Milan has banned cars in the city limits for six hours each day for the next three days, and Rome has limited car access via odd/even restrictions, all to reduce smog in those cities. This might sound familiar, as Paris did the same thing for a day this past summer as an experiment, and Beijing and Delhi have been banning cars this month too.
Cars aren’t the only scapegoat, however. According to the BBC, a town has banned wood-fired pizza ovens that aren’t equipped with a particulate filter.
(I’m waiting for the bombshell: Papa John’s gets hit by massive fine after emissions defeat device is discovered on a pizza oven.)
The Italian cities have been hit by high smog levels for weeks, as unusually dry weather has plagued much of the country. Discounted all-day public transportation passes are offered in lieu of cars.
As the Milan ban only is in effect between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., outside normal commuting hours, it is unclear what effect the restrictions will have on smog levels.
On our side of the pond, no major metropolitan area has outright banned cars due to increased pollution. But if the ban seems to be traveling the Silk Road so quickly, it’s possible that ours is in the mail.
Cars are the main culprit of pollution in Europe and the now very hot , dry conditions are making it a whole lot worse. LA has had even worse pollution for ages, but it has been unusual for Europeans, hotter summers are making it more frequent.
Lived in L.A., lived in Naples, Italy. Not even on the same freaking planet pollution wise. LA had lots of cars. Naples had lots of cars, the aforementioned pizza ovens (yes, there were that many, lots of perpetually burning dumpsters as the garbage hadn’t been picked up for some time and depending on where you were, lots.of gasses being belched from mother earth herself. Last time I checked I could drink the water in LA as well. You constantly compare LA, one of our smoggier places to some of the cleaner ones in Europe. Why no mention of Naples, Sicily, or Istanbul?
Cleanest and most polluted cities. Most polluted in India and China. Europe has some of the cleanest
http://www.scgh.com/green-news/the-cleanest-and-the-most-polluted-cities/
Looks like these days China invented smog and then licensed the process to India and Italy.
@Big Al from Murica
Europe has 11 Clean cities versus 4 in NA, or that two are in Canada.
US is the second most polluted place on earth and must do something to clean up its act
http://www.activesustainability.com/top-5-most-polluting-countries
Yeah, I’m sure Iraq was cleaner, even with the porta John trucks dumping their loads into the Tigris I saw routinely. You must be breathing in some good “pollution”. India, China, the middle East. I’ve been all over the darn world and one thing never changes when I drive home from the airport. I never fail to notice how clean and green this country is.
@Big Al from Murica
Your USA, must be a very different one to the USA, I visited. It was not that green, much more polluted.
You must’ve visited one of the many “rolling coal” states
That article is irrelevant to this discussion. Carbon dioxide is not a factor in when it comes to local pollution.
You posted it three times in this single thread without realizing that.
@rpn453
” local pollution ” can be deadly if there is too much CO2
Let’s hear the theory on this one.
@rpn453
Concentrated CO2 basically gets trapped in the bloodstream and you die of a form of bends. Many Villagers near a lake in Africa, died from CO2 being released by thermal activity
Reference to the lethal and not lethal side affects of Co2
https://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/proceedings/04/carbon-seq/169.pdf
I’m having trouble seeing the relevance. Hydrocarbon emissions are not creating harmful levels of CO2 in the atmospheres of U.S. cities.
@rpn453
From an environmental view
http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/co2.html
Automobiles emit harmful levels of CO2 , and high levels of CO2 are not good for general health
Yes, should you find yourself flying home from the Moon on a crippled spacecraft and you can’t fit the filters for the crippled ship’s filters into those on the lunar module which you are riding in, excess CO2 is a real problem.
And you are correct about this being a serious issue more or less unique to the United States as it involves a trip to the moon.
Other than that scenario though I’m not seeing your point.
Europeans do and fine you into the ground if your vehicle emits too much C02 US Diesels fail here and in Europe on that point. Yes you cannot sell, but can import very limited quantities of non compliant US Diesels. Banned totally in Europe. Notice they picked up VW for exceeding CO2 on some of their Gas sedans
Here’s Robert in a nutshell:
-He isn’t bright, so his reading comprehension is poor, he isn’t capable of learning facts and he doesn’t understand what he reads.
-He hates the US, so everything invariably comes down to the US being allegedly worse and inferior to everyone else, even if the data indicates otherwise.
Basically, he’s just like BAFO, just not as longwinded. No point in addressing him, since he won’t understand and is incapable of comprehending it.
