Almost everyone in Europe is breathing toxic air

theguardian.com

12 points·neverminder··6 comments

As a resident of Belgium, bad air quality isn’t anything new. Government subsidies for company cars, pass-through highways, unreliable train system, etc.; these things add up.

We knew the situation was bad, but supposedly getting better [1]. The ‘official’ numbers are quite far from the ones The Guardian is publishing. The situation is getting better… wow.

Paraphrasing a song, yeah, it’s better, compared to bullshit.

[1]: https://www.healthybelgium.be/en/health-status/determinants-...

Two recent policy choices we made in germany to keep things this way:

1. Preventing the EU ban on combustion engines. Britain now wants to delay this ban from 2030 to 2035, US manufacturers protest against the delay. Germany prevented an EU level ban in 2035.

2. Quitting nuclear and firing up coal plants again. Note how good France looks compared to Germany.

Quitting nuclear wasn't a recent policy choice for Germany.

You can also see the poster child for "nuclear will clean up our grid in a decade, maybe" in Poland.

The recent choice was to fire up coal plants again, rather then keeping going with nuclear. And unlike Poland, Germany already had nuclear.

Yep they should have continued their early renewables rollout that got stalled by the right so that they had better alternatives.

But no use crying over spilled milk, they've brought their coal phase out forward a decade, so it s not all bad.

> And unlike Poland, Germany already had nuclear.

Yeah but Germany is much lighter on the map.

While most mountains here have light color, check the highest peaks of Carpathians (High Tatras). While we are there check the color of Slovakia - most of power there is generated from nuclear and river dams.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com