through the English Channel recently was a good example. We do not notice that pollution much as it gets dispersed over a huge
area of sea, even though most large ships are pouring it out due to the type of cheap fuel they are designed to use.So what the inner cities would benefit from is some better ventilation. One does not get smog up on the hills.
And as for public transport - what I see are dozens of buses driving about with very few or nil passengers. I really can't use them myself as they don't go to the places I need to visit, and three hours plus two or three changes of bus/train to get somewhere
I can drive to in fifteen minutes is not a good overall use of resources.0 -
Not being able to drive at the moment has thrown me back on to the public transport system. Last week we had to take OH's car in for a service and first MOT. the return journey home and return later to collect had to be by bus. A task that would normally
have taken about an hour in total resulted in being tied up for almost the whole day. Locally, I use either my bike or free bus pass but for those with children, it becomes prohibitive.More could be done to encourage all the population to walk for short journeys but time would seem to be more precious and if bulky or heavy shopping is involved there is little incentive to forgo the car. As I posted earlier, we need a radical lifestyle
rethink.0 -
Agree, it's no good saying to people 'take a bus' or 'walk' until an infrastructure is in place to allow this change without being prohibitive. Luckily where I live we have a decent bus service so if I need to travel into the city from our village its easy, relaxing and interesting, especially on the top deck.
We also have a disused railway nearby where a cycle ride can also take us into the city, but spending cuts have it in a poor state of repair.
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Where we live we have buses every 15 minutes and they are electric. In lots of cities public transport is excellent so not as much need to use your car. Obviously not as convenient if you have a lot of shopping. There are all sorts of ways it could be tackled.
I was surprised that in the Autumn Statement that the fuel duty of diesel wasn't increased. It wouldn't be very popular but it might be a way forward. The Government could really increase the subsidy on electric cars to make them even more affordable. We could
resurrect the idea of road pricing so that how much you pay is dictated by when and how often you use the roads. Some of these extra charges could then be redirected to cleaner, cheaper and more frequent public transports. However it will be a brave politicial
that suggest putting any of those things in place. Perhaps a start would be a consultation where the options could be put forward and we, as the general public, could add our own views. Atleast that way Government would get an idea of how much the public would
accept.David
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I remember the Smog lingering over quite rural parts of Kent near Sevenoaks at this time of year - and the sulphur smell yuck!
I won't waste my breath hoping for decent public transport in rural areas - but I do try not to use my car more than necessary - combining journeys etc.
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Reading all the above posts set me thinking, as it has everyone else it would seem. First of all, I thought modern diesel engines were far cleaner than they were perhaps 10 years ago but have petrol engines been 'improved' in the same way? Secondly, are
we as a population more sensitive to these modern pollutants than we were to the smogs and similar of 60 or 70 years ago? These days everyone seems to have an allergy to something which was never the case back then. Our new clean and sterile world has probably
got a lot to answer for.0 -
I'm glad that this post sparked quite a bit of discussion because public transport is a bit of a passion for me.
But to be really successful public transport needs to be properly priced, frequent, clean, comfortable and in itself as pollution free as possible. I recall the times, not that long ago when buses were dirty, noisy, poorly lit, cold and had windows constantly obscured by condensation.
Today at least in our City of Bristol things are better in that respect, and the buses are more accessible to the disabled as well. Now we need to finish cleaning up their engines, although there has already been great improvements there too in recent years.
Inner City parking needs to be priced in such a way as to encourage the use of public transport. We are also planning on bringing back into use several disused suburban rail lines and stations trashed after the unfortunate Beeching cuts.
Finally one other little tip that is proving remarkably effective! "Park and Share" have you noticed around the outskirts of your large towns, that many lay byes are full all day,as friends park up one car, and then both drivers travel together into town to work? Well we are encouraging that, because if you think about it - it has the potential to significantly reduce the numbers of cars entering the City. So we are obtaining a number of plots adjacent to arterial roads with a view to encouraging the park & share concept.
There is no one simple solution to pollution! Simply putting up the price of diesel to the ordinary motorist will do little other than to increase the pain & strain on already hard pressed families. Reducing polution will only be solved by longer term carefully thought through strategies.
TF
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Watching 'Our Guy in China', (Guy Martin), the other night it was said by Guy that the Chinese authorities are very close to declaring Beijing as being uninhabitable because of their air pollution.
My nephew worked in China for a couple of years and said that from his hotel window on the 10th floor he could very rarely see more than a couple of hundred yards or so. We think we have it bad!
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Took a holiday in China, a few years back, and was amazed at the pollution in their cities. You could actually see it all day long. Most people were walking around with smog masks on.
The only way to cure it was to drive your car only if the day had the same odd/even number as your cars reg. People then got two cars with one odd and one even plate number, picking the correct one each day! Visited a small workshop making jewellry and
had to leave because of the lack of oxygen, gross fumes and inability to see without blinking furiously.When they cure that sort of problem then come back to us to fix ours!
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Redface, my job took me to Beijing, Shanghai and several other major Chinese cities several times and so I too have experienced their worsening pollution problems. For that reason I do understand where you are coming from, But surely that does not mean that we shouldn't do all that we can to reduce pollution in our own atmosphere?
I agree that we don't need to panic, but there is much that we can do to improve things here. Such as the measures that I suggested in my earlier post. No one has commented on the relative difference between the 50's awful Smogs and todays less obvious pollution. Is it for example because we are more conscious of its detrimental health effects now than we were in the 50's? Were the 50's smogs actually more dangerous or less so?
How about that idea of Park & Share?
TF
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Within City limits Electric vehicles are a large part of the answer. ----- To those who say that " Generating Electricity " causes some polution, you have a good point, but it is still much less of a polutant than millions of vehicles burning Diesel and Petrol within cities.
Since London is the most poluted city, a good start to clean up the bad polution would be to ban all but electric vehicles from the city.
The country already has the electricity generation capability to service electric vehicles, but if that needs to be increased, an additional Nuclear powerstation could be built on the South coast ( possibly around Hampshire or Kent ) to support the additional demand in the London area and the other cities in the UK.
Cheers ..............K
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Whilst 'Park & Share' appears attractive, the reality is that it is difficult to co-ordinate with other travellers. Locally, we have a P&R for the staff of the hospital, but unless you have a large single employer, any savings by car-share are likely to
be quite limited. Plus you might end up with Peter Kay.0 -
CY, The park and share idea does not require a great deal of co-ordination, it generally happens naturally, -friends get together to share the commute, one drives one week, and the next the other does. It is certainly happening every day around here, you
cannot find room in most laybyes on the outskirts of the city! All that is needed to encourage it is a friendly land owner, happy to donate space etc. It works for us!TF
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