Posted by Rick Denney on June 20, 2003 at 14:12:54:
In Reply to: Air quality posted by Brian C on June 20, 2003 at 13:06:04:
I'll take the ozone days in a minute over the killer pollen days we've had around here at times, having endured plenty of both. The pines, cedars, and grasses around here will make it hard for me to see, breathe, and even stay awake. On the other hand, I've gone on distance runs on high-ozone days without ill effects, though usually high-ozone days are also high-heat and humidity days and that heat and humidity is more injurious to a runner than the ozone.
There's other kinds of pollution than ozone, by the way. Many are not publicly discussed, because they come from other sources and the decisions of individuals don't affect them.
But cities are generally much cleaner now than in the past. I remember visiting Charleston, West Virginia about 20 years ago and you couldn't see from one end of the town to the other. Now, it's clear as a bell. Union Carbide's plant in town closed. I can see blue sky down to the horizon on most days in Houston now, but that was not the case in the late 70's.
And cars are much cleaner now than they used to be, so car-based pollution will improve as time goes on and older cars are replaced.
Some cities have grown so that the growth has overcome those other improvements. But in many places the air is cleaner than it used to be. Of course, standards have gotten much tougher, and in most places the standards have become tougher at a faster rate than the improvements. Hence oxegenated fuels, ozone alert days, congestion pricing, free transit, and so on. We have always had high-ozone days, but only in the last few years have we reported them to people and taken measures to encourage a change in behavior.
I can think of worse places, by the way, than DFW and Houston (at least western Houston away from "Pasadeener, where the air is greener"). LA can be bad, and so can El Paso, though the latter only a few days each year. But I'll take any of those over, say, Detroit, many places along the Gulf Coast east of Houston, and many places in the rust belt.
Rick "a traffic engineer closely involved with mitigating traffic-based pollution" Denney