anecdote says tis far nicer without most transport options running
less industrial stuff probably helps as well but here tis other people's transport choice.
i could be brutal about it, you want to stay moving, don't poison me or i will do my best to stop you.
gz
Joined: 23 Jan 2009 Posts: 8957 Location: Ayrshire, Scotland
Posted: Tue May 19, 20 8:03 pm Post subject:
Saw the tv report pictures and comparisons today...and map of the world showing the reduction in pollution. And the increase where people are back to commuting....
gz
Joined: 23 Jan 2009 Posts: 8957 Location: Ayrshire, Scotland
Posted: Tue May 19, 20 8:06 pm Post subject:
I remember being told twenty years ago that between Cardiff and Newport there were ten thousand car commuters...and wondered how many were commuting to jobs that they could do in their home city
I was just thinking that the traffic on the main road sounds virtually as busy as normal this morning, although it does quieten down a bit during the day. Our local city has also published figures that suggest that pollution in the city was down by over 30% everywhere. There are calls to make it far more pedestrian and cycle friendly so people can commute from one end to the other. Sadly a lot of people live in the suburbs and work in town, but those that work in the country often can only afford to live in town. Cheap public transport to a hub (much as I dislike the word) and then cheap public transport to all corners of the city from there seems the obvious solution. At least for those going into town.
sgt.colon
Joined: 27 Jul 2009 Posts: 7380 Location: Just south of north.
Posted: Wed May 20, 20 7:57 am Post subject:
Maybe they should just leave it at work from home if you can to help keep pollution levels lower.
I was just thinking that the traffic on the main road sounds virtually as busy as normal this morning, although it does quieten down a bit during the day. Our local city has also published figures that suggest that pollution in the city was down by over 30% everywhere. There are calls to make it far more pedestrian and cycle friendly so people can commute from one end to the other. Sadly a lot of people live in the suburbs and work in town, but those that work in the country often can only afford to live in town. Cheap public transport to a hub (much as I dislike the word) and then cheap public transport to all corners of the city from there seems the obvious solution. At least for those going into town.
round here the park and ride is normally by bus but at the mo there are a lot of folk parking and riding a bike for the urban leg of the commute into the city
not perfect, but a few well placed p and r sites can reduce urban personal poisoner journeys and it is far easy for the traveller to park up in a well monitored car park than to try to find a space as close to where they are going as a p n r in town bus stop.
Maybe they should just leave it at work from home if you can to help keep pollution levels lower.
most of the time that can work very well, tt has mostly worked from home for quite a while.
she finds she gets more done, can have "office space" rather than hot desking and not being in an open plan local gov hub is far better if you need to concentrate on the fine print of contracts or "where is that 37 pence in this multi million pound set of accounts"
at least she only has me and the hound as distraction rather than a couple of hundred colleagues or the public 2 floors down in the atrium reception.
ps the multi million pound "new offices" are pretty toxic re ventilation, lighting, noise etc as well
wellington womble
Joined: 08 Nov 2004 Posts: 15051 Location: East Midlands
Posted: Wed May 20, 20 1:08 pm Post subject:
I have also almost no hay fever this year, and am wondering whether pollution is a factor. It’s usually crippling (and has landed me in hospital before). I think there are other factors, but it’s still interesting.
un-combusted and partially combusted hydrocarbons are pretty nasty
pop those into a photochemical soup and some products are very nasty
co2/co just reduce your oxygen levels externally or internally but do not help
i can just about cope with not getting squished most of the time but the atmospheric chemistry might require more robust means to avoid it being my problem.
Interesting WW. All of us have suffered with something akin to hay fever to some extent this year although we don't normally suffer from it. We all had a cough/cold in December, and we are wondering whether Covid 19 was around a long time before it was noticed or if this was another nasty one. It was bad enough to put both husband and I in bed for a couple of days, and there was some cough associated with it.
Dpadk, I agree about most office buildings. DIL always reckons that if a cold starts one end of her building it will get to the other in a couple of weeks, and it is mainly down to the air conditioning. Trouble is, if you use Hepa filters and make the air super clean, more people go down with colds because they lose resistance, so can't will either way. Think large numbers of people together is always rather toxic.
I know the area of York where the buses park up just over the bridge is horribly polluted. We were only there a week, and noticed with the buses and the traffic jams it was really horrible there.
Shane
Joined: 31 Oct 2005 Posts: 3467 Location: Doha. Is hot.
Posted: Sat May 23, 20 8:32 am Post subject:
I used to get horrendous hay fever in London, but then spent a year on the Lincolnshire coast and complete forgot that I had it. At least as much pollen in Lincolnshire, so I can only imagine that the difference was air pollution.
I sneeze a lot out here, but it's not a good reference a there's always fine dust in the air and - during normal times, at least - a lot of pollution.
i lived on tooting high street for a decade, the air could be described as treacle in some weather conditions.
it is nasty and unnecessary, we can do better than killing each other for no good reason.
there is no excuse of ignorance about air quality, the data is very clear, many folk have died before their time due to poor and in the uk illegal levels of pollution, even those standards are a bit more lax than i might go for.
elsewhere is for elsewhere, but we only have one atmosphere so i might say hi.
anecdote has hayfever as a movable feast but a sudden drop in air pollution was dramatic.
Son says he can 'taste' the pollution in London when he goes there. I can't as sulphur dioxide seems to be the only one I taste, but I believe him.
Shane, it could have been the sea air that helped your hay fever if you were close to the sea. I know one person who preferred living near the sea for that reason, even though still in town. She used to suffer terribly if she came out into the countryside, although the air pollution was a lot less.
I agree that we need to consider how we can use fewer cars, or how we can use electric ones, again a bit less as they still cause pollution from tyre and break wear, but only if the electricity comes from renewable sources. If it doesn't we are just moving the problem to some extent.
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