When your limited IQ kicks in all you can write is derogatory statements, you have nothing to contribute
Wonder if you have drugs as a substitute for breakfast
“Europeans do and fine you into the ground if your vehicle emits too much C02 US Diesels fail here and in Europe on that point. Yes you cannot sell, but can import very limited quantities of non compliant US Diesels. Banned totally in Europe. Notice they picked up VW for exceeding CO2 on some of their Gas sedans”
Europeans fine you if your vehicle emits too much CO2? Name ONE single incident. Go on. CO2 is just another way of presenting fuel economy.
US Diesels banned totally in Europe? Name just ONE. Go on, I’m all ears.
VW was picked up for emitting too much CO2? Can you even read? VW admitted they had overstated the fuel economy of some of their gas cars. NOBODY picked them up on it – they admitted it themselves. Then, being VW, backtracked on that a few weeks later, saying it was only a few niche models.
Robert, are you thoroughly awake? Do you wander through life in a daze? Can you read beyond 4th grade level. Because, my dear man, you need some serious help.
@rpn423
You seem to be part of the Zombie Army on this site.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-09/volkswagen-says-carbon-emission-claims-proved-unfounded/7015654
More than economy, CO2 as well , you better start reading.CO2 is not another measure for Fuel economy, where did you get that waffle from? FE is just that, not an emissions measure
Any US Diesel that does not meet EURO 6 is banned.
Does not necessarily work the other way. Transit 3.2 Diesel, could not be upgraded to Euro 6, but is fine for the less severe US regulations
Just a hint to our Aussie “friends”: Posting links that don’t say what you think that they say only proves that you’re illiterate.
You are brain addled, so trying to understand anything for you would be extremely difficult
Carbon Dioxide = PLANT FOOD.
It is only a pollutant in the imaginations of our global elite who are now attempting to turn carbon into currency.
Big Al is correct. Especially over these past 10-15 years.
It’s stunning that you could post a comment like that and not feel embarrassed. You obviously weren’t at the top of your class.
#1 force everyone into EVs.
#2 Force everyone to use solar power to cook their pasts and sausages…
#3 Force everyone to adopt solar powered lighting.
#4 Stop using Olive Oil and substitute for water steamed…
Based on my time in Italy I believe I would see you rocking a Fiesta 3 cylinder long before I’d see Itallian kitchens without olive oil.
#5 (If the PETA-heads have their way) – Force everyone to use solar power to cook their pastas.
Too bad Fiat don’t have a viable EV (except for the compliance only 500e sold in a couple of states).
Italians could drive EV’s in the cities if they had some to buy.
Italians part of the EU, which acts as a single economy. And while Italians still like to buy from the home team (like many consumers globally), they are free to purchase PHEVs which are offered by multiple automakers throughout Europe.
Italians buy very small cars as the roads are very narrow and old. In Rome, they use mopeds a lot. You can get a Moped licence when your 14
They certainly would not. Mopeds in Rome, easy to move around, own and park
I never imagined seeing smoke stack scrubbers required for pizzerias.
I’ll bet they’re smaller & cuter than the ones I helped make for steel mills.
The accompanying picture doesn’t look very Italian to me…
Correct , pretty North American , specifically United States
Pic description says Beijing smog and the plates don’t look American.
Frankly I haven’t seen smog that bad in the US in my lifetime and I haven’t really seen smog for the most part since the 80’s
Granted I didn’t make it back to the states until ’77 and didn’t move into a metropolitan area until 1979 and I can remember the smog back then but nothing like that on the east coast at least.
IMO air quality would improve tremendously in Europe if they switched to gasoline and gasoline hybrids as a stop gap until EV technology has matured to the point that it is zero cost or cheaper compared to its ICE counterpart.
Once you understand that Robert Ryan and his buddy BAFO are both babbling idiots, it all starts to make sense.
Your a drug addled dimwit., who few can tolerate on this blog.
Didn’t you hear? They shut down Paris and London for two weeks before Sir Robert Ryan’s arrival, then ban all filthy little diesels for the duration of his holiday!!
@raph
I certainly have in the US, Los Angeles to be exact, it was extremely bad. China has the worst pollution anywhere followed by the US. European Union is considerably behind in pollution levels even though it has vastly more people than the US.
Gasoline hybrids have their own problems. EV’s are a pretty dead issue no matter where they are found. Cars are used for towing in Europe, not so in the US
Asleep on the job again, Ryan, I see. If you had been awake these last four or give years, you’d have seen India has handily surpassed China.
