Surprise, surprise, surprise! SEVEN of the top ten cities on the list are in CALIFORNIA! One would think that CA's super-strict tailpipe-police known as CARB (California Air Resources Board) might have gotten a handle on air pollution in the past 40 years. Guess again! California's persecution of the internal-combustion engine has apparently done NOTHING for the dirty air in California. So much for CA's electric-car/plugin-hybrid obsession revolutionizing the concept of green in California. Looks like the only thing dirtier than the air in California are the politics. http://www.forbes.com/2010/11/15/americas-dirtiest-cities-business-energy-dirty-cities_slide.html?partner=yahoore
I have heard from many people that the air used to be much worse in LA. Just because it is still bad doesn't mean that stricter emissions regulations have not helped. Consider that there are now many mroe cars on the road in LA than there used to be and yet the air is not as bad. Vehicle related air pollution is down 85% since 1975. Imagine how bad it would be if emissions standards were still at 1975 levels. The air pollution issues (as cited in the article you pointed out) are not just cars but also the port and industry. Add to that the geographical and population problems that LA faces and you have something closer to the whole picture. Not that I think the current crop of electric vehicles is the cure, but with a large problem like this, it takes many approaches to chip away and find a workable solution.
a handle on air pollution. Indeed "One would think that CA's super-strict tailpipe-police known as CARB (California Air Resources Board) might have gotten a handle on air pollution in the past 40 years." This passes for thoughtful comment? In 1960's California had 12 million people and TERRIBLE smog. In 2010 with almost 40 million people the air is only bad. Note the yardstick to measure air quality has become much stricter over 40 years. With car emission reductions, gas station vapor controls, paint fume regulations, dust controls, stationary diesel emissions controls et al. the CARB has saved tens of thousands of lives and added substantially to our quality of life. California can not change its geography (note all of the cities are in the Central Valley or the LA basin), but give the state of California credit for the one of the two things it got absolutely right. (the other being the University of California)
Uh-oh. . . Brother Weir, I generally hold my tongue when you slide into a political rant, because I know we try to keep politics out of these forums as best we can, along with religion-I hold my tongue there, too-but when you cross the line of the Golden State, I have to respond. I think your original point is that because California has so many of the smoggiest cities, the CARB folks must be doing a horrible-or ineffective-job. But I see it the other way around, because I remember what Los Angeles looked like in the 1950s and 1960s. It may not have been as significant a turnaround as when London eliminated the killer fogs of the 1940s and 1950s (mostly by banning the burning of coal), but California's efforts to reduce pollution, though sometimes simplistic and ill-conceived, have worked wonders over the decades. As for the politics of the situation, looking back past the recent failed attempt by Big Oil and their lackeys to reverse current California laws, I recommend Who Killed The Electric Car?, especially its comments on the co-opting of CARB when California attempted to dictate a percentage of zero-emissions vehicles. Now, I am no particular fan of electric cars in this country, because they merely ship their emissions upstream; I prefer to call them "coal-burning" cars. (I suppose if they are charged within grid distance of Port Onofre, they might be nuclear-powered vehicles!) BMW has long since proved that if you want zero-emissions cars, hydrogen makes a pretty good internal-combustion fuel. But there is no infrastructure for it, and its production is currently anything but power-efficient. Still, it remains the faint, bright hope on the far horizon. Meanwhile, I applaud most efforts to reduce the consumption of hydrocarbons for two reasons: conservation of non-renewable resources and minimizing air pollution and carbon emissions. I like the approach taken by some BMW engineers I spoke with several years ago when they developed the self-cleaning exhaust systems for the urea-injected diesels. They don't care what the governments of the world require in the way of mileage or emissions; they will find a way to meet the challenge. It's when government agencies dictate specific technologies that the engineers groan and roll their eyes, because then they are prevented from exploring every possible avenue for solving the problem.
They are delivered by SWAT teams that are deployed on black helicopters. All the SWAT team members are multi-ethnic to reflect the globalization policy of the UN and they are dressed in black. Since they wear night vision goggles, they can only make deliveries between mid-night and 3AM.
