Shouting Fire on a Burning River

[Selene]

Yep it is the evil US that is polluting the planet! http://liberty.pacificresearch.org/docLib/...nv_Index_09.pdf <<<<excellent full report

Table 3: Most Polluted World Cities , 2004, Particulates (PM10)

(World Health Organization Standard: 20 μg/m3)

Annual Mean PM10,

μ g/m3, 2004

1. Cairo 169

2. Delhi 150

3. Kolkata, India 128

4. Tianjin, China 125

5. Chongqing 123

6. Lucknow, India 109

7. Kanpur 109

8. Jakarta 104

9. Shenyang 101

10. Zhengzhou 97 11, Jinan 94 12. Lanzhou 91 13. Beijing 89 14. Taiyuan 88 15. Chengdu 86 16. Ahmadabad 83 17. Anshan, China 82

18. Wuhan 79 19. Bangkok 79 20. Nanchang 78 21. Harbin 77 22. Changchun 74 23. Zibo, China 74 24. Shanghai 73, 25. Guiyang 70, 26. Kunming 70

27. Quingdao 68, 28. Pingxiang 67, 29. Guangzhou 63, 30. Mumbai 63, 31. Sofia 61, 32. Santiago 61, 33. Liupanshui 59, 34. Córdoba, Argentina 58

35. Tehran 58, 36. Wulumqi, China 57, 37. Nagpur 56, 38. Istanbul 55, 39. Mexico City 51, 40. Dalian, China 50, 41. Taegu, South Korea 50,

42. Pune, India 47 43. Ankara 46, 44. Bangalore 45 45. Pusan 44 46. Singapore 44 47. Turin 44 48. Athens 43 49. Warsaw 43 50. Nairobi 43 , 51. Seoul 41

52. V ienna 41 53. Hyderabad 41 54. São Paulo 40 55. Tokyo 40 56. Katowice 39 57. Lodz 39 58. Manila 39 59. Madras 37 60. Osaka-Kobe 35 61. Kiev 35

62. Barcelona 35 63. Rio de Janeiro 35 64. Los Angeles 34 65. Amsterdam 34 66. Johannesburg 33 67. Zagreb 33 68. Accra, Ghana 33 69. Durban 32 70.

Yokohama 31 71. Bogotá 31 72. Milan 30 73. Madrid 30 74. Quito 30 75. Kuala Lumpur 29 76. Brussels 28 77. Rome 28 78. Chicago 25

Source: World Bank, 2007 World Development Indicators Annual Mean PM10, μ g/m3, 2004 Annual Mean PM10, μ g/m3, 2004

Sorry about the layout. lol

Adam

[Brant Gaede]

Should be by political pollution.

--Brant

[Rich Engle]

Actually, the fire happened long before Dennis was mayor. And, to be accurate, he put us in "default." Well, I guess you could say he did it, but you have to also look at the recently-prior administrations. Ralph Perk and Carl Stokes were real cupcakes, too.

Dennis used to have morning breakfast gatherings at a place called Tony's Diner in Cleveland (it's gone now). I used to go listen to him talk. Yeah, he's a populist, and yeah, he runs right for the high media issues and then onto the next one, but I will say this: he has a nose for real scoundrels, and he tends to get them.

It's much worse there now, with Frank (Invisible Man/Black Jed Clampett) Jackson.

rde

Reminded of more good reasons he left that armpit of a city.

Edited April 27, 2009 by Rich Engle

[syrakusos]

78. Chicago 25

Thanks, Adam!

The matter is somewhat complex. It might be argued that America cleaned up its cities because

• it could afford to and
  
• the culture of private property demanded it
  
• and the pollution became immediately apparent in what had been only a lifetime before a virgin wilderness.
  

The "Pigouvian tax" might not have been the best of all possible solutions, but the outcome was better than doing nothing. We did not want to lose our property values, so we ponied up the cost of fiixing the problem. The other 77 cities in the world suffer from collectivism, altruism and thousands of years of continuous occupation.

Pollution in Cleveland, Gary (i.e., "Chicago"), Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, etc. etc., was obvious and egregious. In the business district, men would bring their shirts to work in paper and change once they go to the office because of the soot. Many days, the street lamps would be on at noon because it was so dark from the soot. Had we done nothing, we would be as bad off as the rest of the world. But we did something about it. Perhaps a more "capitalist" solution would have been to not allow it at all, as a violation of property. Technology is also a factor: cleaner fuels; no coal in the homes; nuclear power. That of course also depends on a market economy that much of the world lacks.

But Rich is right, Dennis Kucinich might not have been old enough to vote when the Cuyahoga caught on fire. The steel mills dumped their pollution into the river and the river flowed into Lake Erie. It was pretty bad. But we cleaned it up. Because we could.

Edited April 27, 2009 by Michael E. Marotta

[Rich Engle]

It wasn't quite like that. "We" didn't clean up anything. It was done (and I was there) only after, literally, the thing caught on fire. This really wasn't as sensational as it was made out to be: actually, it was more of a long-term kind of pain.

