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Comment by satysin | Hacker News Reader

I live in [redacted], [redacted] and we often have high air pollution warnings and you really can feel it in the air.

During lockdown, back in April and May, there was a noticeable difference in the air quality. It felt different. When we went out for a walk you could also tell the difference in noise pollution from there being so few cars on the roads. It was lovely.

There is a church nearby that we can sometimes hear when the bells ring on the hour at night but during lockdown we could hear them during the day. My wife commented back then how she knew when the area had "returned to normal" as she could no longer hear the church bells when she had lunch in the garden.

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I am not trying to undervalue your problems, but I suggest looking at some third world countries for some perspective. I live in one such place. In winter (which lasts for about 8-9 months each year) the air pollution is _horrifyingly_ bad: 250-300 µg/m³ of PM2.5 at day time, and 900-1500 µg/m³ each night. I am not bullshitting you, this is how we live. You can feel the taste of coal on tour tongue in a completely sealed room.

And almost nobody gives a fuck — when you try to discuss it with someone, you either get a blank stare, or "stop exaggerating, it's no so bad" (by which they mean "you don't drop dead right away (unless you're asthmatic)".)

The air pollution is at such a high level that people are dying from it.

I do count myself lucky that I'm not contending with levels in places like Delhi but personally, I don't want people to put it in perspective and conclude that comparatively it's not so bad.

I don't think that is what he is saying. He is saying, no matter how bad things get, people will get used to it.

I have visited Mumbai and now have co workers in New Delhi. I had to leave Mumbai after two days because I couldn't stand the air anymore. When I blew my nose it was just black stuff coming out and buy throat was constantly scratchy. And from what I hear it's even worse in New Delhi. I only hope that people will wake up soon and change.

> and buy throat was constantly scratchy

When you're so congested that you even sound congested when you type. (sorry...)

I was living in China for the last 2.5 years and within that time span the quality of air in Beijing went from absolutely unbearable crossing over the 500 to blue skies almost every day. Probably one too many politician's kids died from lung problems. The other interesting thing in the bad days was how they could turn on a dime. When there was an important political event or international visits the air pollution would magically get better for a few days (coinciding with the international internet and VPN connectivity getting dramatically worse...). They would just shut down all of the factories in the area.

When there's a political will there is definitely a way.

Paris, at least, is doing an amazing job of replacing motor vehicles on the streets with friendlier alternatives, with great results in terms of reduced air and noise pollution. Try to elect a mayor of Lyons who's like Annie Hidalgo?

The traffic in and around Lyon is fucking terrible. They really need to do something to reduce how many cars are on the road.

The thing is overall the metro is decent as is the bus service and they are always full yet there are still so many cars on the road I wonder where all the people come from tbh. There are also lots of alternative options available with Lime e-scooters and Vélo'v bikes all over the place but still what feels like a million cars!

I used to live in London so a lot of traffic isn't new to me but during peak times Lyon is a nightmare so I just avoid it as much as possible.

> I wonder where all the people come from tbh

Public transportation, bikes, scooters are all good for people living in Lyon. I suppose the cars are people living or working outside Lyon.

> Try to elect a mayor of Lyons who's like Annie Hidalgo?

New mayor of Lyon is a member of the Green party.

There were a lot of ecologist mayors (a "green wave" according to the media) at the last municipal elections in France. It's a dividing issue. More and more people are concerned about environmental issues. But at the same time, there is a universal hate for ecologists.

> But at the same time, there is a universal hate for ecologists.

This doesn't seem to be true? Annie Hidalgo won re-election and has pretty decent popularity ratings. Maybe they're hated out in the countryside or whatever, but the actual citizens of the cities run by these "ecologist" mayors do seem to be generally happy with them.

I really wish we had one here in NYC. Only 22% of households in Manhattan where I live even own cars, yet an ungodly amount of the total public space is given over to cars, including two whole lanes of free parking on most blocks. Meanwhile the sidewalks are narrow and often full of trash bags because we can't even put in dumpsters lest some sacred parking spots be removed, and delivery vehicles are constantly double-parked or blocking bike lanes since there's no delivery-only spots.

I think the majority of people here would be in favor of a mayor that de-emphasized cars and got a lot of this traffic off our streets, thus making it more pleasant for people on foot.

Only minority of cars are responsible for majority of pollution.

A single badly maintained diesel car produces as much pollution as thousands of legal new cars.

Same goes for trucks -- the low in air pollution you felt was likely not due to less cars but less trucks (and possibly busses, depending on where in Europe you live)

While this is true, diesel alone is terrible. The UK should make diesel more expensive.

I don't know why this correct comment got downvoted.

A car without a catalytic converter generates as much toxic pollution as 100 new cars with catalytic converters. A car whose catalytic converter has broken and which has engine trouble produces even more. And diesel produces more than gas. (Though new vehicles of both types are about equal.)

Thus a single badly maintained diesel car can produce as much pollution as thousands of legal new cars. Smog truly is a situation where a tiny majority of vehicles produce the vast majority of the problem.

I got used to downvotes. There is no rhyme and reason on HN or anywhere else for that matter. Sometimes I think people just downvote to avoid facing the reality.

I understand it is not politically correct to say most cars are not the problem (or at least not the most of it).

In ideal world we would not be driving petrol guzzlers but instead have cars that run on electricity from our own home solar panels.

But the reality is that a well maintained car emits thousands times less harmful stuff than cars from couple decades ago. The new norms that automakers are facing are really crazy restrictive and sometimes hit the very limits of physics and thermodynamics.

The problem is when people get around these rules, drive unmaintained cars, drive cars that are way larger and more powerful than is needed or cheat by removing converters and installing them only for inspection.

Especially the last one. Here in Poland this is practically the norm and people treat this as part of life and feel proud they "saved". Then they complain we have bad air.

The problem is that such a comment doesn't help. It's just a pessimistic viewpoint where you have to read the fine print to see that things are better in reality.

"Catalytic converters generate 100 times less toxic pollution. Installing catalytic converters into millions of cars prevented millions of tons of toxic pollution" gets turned into "A single badly maintained diesel car produces as much pollution as thousands of legal new cars."

Why turn a success into a failure? It only serves to make people feel powerless. Being "technically correct" was just a way to masquerade the real message "Don't try, you will fail and when you fail it will undo [0] your success".

[0] only a small part of (this is the fine print)

I strongly disagree.

What the comment points to is that reducing car pollution isn't so much a question of saying we all need to pitch in as one of saying that we need to identify the serious problems and promptly deal with them. It is the kind of thing that is absolutely essential to understand before you have any chance of proposing an effective solution.

This is, for example, why it is common to have regular smog certifications required. And why those certifications do more to reduce smog than, say, telling everyone to drive 20% less would.

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