air pollution
By Anonymous at Wed, 11/26/2008 - 11:36pm
Doesn't it seem strange that there's all this media attention on global warming and nothing on general air pollution and it's effects on quality of life and health? The weather channel does mention ozone and air quality a little during the summer. I think there should be more documentaries and major media attenion on what air pollution is and what effects it has on human health.
air pollution
on Sun, 12/07/2008 - 10:46pm
Well, I heard an interesting argument on the radio the other day. It was about that new TV commercial where the guy walks threw a doorway into a clean coal plant. He ends up in a desolate field with the wind blowing. There is no such thing as Clean Coal. The clean coal advocate stated that, like science, it is evolving. So today we can expect less mercury, soot and all when we burn coal. But the advocate was asked if it was deceiving to use the word clean, which to most people would mean good. He didn't agree with that.
There is no time frame for getting rid of CO2, because it is impossible. The US gov't spent gobs of money on a study to sequester CO2, but was scrapped during Bush's term. Why not let private firms accept the cost? I think there are better alternatives than coal. Why not nuclear? Put the waste in space and ship it to the sun. How expensive could that be? Make the rocket with double triple default settings.
I thought that clean coal
on Mon, 01/05/2009 - 11:33pm
I thought that clean coal commercial was confusing and strange. first i thought it was for more coal plants. then when i saw it a few more times it seemed to be against more coal plants or coal burning. if they wanted to be accurate and honest they could say "cleaner" instead of "clean". I think there's a big difference in words like clean and safe when you add the "er".
and coal is still the dirtiest and cheapest energy source, i think. I think about 50% of PSE&G's electric power is from nuclear now. they may have more nuclear plants in NJ then they had 20 years ago.
I think it was an ineffective confusing commercial-the clean coal commercial. It looked like the guy ended up in a quiet desolate desert when he stepped through the doorway.
the ground level pollution that i can smell and notice the most is from motor vehicle traffic. this past summer seemed better than the previous. could have been due to the higher fuel costs and higher tolls on the parkway. it also seems like the summer heat amplifies the outside odors. Unhealthy summer air has gotten lots of attention but I don't know anyone who complains about the odor.
they say that electric power plants are the major contributor to air pollution, but smoke stacks are so tall that few people will notice an odor. there was a natural gas fired power plant in east orange that i drove past years ago, and i could definately smell it. it was not oderless and smelled worse than a gas stove. i don't remember the exact smell anymore.
and the funny thing about diesel cars and trucks is that they don't pass any of the tests that gasoline vehicles are required to, except for maybe co2, which i don't know if it is measured at the MV inspections. a few years ago co2 was not considered a pollutant.
generally commercials exagerate the effect of some product to the point that there's hardly any truth in them. this sentence was at the top originally. commercial usaully exagerate and distort things a bit and use some trickery. and it's not just fake recreations which show up clearly on TV.