Google:worse urbam pollution india or china
And learn something. I see you must have looked at those links I gave for smog in LA in the late ’50s. Now do the same on the google phrase.
Everything you say is incorrect: all GM V6s being made in Oz, no insurance for LHD vehicles in the UK, no trucks working weekends in the EU, and now you’re off the deep end on pollution. Typical. You’re a nitwit, pure and simple.
Now BAFO, I assume he’s battling crocs in the historic floods hitting NT, where crocs are swimming around submerged roads. And not just any crocs, but the really nasty ones.
@WMBA
I wonder if you are conscious at times.
http://www.activesustainability.com/top-5-most-polluting-countries
You’re wondering if I’m conscious when YOU spout the utter BS you do? Ha ha ha. Right.
It’s like down below, where you list the world’s most polluting countries, instead of where the actual worst air pollution is. The link I posted uses WHO data.
You still cannot refute my rebuttals of the absolute drivel you’ve posted before because you cannot.
You are a totally unreliable source. Of anything.
“European Union is considerably behind in pollution levels even though it has vastly more people than the US.”
Of course because WV is the most popular car in Europe.
Should be, top of the sales chart, beating GM(Vauxhall and Opel) , Ford and FCA
Only way you see air lime that in the US is if you are around Mt. St. Helen’s when it blows or are out west during Forrest fire season.
@RobertRyan, you can only wish. Since I am actually living in US sorry to tell you that air is pretty clean in US of A. But can understand your envy. Europeans drive “clean” diesel powered cars so go figure yourself where air might be cleaner.
European Union has considerably less air pollution than the US. US is just below China as the most polluted areas on earth
I have been all around the US and the air is far from clean. I guess the people in China think the air is clean two
This thread is useless without sources!
Again, you must have skipped Southern Italy and Turkey. I won’t even touch the former Eastern Bloc nations.
And these are the results of interrogating your own brain, I presume? For no statistics support your bald statements. Unread and uneducated and built to stay that way is all your blatherings have shown me over the last five years.
Here mate check this out if you can actually read:
http://www.statisticbrain.com/top-polluted-cities-in-the-world/
The World Health Organization considers fine particulate matter pollution levels higher than 10 micrograms per cubic meter to be unsafe. The majority of American cities are in the safe zone, with the average pollution level at 9.6. Thirty-three percent of cities are above the W.H.O. standard. Those cities tend to be geographically dispersed throughout the United States, but are predictably cities with heavy industry and driving, like Cleveland, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. Outside of the W.H.O., the United States has its own particulate matter standard of 12 micrograms per cubic meter. The pollution in 13 percent of American cities is higher than that.
Europe is a different story. The average European city has pollution levels that are double what the W.H.O. considers safe, at 21.7 micrograms per cubic meter. In total, 93 percent of Europe’s cities have unsafe levels of pollution when measured against the W.H.O.’s standards. The E.U.’s standard, against which member countries base their regulations, is much more lax than both the W.H.O. and the American standards, at 25 micrograms per cubic meter. Only a quarter of the E.U.’s cities fail to meet that standard. In the United States, only Fresno, Calif., would.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/31/upshot/pollution-around-the-world-a-matter-of-choices.html
_____
I posted that article before. You can guess which idiot Australian failed to comprehend it, even though he replied to it (or at least attempted to.)
Which idiot American from the US, did not realise the top 5 cleanest Countries are in Europe Unsafe Cities in the US are very large cities, makes sense, but ridiculous to think the US is cleaner when it’s pollution emissions way higher than even Europe
http://www.scgh.com/green-news/the-cleanest-and-the-most-polluted-cities/
The US needs to clean up its act
http://www.activesustainability.com/top-5-most-polluting-countries
Hmm…who to trust, Robert Ryan’s active sustainability.com or the freaking World Health Organization. Perhaps you flew through LA back in 1974, but it is pretty clean nowadays although I will grant you I think that massive natural gas leak is in metro LA so yes, should you have been in certain areas very recently it probably isn’t real healthy. Course my good friend is a Geologist who has been employed in Sydney for the last decade or so with a company cleaning up a major gas spill so I guess that happens everywhere.
@Big Al from Murica
Last time in LA in 2008. It was filthy
@WMBA
You are a dimwit. Worst pollution is in China and India, nothing to with Europe
Yeah, I have been to both places since then. You are simply wrong or smoking a little something you picked up at a “pharmacy” in California.
