Author Topic: Air Quality  (Read 1973 times)

Ashy

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Air Quality
« on: Jan 24, 2020, 08:58:52 PM »
People who complain about air quality today should have seen it before 1964, when you COULD see it.

klondike

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Re: Air Quality
« Reply #1 on: Jan 24, 2020, 09:03:58 PM »
Actually you sometimes still can. When you get the warnings on TV you can often see it hanging like a slightly mucky mist over the countryside. Usually happens in the summer for some reason.
So long and thanks for all the fish

richmond62

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Re: Air Quality
« Reply #2 on: Jan 24, 2020, 09:08:56 PM »
Low flying political lies?

RoyMail

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Re: Air Quality
« Reply #3 on: Jan 26, 2020, 07:44:33 PM »
People who complain about air quality today should have seen it before 1964, when you COULD see it.
indeed , you could see and taste the 50's London Smog , Mum used to make me were a scarf around my face, by the end of the day it was stained nicotine yellow
Look and Listen but keep Stumm

Jacqueline

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Re: Air Quality
« Reply #4 on: Jan 26, 2020, 07:52:45 PM »
I remember the yellow smog too.  I got lost returning home from the the cinema which you could see from my place, it was horrible.


Very foggy here in the wilds of Wales the last few days not cleared at all.

crabbyob

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Re: Air Quality
« Reply #5 on: Jan 27, 2020, 06:21:47 AM »
they said the fires in OZ were caused by the high temps, caused by air pollution... in fact the air temp was the highest for a hundred years... so a hundred years ago the air quallity was bad?... so how did they save the planet then?
when was the last time any of us remember a proper fog.... i think in the late sixties for me
“Life may not be the party we hoped for, but as we are already here we may as well dance”

Michael Rolls

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Re: Air Quality
« Reply #6 on: Jan 27, 2020, 06:50:17 AM »
October 1987. I lived in Haslemere, Surrey. Had an evening meeting in Mitcham, Started at 8, ended at 10. Clear as a bell when I went in, very thick fog when I came out. Drove very, very cautiously onto the A3 and continued thus. At one stage - I was doing around 10 mph and the fog was so thick I couldn't see any other vehicles either in front of or behind me - I was overtaken by a car doing about 30. Couldn't believe anyone could be that stupid - but someone was. Twenty minutes or so later I came across him again, upside down and on fire. Emergency services were there, Couldn't get past - he had hit the support of the bridge over the A3 and the wrecked vehicle and the ambulances and police cars were blocking the road, so I very cautiously exited the road by going up the joining ramp the wrong way and rejoined the A3 on the far side of the carnage.
It was by no about 11:30 - I should have been home nearly an hour earlier but I decided to stop at an hotel. In those days the A3 went uphill right through Esher and there was an hotel at the top of the hill on the opposite side of teh road. It wasn't until I started to go downhill that I realised that the fog was so thick I had been unable to see the hotel, a large two ro three story building only about 30 yards away.
Kept plugging on, passed Guildford at which point there is a ridge of high ground - the Hog's Back. Over the ridge and as though somebody had thrown a switch, the fog vanished totally. Just as well, because by now my eyes were streaming with the effort of trying to see through the muck. Got home around 2 am expecting Veronica to be frantic with worry - but everyone was fast asleep, blissfully unaware of my adventure (no mobile phone back then)
Mike
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The older I get, the better I was!

sparky

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Re: Air Quality
« Reply #7 on: Jan 27, 2020, 08:19:26 AM »
I started driving without a licence the firms van in 1947 fogs/smogs we had at that time in London  were very regular, so they did not bother me , as I was used to them, but icy roads are another thing they scare the [censored] out of me, given the idiots that still assume they can drive at their normal speeds.

klondike

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Re: Air Quality
« Reply #8 on: Jan 27, 2020, 10:07:54 AM »
Yes very dangerous then. The roads are full of old buggers crawling along  :) :) :)
So long and thanks for all the fish

Walter

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Re: Air Quality
« Reply #9 on: Apr 13, 2020, 02:26:14 PM »
I remember the fogs we used to get when everything was coalfired the Cotton Mills the houses were blackened and the smell of soot, according to the papers the air in Central London is better now due to lockdown and the drop in traffic
“If you're going through hell, keep going.”

Walter

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Re: Air Quality
« Reply #10 on: Apr 13, 2020, 02:29:22 PM »
Yes very dangerous then. The roads are full of old buggers crawling along  :) :) :)


:)

The old joke springs to mind

I have been driving since 1920 and never had an accident, seen lots of them in my rearview mirror daft beggers
“If you're going through hell, keep going.”

biglouis

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Re: Air Quality
« Reply #11 on: Apr 13, 2020, 04:14:56 PM »
I can remember a black fog in the early 1960s when I had to walk home from my place of work. I was only 16 and did not know the route well so I was very nervous. The fog was so thick I missed my way and began to walk in the wrong direction at a major junction.  But for the help of a kind man who directed me in the correct direction and came part of the way with me, I may have been walking much longer.

When I got home there were filthy drops of black water all over my hair.
Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the blind obedience of fools.

Michael Rolls

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Re: Air Quality
« Reply #12 on: Apr 13, 2020, 08:11:37 PM »
We lived just off the Old Kent Road from 1945-47 and I went to St. Olave's Grammar School near Tower Bridge - walked to the tube from our place and those two winters, 45 and 46 had any number of real pea soupers - I used to arrive home filthy from the soot
Mike
Thank you for the days, the days you gave me.
The older I get, the better I was!

zoony

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Re: Air Quality
« Reply #13 on: Apr 13, 2020, 08:29:37 PM »
I grew up surrounded by industrial mills and factories of one kind or another and all had 'chimblies' belching smoke..There was a large steelworks and rolling mill a few streets away and we had heavy smogs from time to time but it's quite breezy in the foothills of the Pennines so they never lasted long. I think London is not geologically blessed in the same way.
One of the most polluted (smog-wise) cities in the US is Salt Lake city, which is a beautiful and clean place but because of the geography involved SLC actually cops for LA's air pollution..
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biglouis

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Re: Air Quality
« Reply #14 on: Apr 14, 2020, 12:26:42 AM »
Liverpool may not have had the best air quality but our tap water was of a very high quality and came from a lake in Wales. One of the things I always hated about the water in London was that it tasted like elephant pi** and scum floate don the top when you did your washing
Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the blind obedience of fools.