My view of the LA Basin...

[CaliforniaPeggy]

My husband and I were on our way home from lunch out, and we were driving down a fairly steep hill. We could see across the LA basin, all the way to the San Gabriel Mountains. Now and then we get a pretty view like today's.

Back in the 50's, 60's and into the 70's, the clear view across the basin was rare. Smog choked our view as well as our lungs. The really bad days meant that you could smell the smog. We don't, any more.

But now the gov't is trying to reverse our progress. They want to take us back to those horrible days when lung diseases were rampant and many people died from breathing dirty air. Of course, people still die from our polluted air--but not as many as in decades past. The gov't. says that the rules for clean air hamper business and hurt employment. That's a load of shit.

We have worked very hard and have had some success, but there's still a lot of work to be done to make our air cleaner. And these yahoos want to derail it.

We aren't looking to go backwards. We have enough problems here without any efforts of the part of the Republicans to stop us, and send us back into the filthy air of the past. We don't need their intransigence.

We have a lot of cleaning up to do......and not just the air here in our basin.

[John Fante]

1. LA is significantly more populated today than it was then,

so we've really come a long way.

No thanks to conservatives, obviously. Funny how the environment isn't high on the list of things they want to conserve.

[wasupaloopa]

2. I moved to Los Angeles in June of 1982. I had a apartment on Western Ave. I could not see down

town where I worked on Figueroa St. because of the smog even though it was a few miles away.

Then I moved to Highland Park and drove toward Pasadena on the way home at night. One September evening on my way home I suddenly saw the San Gabriel mountains. For four months I didn't know they were there.

[chia]

14. +100 n/t

[SpankMe]

22. LOL - same with me!

I lived in Harbor City, just south of Torrance. I had lived there for about 3 months before I knew there were mountains east of L.A. I finally saw them on a Sunday while travelling north on the 405. Couldn't believe it!

[JI7]

3. California just became a larger economy than the UK. The environment is a HUGE

reason California is as great as it is.

Regulations might hurt short term greedy profits but in the long run they help the people and the economy.

Imagine the health care costs with increasing pollution. And people being too sick to work or go out. All of that would hurt businesses.

[jaysunb]

4. I concur, Peggy

Living in Pasadena for the past near 50 years I can tell you, there has been a complete 180 from when I first came here. These days not seeing the San Gabriel's means it must be fog or low clouds...almost never the eye burning brown stuff.

I get pissed with high gas prices, but I know the clean fuel is responsible for this magnificent visual.

[MurrayDelph]

15. I was born slightly over 65 years ago

in downtown Los Angeles. When the doctor slapped me, I didn't cry; I coughed.


In the early 70's, when the youth band I was in would play at the L.A. Fair, it was my task, as an older member, to escort the younger members across the fairgrounds where we would be fed. The little kids would need to take rest breaks because of the heat and smog.

I moved away seven years ago (although I still go back several times a year), and while the drivers are worse, the air is much better.

[Tikki]

5. Even up the Coast we would get that evil smog, unless the wind was strong...

and then it would just blow the smog inland a ways.
It is so much better now.
I believe , I hope, Californians will fight to keep our air cleaner.

Every family trip we make we point out to our grandchildren how important it is
to protect California and it’s beauty..that includes, the air, the water and the soil.

The Tikkis

[Demovictory9]

6. I remember when LA was very very smoggy. you could taste the smog

one thing they did was purchase smoky cars with a buy back program... 1990s?

[lunatica]

7. I've never heard of a business going bankrupt because the air is too clean

It’s such a load of bull!

[LuckyLib]

8. I worked in Los Angeles in the mid 70's, at an elementary school 6 blocks

from the foothills of the San Gabriels. There were days every year when children could not go out for recess due to air pollution -- you could not see the foothills for the horrific smog. California has worked very hard to establish better air quality -- the Repugnants of Trump's dynasty, of course, think it's wasted money and effort.

[hunter]

9. I remember 'sixties Los Angeles air...

... and I sometimes wonder if growing up in that toxic soup set me up for a lifetime of respiratory problems.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

10. If you do have respiratory problems, there's no doubt that toxic soup was part of it.

I'm so sorry.

It's a lot better now.