I have been all around the entire US and it is extremely polluted.
Big Al from Murica’s ” green ” is hard to find.Not much in LA, like none.Midwest semi desert. Most of the East coast varies. Yes you will get ” Green ” in the National Parks
If you use Google’s Chrome browser there is a neat trick with images. Right click the image and select ‘search Google for image”. It will come up with 26 articles on beijing and China that include this picture.
Best guess? Beijing China.
That picture looks like Beijing.
Yep, looks like hanzi on the signs.
Oh, what the hey… China invented the noodles in spaghetti so close enough.
Beijing for sure. Here’s a slightly clearer version:
http://tinyurl.com/pn5czwz
It looks like Beijing, smells like Beijing, Googles like Beijing. Therefore it is US according to our friends from down under.
When I meet people who act that dumb in real life I suspect they’re up to something. I just can’t give it credence that someone could be that thick and still go places unescorted. But then I’ve never visited Australia.
So your stupidity is normal, not feigned
Seen LA on very heavy Smog days, roughly 4-5 pm. At least you can see the other vehicles
“Papa John’s gets hit by massive fine after emissions defeat device is discovered on a pizza oven.”
Particulates emissions is the least of the offenses perpetrated by Papa John’s. Far worse is the wide ranging fraud committed by calling their product pizza.
good pizza has a higher carbon footprint since wood is burned to make it. Time for a pizza tax on those swanky joints the 1 percent get their pizza from.
>Particulates emissions is the least of the offenses perpetrated by Papa John’s. Far worse is the wide ranging fraud committed by calling their product pizza.
Having grown up in NJ with access to many excellent mom-and-pop pizza shops, what you said brings a huge smile to my face! Well done, sir!
Any flat tomato-based product from Papa Johns, Little Caesars, Dominos, and any other corporate chain is not REAL pizza by any stretch of one’s imagination.
Don’t forget that, since pizza was actually invented in the USA, all those pizza oven emissions are also cultural imperialism/Bush’s fault!
(RobertRyan will say, US has highest pizza oven emissions, Europe actually has none. http://www.activesustainability.org/top-5-pizza-...)
Some how, some way I bet that it has to be Obama’s fault???
Paris was fairly hazy in stifling heat in August and Milan smelled of heavy city smog at Christmas when it was overcast cold and alternating between rain and snow. London, and Athens were quite bad too and many smaller European cities I’ve been to didn’t fare much better. Granted it’s my personal experience only but I don’t usually complain about bad air. The only other time I have breathing difficulty is driving through the central valley (calif). The air quality in that region is just nasty.
Yet, in places like Paris and Milan there are lots of distractions to get your mind off the air you are breathing.
Obviously the US is more polluted as a direct result of the Chicken Tax. If only we had a bunch of global midsize diesel pickups to filter our air it would be clean.
If ‘Vitriol’ were considered a pollutant, this thread would probably exceed all known health standards :-)
GOD REST YE MERRY GENTLEMEN
The pollution problem can be solved, but collective will, solid science, and adjustments to the “business as usual” mindset are required.
Which means, it will take crisis after crisis to hammer the point home, and many will suffer in the interim.
Ironically, “planning” seems to be an anathema to human existence these days, even to Communists.
Money (meaning, I’ve got MINE, to Hell with everyone else) isn’t the root of all evil in the immediate sense, but the pursuit of wealth and material goods seems to have an eventual outcome that resembles evil, no?
Ex: My desire for ‘artisan’ pizza causing respiratory distress for the less-pulmonary endowed among us?
Tsk tsk tsk…
Hopefully, the New Year will bring clearer thinking for those of us who have it pretty damn good.
Pizza, you are an indefatigable Kind Person and Optimist.
In spite of the harm your kind do, Happy New Year!
Any “harm” is purely unintentional ;-)
HNY to you as well!
Where did the the poster (I won’t call him one of the B&B) who swore that US cities such as LA were much more polluted than those in the EU go?
These stories of the current state of smog in the EU end up looking like LA did over a half a century ago, before the Clean Air Act took effect.
So once again, no the US is not more polluted than Europe, it is the other way around.
As can clearly be seen by the EU’s needing to ban cars from its major cities.
@VolandroBajo,
If Milan or Rome were as polluted as Los Angeles is now , ALL petroleum based vehicles would be banned. At least you can see the Hills of Rome quite clearly any time of the day. Not the case in LA, where the Hills disappear into the smog.