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The Environment / Re: What Does the Future Atmosphere Look Like W/Unregulated Pollution?
« on: 14/08/2018 00:50:11 »
Think back to London in the 1950s, or Los Angeles in the 1960s, for a view of the near future with unregulated use of dirty fossil fuels. Respiratory toxins will limit human activity and thus the consumption of fossil fuels long before the carbon dioxide concentration becomes significant.
Natural water fog (i.e low cloud) can severely limit flying, but a proper London pea-souper makes even road transport dangerous: I recall being unable to see both ends of the car in a yellow-green smog in 1952.
Poliicians get excited by particulates nowadays, but persistent city smog needs sulphur dioxide (London) or nitrogen oxides (LA) and unburned or partially oxidised hydrocarbons to really stick around and stink.
I think Saab demonstrated how a lean-burn diesel engine with a catalytic exhaust converter could actually produce exhaust that was cleaner than the intake air. This suggests that ambient air itself could become self-inflammable or explosive, given the right pollutants in suficient concentration. Wouldn't that be fun?
Natural water fog (i.e low cloud) can severely limit flying, but a proper London pea-souper makes even road transport dangerous: I recall being unable to see both ends of the car in a yellow-green smog in 1952.
Poliicians get excited by particulates nowadays, but persistent city smog needs sulphur dioxide (London) or nitrogen oxides (LA) and unburned or partially oxidised hydrocarbons to really stick around and stink.
I think Saab demonstrated how a lean-burn diesel engine with a catalytic exhaust converter could actually produce exhaust that was cleaner than the intake air. This suggests that ambient air itself could become self-inflammable or explosive, given the right pollutants in suficient concentration. Wouldn't that be fun?