Just responding to your picture, but it amazes me how dirty we were a hundred plus years ago. Can you imagine living in a town where everyone was burning coal in order to heat their homes? Now we are getting dirty in an effort to go green. Mine the rare earth and litter the land with inefficient wind and solar.
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Burning coal was a messy business I hear.
My maternal grandparents heated with coal in the 'old days'.
And my grandmother told me about how, when she was a girl,
folks would put their coal ashes (cooled, I suppose) out on the
the snow & ice-covered streets of Philadelphia so the horses
would have better traction and footing & not slip & fall,
possibly breaking a leg.
It certainly all does sound quite messy, though.