[procon]

12. Me too!

For years I commuted from Tujunga to downtown Wilshire blvd in the late 60s. It was hours of bumper to bumper, stop and go freeway traffic with old junkers belching smoke, and that was on top of the smoggy air. Some days I would have to tie a water soaked scarf over my nose to breathe. Visibility was bad enough that the sun was a dull orange ball in a brown sky and I had to turn on the car lights on.

I never smoked, but I still have respiratory problems just like a long time smoker, so all that bad air must have something to do with it.

[malaise]

11. Lovely post

At least your state is doing something about it. Here's Jeff Masters latest article - it's not just that we can't see our surroundings, the pollution is killing millions of people. Only irresponsible morons would remove regulations and restrictions.
https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/pollution-kills-61-million-people-year-indoor-air-pollution-decreasing
<snip>
The annual State of Global Air Report published last week by the Health Effects Institute (HEI), a U.S. non-profit corporation funded by the EPA and the auto industry, found that over 95 percent of the world's population is breathing unhealthy air. Long-term exposure to outdoor and indoor air pollution contributed to the deaths of 6.1 million people gloally in 2016, with strokes, heart attacks, lung disease and lung cancer causing responsible for most of these deaths.

According to the report, outdoor (ambient) air pollution from fine particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter (PM2.5), was responsible for 4.1 million deaths in 2016 (close to the 4.2 million deaths recorded in 2015), while indoor (household) air pollution from PM2.5, due to burning solid fuels indoors, was responsible for 2.6 million deaths (down 9% from 2.85 million deaths in 2015). Some of these deaths were due to a combination of both indoor and outdoor air pollution. Ground-level ozone, the other key deadly outdoor air pollutant, whose levels are on the rise around the world, was blamed for 234,000 air pollution deaths, an 8% decrease from the 254,000 ozone-related deaths in 2015.

Air pollution is the fourth-highest cause of death worldwide, trailing smoking, high blood pressure and diet. The majority of air pollution deaths are in poor countries. India and China lead the world in the total number of deaths attributable to air pollution in 2016 with 1.61 and 1.58 million, respectively. Air pollution killed 105,000 people in the U.S. in 2016, with 93,000 of those deaths due to PM2.5; 12,000 deaths were blamed on ozone pollution (see the HEI’s interactive plots to graph pollution levels and deaths by country).

[CaliforniaPeggy]

19. Thank you, dear malaise! You should have heard me when we were on our way home.

I felt a mixture of extreme frustration and sorrow at my own helplessness.

My post and all the great responses have helped me calm down and realize that we can make a difference in November.

Thank you for the link--great reading!

[OxQQme]

13. My view

Born in LA 1940. 1st 10 years in Torrance when it was dairy and egg farms, and 'rocking horse' oil pumps.
And open sewage ponds from the cow barns. (sarcasm)
Folks moved to Burbank 1950. All my later school years there.
I remember first time smog.
I also remember blue sky clear days for weeks at a time.
Snow capped San Gabriels in the distance.

SO...FORD is saying that there's no longer profit to be made selling passenger cars.
'THE' demand is SUV's and trucks, with much less EPA economy regs required.
Where (wink wink) BIGOIL bidness wins again.
And tires...omg those big honkers cost bundles comes time to shoe the horse.

Demand determines market?
Marketing determines demand?

"The Medium is The Massage" (? not a typo) is an accurate quote from somewhere back there in time.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25955.The_Medium_is_the_Massage

Yes. A lot of cleaning up to do. I haven't been "home" in decades.
Last time there we flew down into "IT" at Ontario. YUCK
Soup so thick all that was visible were the mountain peaks.

[MurrayDelph]

16. When I was a kid

I would pick strawberries where Del Amo mall is.

The first time I went to San Diego, it hurt to take deep breaths of clean air.

[Tikki]

17. We are up the Coast from L A a bit and between my husband and I

we have already seen a dozen Tesla 3's in our area, and that doesn't count all the other
electric and hybrid cars out there.

It really starts at the community level. Some families in our neighborhood
share one truck, as needed.

We are definitely voting for the rainwater system exclusion* this June
and all of our property is drought tolerant planted.

We all do the best we can. We encourage others to do so, also.

Tikki

proposition on California June ballot .

[hardluck]

24. So Burbank or Burroughs? nt

[bluestateboomer]

18. Absolutely!

I remember riding through downtown Los Angeles in the 50's. Your eyes watered, lungs hurt. We're nowhere near perfect, but we shouldn't reverse the progress we've made.

