I think it's a mixed bag. Certainly our diesel standards are behind
theirs, but then, they had a much higher percentage of diesel autos
polluting for much longer, so it was a bigger problem for them. I
think we're ahead, as you note, with catalytic converter standards
over time on gasoline-powered units, but their current standards are
stricter (again, I _think_; I don't have the numbers in front of me).
But we shouldn't be crowing too much at the sunrise here; there's
still a lot of pollution. The two times I've been to LA, I couldn't
believe the pall. And both times I was assured by Angelinos that they
were having "a good day". On one of those trips I actually thought
something was on fire because I couldn't see more than 6 blocks
through the brown-green haze.
When I first started flying (1985), Atlanta had a tiny purple bubble
right over the city. Now, it extends from horizon to horizon (in the
summer) as viewed from 3000 feet.
It's much better than it would be without the environmental regs, but
still a long way to go. I wish some of the EPA regs made more sense
to me (maybe I'm just too slow to grasp them) and I wish the lead
replacements currently used in gasoline had been more thoroughly
researched before they went online. Not to worry, though. I see that
Bush just announced that he may have the EPA relax lead standards for
gasoline. I wonder if he chewed on window sills when he was a kid? ;)
At 8:43 AM -0800 12/16/06, Billy Zoom wrote:
> > led by European factors
>What are you smoking? They just started smogging their cars a few years ago,
>and they're still in the process of banning lacquer. They've cut down on the
>availability of leaded gas, etc. In the eighties, Europe was probably the
>most polluted spot on the planet, and they've been making good progress
>recently, but they're certainly in no position to point fingers at the only
>country on earth that's been actively reducing pollution since the sixties.
>BZ
>
>BTW, the BEST Fender Guitars ever built are the ones currently made in Japan
>for the Japanese market. Fender won't let them import them anymore because
>there's such an obvious difference in quality, but they're available on the
>black market.
--
_____________________________________________________________
Jeffrey H. Boatright, PhD
Associate Professor, Emory Eye Center, Atlanta, GA, USA
Senior Editor, Molecular Vision, http://www.molvis.org/molvis
mailto:jboatri@emory.edu
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