18 dead in Paris hotel fire

Earl Evleth wrote:

On 22/04/05 18:36, in article ,
"Frank F. Matthews" wrote:


Having lived in the basin in the early 60s I found it occasionally
bothersome but well short of what you claim. Perhaps Earl can tell us
what it was like a decade before.


I moved to LA as a kid in about `38. The "smog" seemed to become
a problem by the late 1940s. It was blamed first on private burning
of household rubbish, one had incinerators I the back year in those
days. At one point they authorities forbad burning before the early
evening hours and sure enough around 6 PM the smoke started
rising from back yard burning, so they did away with that. But it
did not help. But the LA basin, hemmed in by mountains to the north
was a natural catch basin for any smoke produced and was remarked on
having a haze problem even before the population built up. A measure
of the clarity was if one could see Catalina island from the Hollywood
hills. Even before smog this was not always the case.

Also the authorities blamed the refineries in the Long Beach area
for the pollution, they were disposing of sulfur recovering from
the refinery processes and releasing the SO2. So they cut that out.
On fact Stauffer built a plant for manufacturing sulfuric acid
(used in the refinery process) in the Long Beach area using sulfur
coming out of the refineries in the 1950s.

In the late 1940s or early 1950s a Caltech prof (Hagenschmidt) had observed
plant damage in a special facility they had which theoretically prevented
any bacterial or viral infections. He traced it to atmospheric ozone
and claimed that it was being formed by NO2 photolysis, the NO2
coming mostly from internal combustion engines. It was the last
thing LA car owners wanted to hear!! I was a undergraduate at
Caltech when this all occurred and remember Hagenschmidt telling
about how he discovered the cause.

I remember eye irritation became severe around 1955, a little
earlier. Driving down the freeway was a tear jerking experience!
This was due to the nitroperoxides formed by the
the ozone oxidation of unburnt gasoline to peroxides, these
combining with the NO. the nitroxides would decomposed to regenerate
NO2 producing more ozone. The gradual reduction of gasoline emissions
in the LA basin has brought this cycle under better control.

The ozone, nitrogen oxides, peroxides are all toxic materials and create
plant and animal tissue damage.

Smog originally described the acid fogs formed in coal burning areas
where the soot and SO2 (which rapidly converts to sulfuric acid)
combined to produce a deadly effect. The photochemical smogs have
generalized and occur in areas which don't have the LA geography.
Vehicular emissions produce it in the Parisian areas on high pressure
days, lots of sun light.

We have met the enemy and the enemy is us.

Earl



I guess that it was somewhat worse in the mid 50s than in the early 60s
in LA. Well short of John's "completely devoid of oxygen" though. I
guess I understood that from the lack of bodies.

I wonder what caused the improvement from 55 to the 60s?

The Reids wrote:

Following up to EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)


Old days? This is still done with beer bottles here.

And certainly in California - although the people collecting
and returning them may not be the original purchasers.


isn't it a conservation revival?

In California, yes - even plastic bottles now carry a
"refund" value. (Although it's not only the conservation
conscious who return them - for many of our "homeless",
raiding neighborhood trash bins for returnable items
represents a steady source of income.)

On 23/04/05 19:43, in article ,
"Frank F. Matthews" wrote:

I guess that it was somewhat worse in the mid 50s than in the early 60s
in LA. Well short of John's "completely devoid of oxygen" though. I
guess I understood that from the lack of bodies.

Obviously the "lack of oxygen" is a descriptive exaggeration. The
nitroperoxides are a class of tear producing chemicals, like those
used in tear gas. Relatively small amounts of materials have a strong
effect.

I don`t think ozone itself produces much of an immediate physical reaction
and in fact in the 1920s they used to sell ozone making units to "ionize"
the interior of a home. In fact the stuff is very reactive. The early
measure of how much was in the LA atmosphere used a piece of bent rubber,
the time it took to show cracks was proportional to the concentration
of the stuff in the air. At that time ozone was also damaging automobile
tires, which possibly irritated LA drivers more than the unseen damage
it was going to their lung tissues.

There are chemical and now physical methods of measuring ozone. The early
chemical way was bubbling air through a solution of iodide ion, which would
be oxidized and converted to colorful iodine, which could be measure
with photometer.

http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache...land.edu/seele
y/ozone/media/Example_Student_Handout.pdf+MEASURING+ATMOSPHERIC+ OZONE&hl=en

Fortunately there are instrumental methods too.

Earl

Frank F. Matthews wrote:
Having lived in the [Los Angeles] basin in the early 60s I found
[the air] occasionally bothersome but well short of what you
claim.

I've previously reported that, just a few years ago, I saw mountains
while on the Santa Monica Freeway. Of course I knew they were there.

And I've previously reported that my first visit to DisneyLand, while
having breakfast in Norwalk, the air made me cry so much that I could
hardly see what I was eating.


EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque) wrote:
I moved to L.A. from Minnesota in 1954, and I can tell you the
smog was a LOT more noticeable then than in the 1960's! I'm not
sure the actual "air quality" is any better, but the burning eyes
and harsh feeling in the throat when one breathes seem to be
mostly a thing of the past. (Unless I've just grown accustomed to
it, but I don't think one CAN simply stop noticing that kind of
discomfort.)
__________________________________________________ _________________
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