Air Pollution

[Ed P]

A recent study has linked air pollution to a ‘huge’ decline in mental capacity as males age. (probably females too but male manual workers were most affected).

On this basis it might be better not to live in places like Runcorn! link

I was a bit unfair on Runcorn as Inner London is worse due to diesel pollution+old incinerators. Also living down-wind of wood burning stoves is probably almost as bad!

[The Duke]

Widnes and Runcorn stink. You have ici on the Runcorn side, and the Granix (rendering animals) and The power staion in the Widnes side.

There is a reason the Widnes team was called the chemics. Before the warriors.

Tho Ed you know why we are all getting dumber… chemtrails.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemtrail_conspiracy_theory

[PlaneMan]

Ah, chemtrails. One of my favourite conspiracy theories.

Cloud seeding is often mistaken for chemtrails.

I’ve no doubt that chemtrails exist, albeit in very small amounts and probably mostly as weapons.

[The Duke]

I was joking, in case that didn’t come across. I do love a good conspiracy theory, but that doesn’t mean I believe then all.

I also don’t like the way the media has turned the term conspiracy theory to depict a fool. Many conspiracy theories, have turned out to be conspiracies. Before they are proven true though, the term ‘CT’ is used to make everyone discount that the loons say as the are conspiracy theorists, which now means their theory can’t be valid.

Sadly as many theories are deep the truths don’t come out for decades, so for many  theorists they never get the satisfaction of knowing they was right.

As too air pollution, the air may be worse now than say the 60s,but it can be worse than the mid to late 1800s. Very much like Chinese cities today.and they have the best average IQs. Its a good job they have the smog, otherwise they’d be 10 points higher, and already rule the marble.

[Ed P]

I think it was probably worse in the early 60s. Even sparrows had to walk in some of the thick yellow smogs of those days.

[The Duke]

I plucked the 60s out of thin air. I just knew Victoria England was terrible, and now we are not so. And because the media like to moan, I just thought maybe it was better.

Given any city was an open sewer not long back, I’d say we have it quite good, and figures crossed, I hope in 400 years times they look at us as wee trh 17/1800s.

[Richard]

Ed P wrote:

I think it was probably worse in the early 60s. Even sparrows had to walk in some of the thick yellow smogs of those days.

I believe that it was pretty bad earlier than that in the 1950s when bus conductresses used to walk the buses home to the depot as sometimes the drivers could not even see the ground from their cab. It was not always like that but when a bad one came in you knew about it and the funeral houses geared up for an upturn in trade. The problem was made worse by the burning of really crap ‘coal’, the slate filled stuff was not the worst, that barely burned at all and spat little stone bullets round the place if it encountered something that did burn. The rough stuff burned alright but it was closer to brown coal or had a very high tar content so burned with a very smokey flame and filled chimneys with the partially combusted and ‘cooked off’ residue. The result was destructive chimney fires and really choking fumes whenever there was a ‘stable weather inversion’. Apparently high pressure capped off the fug at ground level so nothing could escape. The combination of poor combustion understanding and fuels such as wet material and poor coal is credited with greatly promoting a range of health issues from the plague through bronchitis, lung cancer and various other points. No doubt there will be more hazards yet to be castigated.

Getting rid of horse transport cleared a great deal of ordure from the streets and saved countless lives from reduced road accidents.

I spent time in Salford in the early-mid 1960s and always favoured the title, Where Sparrows Cough as the title for a book set in the area.

[Ed P]

You are quite correct Richard. I was lucky not to be living in London during The Great Smog of 1952. My memories are some ten years later; but even in that lesser smog, police with torches were leading buses and people were dying by the score. Amazingly trains were running more or less on time on Southern Region. Far better than they do today!

 

[PlaneMan]

There was an official report doing the rounds some 20-25 years ago that said living on North Road in Cardiff was equivalent to smoking 20 Marlboro Red 100’s a day.  There’s always been student accommodation in that area, close to town and unis but a bit cheaper for being outside of town. Now there’s loads. And most of them have cars and sit in traffic instead of walking for 15-20 minutes. Most of them spend a fortune on gym fees.

 

[Les.]

As a kid, I lived about one mile from the (new) Wedgwood pottery factory, but all the kilns there at the time were electrically heated. When I started high school in 1952, we went by train, thro the centre of Stoke. On Saturdays however (Yes, school on Saturdays for us back then), the “Loop line” train did not run, so we got off at Stoke station, walked almost one mile, and caught the bus for last three miles. We saw the smoke from some of the coal fired bottle kilns, and on a foggy winter morning, your eyes stung from the acid in the air.

When I stater work in 1957, I push biked for the first  four or five months before getting my first powered wheels. Again, riding thro Stoke on foggy mornings, the acid was still there, though less and less kilns were burning coal.

In 1966, I moved jobs to run a development pilot plant for producing expanded lightweight aggregate. Some of the raw materials were based on colliery shales, and they could produce some rather nasty combustion products. The worst however was a high sulphur red clay. We tested that on a typical autumn day, with no wind. After a while, we were getting sulphur dioxide fumes in the building. I went outside, only to find it was worse. The flue was emitting a plume of steam, which went directly upwards, with no sideways movement whatsoever. I went back inside and shut the plant down for the rest of the day. The very worst conditions I have ever met. Less than three months after starting that job, concerned at the prospect of moving home nearer, and realising the likely effect of  Harold Wilson’s pay freeze, I returned to my previous firm with a worthwhile salary increase.

I think the clean air act came into force in 1954 or thereabouts, but of course it took some time to have effect on some industries.

Les, who nowadays breathes the clean air of the Isle of Man.

 

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