Good question maxsadeo. Probobably my slang or slang of us Western Cdns for a lot of chatting be it to make sense or sensless tongue-flapping. You have your choice.
I think it would be hard to beat Florida
in terms of pollution. Not just the air and the water, also
the politics. Is it from being too close to sea level? The
water is a horrible problem. I can remember in Pennsylvania,
having mountain fresh water springs ....
best water I ever tasted. Pittsburgh,
once one of the country's worst, smelly, smoggy,
disgusting cities - has cleaned up its act so much that when I
visit my brother, his house is in a suburb only 10 minutes
from the airport - the air is clean, the water tastes great....
of course the steel mills are all gone, in fact most of the big
corporations who manufacture anything are gone. U S Steel
still has one of the biggest office buildings in town, but
ironically - the clean up also resulted in a clean out.
Business left town like the plague had hit.
*But that was in the very early days of paying attention to
pollution, and it WAS bad, but from what I have seen thus
far in this lifetime, there is a pulpwood business here where
I live, & there are rules and laws about emissions, about
dumping in the ocean....so why do they still run that pipeline
out to the ocean. They just dump and emit at night. Nobody
catches them. When we have yearly meetings with the people
from Tallahassee regarding the water quality by FPU, I have
gone, complained, had my remarks put "on record" and that's
that. No one from the state OR the water company says a
word while the stenographer is still going. But the second the
meeting is over, they are all over me, telling me how they
are going to do this, and this problem has been taken care
of. IF so, why did they not state it for the public record.
Because it is not true. They can tell me anything. It isn't
in writing. The saddest part is that I am the ONLY PERSON
there who does not represent the state - or the water
company. Out of an island of over 20,000 residents?
One of the big resorts here that hosts The Bausch & Lomb
Womens Tennis Tournament here at the Plantation.... had
a "little" problem with their sewage system. You will never
guess how they dealt with THAT! Righto, they dumped it
into the ocean. AND they warned residents of the Plantation,
but didn't say a word to the town, the county, or the other
residents on this island. The only reason I know, is that
some of my friends are surfers. They were out there one
day when they realized that they were in **** and toilet
paper, and it was really nasty. Now, just HOW can a big
company like The Amelia Island Plantation have an
emergency evac system in place for "in the event of sewage
treatment plant failure/emergency" that routes the sewage
out into the Atlantic Ocean?????? I am only 52, but I
get more and more mind boggled every single day
My choice, huh?
I prefer the former but, I am, unfortunately, far more adept at the latter.
Love the word, though.
Guyz !! U don't even know what pollution is till you have been to my home town in India.
Once upon a time, it was considered the most polluted city in the world, had the highest number of TB patients in the world, and breathing for one day was equivalent of smoking 31 ciggies !!
When people complain abt London being polluted, I almost die laughing !!
I can't imagine. The worst I've seen was Athens in August. The thought of having the summer Olympics there is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard (though it worked in Mexico City and Los Angeles, I suppose...).
Sydney is pretty polluted at present.
The bushfires are all around the city edges - although Sydney is such a spread out city that the edges are a fair way out. Smoke is everywhere, and yesterday we had that usual weird colour that you get with bushfires and high wind - a sort of orange light, through a grey background.
There were really fierce westerly winds last night - so no relief, and no rain. The temperature has dropped a bit, and I haven't looked outside yet this morning to see what the sky looks like.
For the Australian bush, the bushfires are a part of life. Many plants need fire to regenerate. However, we've really been plagued by fires close in, over the last couple of years. I suppose that, as the city has spread out, we've upset the natural course of things.
I remember one early morning in 1987, when I was a visiting professor in an Italian university. As I left home, I suddenly felt that the breeze made me feel nostalgic. Spring was new and it felt just like Mexico City.
As I arrived to the university, a colleague told me:
-"Have you noticed what a polluted day we have?"
All those cities built in stagnant bowls -- Mexico City, L.A., Athens, Milan...
A few years ago there was a chaos theorist saying you could clear out most of the smog in L.A. with occasional 30 mph gusts of wind from a huge fan downtown -- kind of the like butterfly and the hurricane, only with the signal compressed. I wonder if that was ever seriously investigated...
We had that solution proposed, too, by a reknown, albeit too politically active, engineer.
Others proposed making a huge hole in the nearby Ajusco mountain, in the SW of the city. In fact, the wind blows from the industrial NE to the residential SW. Lots of middle class and upper class people get the worst smog.
But things have improved a lot in the last decade, mind you.
The subject of pollution in our area is not big news for our media, nor in the minds of most living here. We live in Silicon Valley, where many computer and computer components are manufactured. Pollution is a byproduct of what is manufactured here, yet not many people seems concerned. It's a mystery to me. I check with our city public works web site to check on our water quality frequently. Our water standards far exceeds federal guidelines. I hope it stays that way. c.i.
I wouldn't say my area is polluted, but you can read in the dark by the light from the dog.
The skunks around here wear clothespins on their noses.
When you take a bath, the water leaves a ring on you.
You need a pair of scissors to cut off the tap water.
Every Monday the Department of Sanitation comes by and LEAVES garbage.
I was 16 before I knew most cats only had two eyes.
Our town's slogan is "Carbon Monoxide capital of America."
The local Casino plays craps with real crap.
Somebody get a drummer an' start givin' this boy some rim shots . . . we're fallin' behind . . .
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaa! I want to go live in a spa like
Walter. Florida just burns you into skin cancer and
has drought almost every year, and the air quality
is extremely poor. I want some clean air, clean
water, clean house would be nice. But then I'd
have to quit typing, naw not just yet
That is very unfortunate about your homeland
Gautam. I suppose London must seem like
heaven by comparison. I am sure my small
complaints about Florida are withering by
comparison. What causes all the pollution there
Gautam?
Just discovered that fifty years ago there was the "Great London smog of 1952" with 12,000 deaths:
BBC News "Health"