The Cuyahoga River was a sewer. This was due to corruption, neglect, ignorance, and the basic unformed nature of the EPA. This is why I grow weary of O-folks going on with their blanketing, pigeonholing, of environmental concerns. Environmental concerns are logical ones: don't shit where you eat, basically. This is simply being congruent with reality. The politics, the corruption, on either side, these are one thing. The physical realities are another.

When the steel industry failed (calculated failure or ignorance of evolving technologies, take either one), the people in places like Cleveland were clueless. This was a legacy town; a mix between the post-war blocks of houses clustered around the Ford and Chevy plants, millworkers, etc. It represented a shock to these people, they were clueless as to the actual causes, which run deep.

Cleveland is like a micro-version of Chicago politics and corruption, just not as exciting; it dies and dies, in different ways. The Jane Campbell administration was a real hoot. Now, the latest thing is biz as usual over there. Jackson got "caught" (oh, go figure) blowing out 24/7 overtime on the Cleveland police rolls for his endless list of chauffeurs. He has, it seems, big needs for travel, which is curious considering he rarely makes public appearances, doesn't brief the public, anything. Basically, he shows up for dedications, funerals.

Underlying this is a scandal from the Mike White administration. That is deeper, and set the topography for some time (including East Cleveland), but I won't go into it right now.

Just more midwest death.

rde

[Selene]

Guys:

Now I am glad I posted this.

Thanks for the qualification on Kucinich, I happen to like him and I have a terrible passion for redheads so he works even better for me, lol. I am a little familiar with Cleveland's less than stellar political regimes, but with NY City as my large corruption model, I had more than enough on my plate.

Default works, that was not a for certain statement lol.

Michael

Exactly correct. It has been one of my principal arguments that 1) you can fix what was polluted; 2) in many cases, possibly most, the entity or person did not "known" the extent, if any, of the original act. For example, the United States Radium Corporation had a factory in Orange NJ wherein the "Radium Girls" would be encouraged to "point" the tips of the camel hair paintbrushes that they were dipping in the radium paint, needless to say...:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls

Now, the owners and scientific staff knew of the dangerous and deadly results, but did the foreman know? I have never read the case record of the trial, but I am going to try to find out more about it. My father had told me about it.

and 3) the cleanest, least polluted places are free wealthy counties.

Good argument Michael.

Adam

[shadesofgrey]

You can't possibly believe this to be true:

"Growing evidence that tropical rainforests may

now be expanding faster than they are being cut

down, though more data are needed to determine

the nature and extent of reforestation trends."

SECONDARY rainforest is so vastly different in composition and function from virgin rainforest that a comparison literally cannot be made and still be based in reality. By this conclusion (if you can call it that), you could plant grass over every deforested area and it would have the same climatological effects as what was originally there. I recommend reading "The Wild Trees" by Richard Preston for a glimpse (and that's all it is because that's all we as a species know as of now) into the myriad of ecological differences between virgin forest and second- or third-growth forest. The difference in complexity is astounding. Unfortunately I find many objectivists, strictly to avoid being labeled "environmentalists" (as if nothing worse could possibly happen) meet the subject with flat denial or endless quibbling over reference semantics rather than capitulating that we may not, in fact, be doing a good thing by flattening every last bit of forest on the planet.

That said, you can START to repair that which was polluted, but you absolutely cannot (depending on the extent of the damage) return said ecosystem to its original state before whatever environmental insult took place. That takes amounts of time that exceed the duration of civilized man on this planet. We can mitigate damage, we can see the return of some species and indeed, their thriving under certain circumstances. It would, however, be a gravely short-sighted error to assume (and that's all it is - an assumption) that a few years after something was rendered bereft of life that it's back to its normal state. No ecosystem is that simple.

I do agree that the cleanest cities are in the developed world. This is fairly straightforward though, as your average developing country doesn't have anything resembling a Clean Air/Water Act or the legislation and regulation (however restrictive it may be) determining how much of what chemical gets discharged into the environment and in what form.

[Christopher]

I used to work back-and-forth regularly in Taiwan and Japan. Japan you wouldn't know much difference from here, but Taiwan was an outdoor pollution-zone. There was always a haze, always a fog that made everything look dull like your monitor brightness turned low and the colors washed out. Hiking into the forests still left you feeling sticky and dirty, and little bits of discarded garbage were everywhere. As you drove in the (thankfully air-filtered) taxicabs, you would pass truck after small truck pumping black clouds into the air. Fortunately I spent a lot of time in offices, cleanrooms, and nice hotels, so I never had to deal with the outdoor pollution for extended periods.

I would often wonder about why Taiwan was so polluted, and my only thought was that they can't afford the minor costs to be clean and still be competitive. But that's not really true, is it? Cars require so little energy and (vehicle) exhaust filters are so simple, so cheap, that I think it's more a matter of government policy and culture. Ironically, the culture in an industrial country like Taiwan sometimes feels more independent than here. People just do whatever the hell they choose to do. Just look at how police forces operate in these countries...