[Crash2Parties]

20. Btw, the GOP is considering revoking CA's ability to set their own lower emissions limits.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

23. So I've read. This is trouble with a capital T. We MUST shut those bastards down.

[BigmanPigman]

21. When I moved to CA from the East Coast

in the mid 80s I was looking for work in LA. Every time I went up there the sky was brown and I got a huge headache. That's when I decided to stay in San Diego. Gov. Brown was always anti pollution and he has been on a personal anti pollution crusade. I credit him with a lot of the benefits that we have in the state.

[eppur_se_muova]

25. If your business model requires that you pollute more to increase profits or employment ...

... you need to find another business model.

Businesses have been allowed to socialize environmental costs to an absolutely ridiculous degree for too long.

Any business which cannot be operated without heavily damaging the environmet, even after mitigation/restoration efforts, should not be licensed to operate in a democracy.

[defacto7]

26. I traveled a lot as a kid.

As I remember, the only place I had seen with worse air than LA was Gary, Indiana where the factories poured orange smoke everywhere. You couldn't see to the end of a city block sometimes. Both LA and Gary made a strong impression on this 7 year old.

[c-rational]

27. Good post - I am on the east coast and remember poor water quality and declining fish stock in

the late 60's, my eyes burning with smog when my parents drove to to City (NYC), and what the acid rain did to the lakes in the Adirondacks from the power plants in the midwest, and am also appalled that our political ruling class wants to go back. They are killing our planet and us.

[CrispyQ]

28. McConnell recently bragged that he's making generational changes to the judiciary.

And he is. It will take decades to fix the damage already done by the GOP, & who knows what damage they will do if they keep control of Congress for another two years. We must take back at least one chamber in November–the Senate would be best, but is more of a long shot.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

30. I hear you about McConnell. I LOATHE him almost more than tRump.

[CrispyQ]

31. He's worse than Trump.

Trump is a game-show host acting as politician. His behavior isn't a surprise to anyone who investigated him during the campaign. McConnell is a practiced politician who has broken his oath to uphold the Constitution. We are on a precipice & we could topple either way.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

32. I so agree, my dear CrispyQ! Mitch needs to go too.

And I LOVE this toon! The rake is a lovely touch.

[OregonBlue]

29. I lived in LA in the late 60's and worked at the airport. I can remember being sent home because the

air quality was so bad no one could work any longer. I also remember waiting for a bus on Century Blvd. We had had a major rain and wind storm the night before. A real blow. I remember looking up and going OMG, there are mountains here. Not just little mountains either but great big beautiful mountains. I had already lived in LA almost a year.

That's what the GOP want's to take us back to.

[dalton99a]

33. No, we cannot go backwards:

The Los Angeles skyline shrouded in smog as seen from the 1st street bridge in July 1993. (Tammy Lechner / Los Angeles Times)


Aerial view of the downtown Los Angeles skyline covered in smog looking east towards the San Gabriel mountains in August 1990. (Robert Durell / Los Angeles Times)


April 1988 view of Torrance beach looking north from Palos Verde Estates. (Harry Chase / Los Angeles Times)


The tall buildings in downtown Los Angeles rise above a blanket of smog in October 1973. (Fitzgerald Whitney / Los Angeles Times)


Miss Susan Morrow, left, and Mrs. Linda Hawkins pause on a downtown street to wipe away tears as a heavy blanket of smog covered the L.A. Basin for six days straight in 1964. (Los Angeles Times photographic archive / UCLA Library © Regents of the University of California)


A smoggy view looking east on 6th Street from Figueroa, in 1960. The day was, in fact, much clearer than the Air Pollution Control District had predicted. (Los Angeles Times photographic archive / UCLA Library © Regents of the University of California)


There is limited visibility in this 1959 image of a smog attack in downtown Los Angeles looking south on Broadway from 1st Street. (Edward Gamer / Los Angeles Times)


From 1st and Olive streets, the view of the Civic Center is masked by smog in 1948. (Los Angeles Times photographic archive / UCLA Library © Regents of the University of California)

[smirkymonkey]

34. Incredible photographs.

I can't imagine what it would be like to live in that. Thanks for posting.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

35. Thanks for these incredible historic photos.

I'd forgotten just how bad it was back then.

We must not go back, indeed.

A pox on those who would send us there.