Pollution????

There's been a lot in the news recently about pollution and bad air.
Sure its been nice and warm, a bit hazy, but noit come across anyone who has been bothered by it, most people I meet think its been a great spell of weather.
Oh we did get a bit of Sahara dust, made the car dirty, but I can live with that.

What does worry me is the Greens were banging on about extending the congestion charge to Kent and Sussex.
They just love to jump on any bandwagon going concerning extorting money out of us on an environmental issue.

The other worrying factor is the EU, they appear to have the ability to fine us, the tax payers of the UK, for having polluted air.
Seems like a bloody cheek to me, bearing in mind a good part of the "pollution" actually came from their side of the channel.

 

The catalytic converter had not become mandatory on petrol cars until I was 18. I think it was even later on diesel vehicles. Certainly the particulate filter didn't become mandatory on diesel cars until much later. I'm not sure when the environment agency came into being but I certainly remember a time when the works were allowed to spew whatever filth they liked into the air. Until I was about 10 or 11, people were still allowed to burn unprocessed coal, releasing a stinky acidic linger smoke into the entire town. Yet now, there's hell on about some sand that's been blown over from the desert.

 

We still get that in Port Talbot, some mornings the air is thick with sulphur.

 

@fat controller

In case you didn't know about this site:
http://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/forecasting/

 

I've been very poorly for months now with my chest, to the extent that I've so far had two ECGs, numerous blood tests, had my lung snot analysed, and have to go for a chest x-ray next, and been put on an inhaler for the first time since I was little. Its no coincidence that all this started at the same time as the 3 week long fire started at the local works. But here's the odd thing, I'm actually feeling vastly better now, almost normal (except very unfit following over 3 months of not being able to do much). Maybe 'The' pollution has cured me

 

... due to that very first drag on a tab?

 

Nah, the timing just doesn't match up. I was smoking and fine before the fire, was quit and ill just after the fire, and been on and off with no noticeable change to my wellbeing in between.

The fire was not just a 'fire you hear of on the news', several local roads were closed for days at a time due to nearly zero visibility, and a lot of people in my immediate area are also struck down with the same baffling lurgy, while people just another mile away but in the same town are all fine.

 

Sorry, CL1, I was being a little on the flippant side and in no way was being disparaging about your experiences with that particular fire.

However, the day anyone takes their first drag on a tab? It will have an effect on their lungs/lung capacity - some to a greater degree than others, of course! Either way, no one could swear, hand on heart, that you having smoked, one, one hundred, one thousand, one hundred thousand, didn't have "any" effect (combined) with that fire. That was the essence of my flippant remark.

 

I didn't see anything in your 'flippant post' that could be interpreted as offensive in any way. No need to apologise. My reply to your 'flippant post' was merely statement of fact. That's the logical way my mind works. No correlation in the timing and therefore extremely unlikely to be the cause, compared to the absolute match in timing between the onset of chest lurgy and three weeks of sore throat and stinging eyes at the exact same time that the smoke was even (at times) visible in our house.

 

Can i go out for a smoke now the pollution has gone, smoking is bad for your heath, looks like the air is bad to, must stop breathing

 

I had a couple of bad days this week, getting really breathless when I walked the dog. Glad it's cleared now, I don't have a chest condition so god knows how people who have coped.

 

This is in no way meant to dismiss what people are saying they are experiencing, as according to the charts we've not been hit by this pollution wave in our bit of the world. I'm just curious.

How did people cope when they are was permanently disgusting? I know my grand parents on my dad's side were told by a doctor to move away from Bradford area when my dad was tiny, otherwise according to the doctors my dad would not have survived for very long (the Bradford air was literally destroying his lungs), but lots of people were born, grew old and died in the cities. Even away from the cities, as I mentioned before, there was still the matter of vehicle exhaust gases and particulates being spewed untreated into the atmosphere, and industry pumping huge volumes of filth into the air, and in winter time particularly, coal dust and sulphuric acid filling the streets as people burned their untreated coal in their open fires to keep warm. I remember before the smokeless zone idea came about. Coal smoke doesn't just 'vanish' into the upper atmosphere. It goes up out of the chimney while still hot, then as soon as it cools it comes back down again, so the streets are like a hazy stinky eye stinging throat burning nightmare.

 

People are much more sensitive these days.

I'm a great believer in, if you get exposed to something at an early age you are less sensitive to it for the rest of your life.