Posted on 01/18/2014 8:40:17 AM PST by chessplayer
The smog has become so thick in Beijing that the city's natural light-starved masses have begun flocking to huge digital commercial television screens across the city to observe virtual sunrises.
The futuristic screens installed in the Chinese capital usually advertize tourist destinations, but as the season's first wave of extremely dangerous smog hit - residents donned air masks and left their homes to watch the only place where the sun would hail over the horizon that morning.
Commuters across Beijing found themselves cloaked in a thick, gray haze on Thursday as air pollution monitors issued a severe air warning and ordered the elderly and school children to stay indoors until the quality improved.
The air took on an acrid odor, and many of the city's commuters wore industrial strength face masks as they hurried to work.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Before the EPA got strong, I remember that there wasn’t a public lake fit to swim in.
I remember having to work in a building where the smoke formed a cloud inside the building.
When I came to Nashville in the 80’s, there was a brown haze that would form around the city. I haven’t seen that in a few years.
All environmental regulations are not bad. The EPA needs to be reigned in some, so that they are following due process and have court oversight.
Hey, but if you want to be free from environmental regulations, go live in China. You probably can buy masks there really cheap.
go join green peace with all your lies
fact is living standards, health standards, in the USA grew tremendously for all the 200 years without almost no government , no EPA ,no environmental regulations
before the industrial revolution life expectancy was 30 then rose to 70 in the 1960’s with almost no government , no EPa
if your pollution was so bad why did they have to invent the global warming hoax to blame on factories
Superfund sites are a joke. Nothing but a slush fund for politicians to milk.
You don’t think the sites are contaminated?
I never said that but I worked for an environmental reclamation company and seen how the game works. A half billion dollars is allocated for a site and a million is spent.
We once “cleaned up” a mercury contaminated site by grading the land, spraying a de-binding agent on the ground, planted grass seed, and put up a fence. It cost less than a million dollars of the $6 million allocated. The rest went to various environmental activism groups, local politicians, to the company that actually contaminated the land, and environmental training programs to create clowns like you who cry over the sight of an oil spot on the driveway.
Danny is correct. Pollution was quite bad here for a while. But we were able to correct the problem. And correcting the problem is NOT about enslaving the population as the EPA is being used to do today. The EPA should have declared victory and went away quietly but no the marxists took over the EPA and intend to use it to destroy America. I believe the EPA is an unconstitutional agency that should be abolished then congress should do its d@mn job. The problem is there are people, who create wealth and make good products, but are not responsible enough to clean up after themselves. This is why the EPA came about.
I don’t doubt that environmental protection has become a scam now. It is beyond over the top.
When I was laid up with an injury a few years back I used to love watching the “Sunrise Earth” series - I think it was Animal Planet or something was showing them every morning right around dawn.
China. It’s the country of the future, and it always will be.
Environmental regulation should be almost exclusively the domain of the states themselves. Even then they can’t really be trusted to rip off the taxpayers.
After the Embridge pipeline spill here in Michigan there was lots of screeching about Embridge not inspecting their pipeline. There wasn’t much mention of the fact that the state had been paying for a non existent pipeline inspector for the past decade.
Granted the company should have been inspecting their own pipeline but there was no urgency because they knew the state wasn’t doing it either.
Then we need to tighten the law or prosecute the malfeasance.
If you stop every government program because of malfeasance we'd soon be Somalia with no government at all. Our problem is that we don't prosecute malfeasance.
150 years of Global Warming and Cooling at the New York Times
Just because there are some con artists and scientists who lack integrity, doesn't mean there wasn't a real pollution problem prior to the EPA. Just because Global Warming is a hoax, doesn't mean some types of pollution are not real.
And just because Obama is using the EPA in ways not anticipated by the law to further his socialist goals, does not mean there isn't a need for an EPA type agency. He's also using the IRS, the Park service, NASA, education and probably every agency there is, to further his agenda. So yes, government bureaucracy is a dangerous thing in the hands of an unscrupulous politician. Always has been, always will be. We need checks and balances. But we don't need to throw the baby out with the wash.
Indeed. I was looking for a frame of Edward G. Robinson in that bed looking at the big screen of sunrises and sunsets.
I don’t disagree. The states were not doing the job and really could not be trusted. Further standards varied from state to state, if there were any standards at all. Couple this with a near complete lack of appreciation for the dangerous nature of many aspects of an electro mechanical industrial society and the stage was set for serious pollution problems. With much research and effort we fixed our problems. And I understand the method was unconstitutional. China has NO excuse. The leadership appears ready and willing to poison their population for a buck. Or whatever they call it. The fix is a bit costly but necessary correction to their industrial base to protect their country. Hope they do it before it is too late for their people.
I think we can do better with lots of low cost methods. I think a lot of sample collection and monitoring could be done by volunteers.
I know I love being outside enough that I’d be happy to get out and collect water samples downstream from a factory or whatever.
At one time, some of the industrialized northern US cities had gas streetlights that burned during the day so that you could see through the pollution.
That is not a bad idea. Volunteers, hmmm. In addition to young folk old retired coots could pitch in too. Wonder if the replacement administration could set it up as they defang the EPA.
and that UN Climate Chief says we should all be more like them
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