[shadesofgrey]

I used to work back-and-forth regularly in Taiwan and Japan. Japan you wouldn't know much difference from here, but Taiwan was an outdoor pollution-zone. There was always a haze, always a fog that made everything look dull like your monitor brightness turned low and the colors washed out. Hiking into the forests still left you feeling sticky and dirty, and little bits of discarded garbage were everywhere. As you drove in the (thankfully air-filtered) taxicabs, you would pass truck after small truck pumping black clouds into the air. Fortunately I spent a lot of time in offices, cleanrooms, and nice hotels, so I never had to deal with the outdoor pollution for extended periods.

I would often wonder about why Taiwan was so polluted, and my only thought was that they can't afford the minor costs to be clean and still be competitive. But that's not really true, is it? Cars require so little energy and (vehicle) exhaust filters are so simple, so cheap, that I think it's more a matter of government policy and culture. Ironically, the culture in an industrial country like Taiwan sometimes feels more independent than here. People just do whatever the hell they choose to do. Just look at how police forces operate in these countries...

Good point. Catalytic converters are virtually unknown outside of the US because of performance issues in Europe (they don't want to sacrifice power) and in developing countries it's as you said...people just don't care about air quality. There's also a higher proportion of deisel engines in other countries than in the US and though a well-tuned deisel doesn't pollute that much more than a gas engine, most of them aren't well-tuned. That said, cats are on the expensive side. Even for a cheap car in the US you're looking at at least $300 for a new cat and it only goes up from there. The catalysts inside are most commonly platinum and rhodium and they're becoming increasingly rare and expensive.

[Selene]

I used to work back-and-forth regularly in Taiwan and Japan. Japan you wouldn't know much difference from here, but Taiwan was an outdoor pollution-zone. There was always a haze, always a fog that made everything look dull like your monitor brightness turned low and the colors washed out. Hiking into the forests still left you feeling sticky and dirty, and little bits of discarded garbage were everywhere. As you drove in the (thankfully air-filtered) taxicabs, you would pass truck after small truck pumping black clouds into the air. Fortunately I spent a lot of time in offices, cleanrooms, and nice hotels, so I never had to deal with the outdoor pollution for extended periods.

I would often wonder about why Taiwan was so polluted, and my only thought was that they can't afford the minor costs to be clean and still be competitive. But that's not really true, is it? Cars require so little energy and (vehicle) exhaust filters are so simple, so cheap, that I think it's more a matter of government policy and culture. Ironically, the culture in an industrial country like Taiwan sometimes feels more independent than here. People just do whatever the hell they choose to do. Just look at how police forces operate in these countries...

Good point. Catalytic converters are virtually unknown outside of the US because of performance issues in Europe (they don't want to sacrifice power) and in developing countries it's as you said...people just don't care about air quality. There's also a higher proportion of deisel engines in other countries than in the US and though a well-tuned deisel doesn't pollute that much more than a gas engine, most of them aren't well-tuned. That said, cats are on the expensive side. Even for a cheap car in the US you're looking at at least $300 for a new cat and it only goes up from there. The catalysts inside are most commonly platinum and rhodium and they're becoming increasingly rare and expensive.

Guys:

When I was in city government, we could see this developing. I brought up at a City Planning Counsel Meeting that we had some serious data on lung tissue damage in joggers lungs who would use the West Side Highway paths along the Hudson. We believed it was due to the "spillover pollution" from the roadway.

Harlem has one of the highest asthma rates in the United States. Increased risk of asthma may be brought about by high particulate matter from the diesel emissions of buses and trucks, which levels are higher in Harlem than elsewhere in New York City.^[60]

Seems like the LIE would have the same problems.

Adam

[Christopher]

I don't know much about catalytic converters. However, a few years back I toured the Engineering Museum in Munich, Germany, which has an amazing branch dedicated to the invention of the engine, to automobiles and airplanes. Awesome! One display I recall clearly was the invention of air filters on engine exhausts. To my knowledge, an air filter is simply a metal weave that is charged with electricity through which the exhaust passes. When the exhaust gases hit the flowing electricity, the harmful gases are converted into more neutral gases. Seems simple enough... we don't need top of the line filters or anythings.

[shadesofgrey]

I don't know much about catalytic converters. However, a few years back I toured the Engineering Museum in Munich, Germany, which has an amazing branch dedicated to the invention of the engine, to automobiles and airplanes. Awesome! One display I recall clearly was the invention of air filters on engine exhausts. To my knowledge, an air filter is simply a metal weave that is charged with electricity through which the exhaust passes. When the exhaust gases hit the flowing electricity, the harmful gases are converted into more neutral gases. Seems simple enough... we don't need top of the line filters or anythings.

Interesting, I've never heard of that. Regular cats work with heat instead of electricity, which is why cold engines pollute more than hot ones. The precious metals in them do the catalyzing of exhaust gasses into what (in theory) should only be CO2 and H2O. It's not a perfect process, so you get CO, SO4, hydrocarbons and other stuff.

On another note, Adam is right about spillover highway pollution. The amount of CO ingestion running next to a busy highway has been estimated to be equivalent to a half-pack of cigarettes over an hour. That doesn't take into account any other pollutatant or particulate. NYC has noticably worse air to me. If you're coming in from NJ or the air, on many days you can see the suspended smog above the island. I'm assuming the buildings play a role in trapping it.