When my parents moved to San Bernardino in 1970, my mom didn't know there was a whole mountain range beside them until one day when the wind blew the smog away.
I do!!!! I was the kid with asthma who could not breathe outside. We had one air conditioner in the LR, so all of our mattresses were in the LR and I lived inside all summer, every summer for 10yrs. I know how good we have it, and I'm doing what I can to keep it for your kids and mine. *hugs*
I've lived all of my 67 years on the OR side of Columbia, except for 3 years that my ex was stationed in the racist h*llhole called FL. We've never had smoke days until the last few years. We've had days the last few years that kids park and rec swim lessons have to be canceled bc of air quality.
I grew up in the country with fresh-ish air, and now that I live in a city, the air tastes bad. I want my child to have fresh air, wherever we live, no "smog warnings"
I was one of the kids who couldn't have outdoor recess, had my softball games canceled, and whose lungs would burn if I rode my bike during a warning. Kaiser Steel filled our valley with poison air. I remember all too well. No going back!
This is unfortunately true, not just for the US. The one percentage only care about profits and how to make them. The planet is collateral damage that they really don't care about.
I van lived in socal in the 70’s. I remember trying to run during PE and having a hard time. Also the mountains would be obscured by the smog. We didn’t know any different.
Ah, I was going to share this sentiment. I remember when there were days when SLC air was the worst in the country and the "solution" was a "snow day" instead of any action being done by our state government. Riding to work in a HEPA filter mask was so "fun."
Still exists in Beijing, and other places. Except they didn't care to clean it up - unless other people were looking (Olympic Games, etc), as if we wouldn't know.
Dictators are idiots. Ruthless, yes. But still idiots.
Amen. I grew up in the vicinity of 3 steel mills, a General Mills plant and a petroleum refinery. At least 10 of my high school friends are now dead from various types of cancer. Only one smoked cigarettes.
As a kid, our pool turning green from acid rain coming from Chicago. I recall driving west on I-90 into Chicago and seeing the smelly haze over Gary, IN. I recall paint coming off aluminum siding on houses near the foundry in our small town. Never again to line the oligarchs pockets!
I remember as a kid we’d have to cover our faces because even with all the windows rolled up it was hard to breathe driving through Gary IN. and the air was yellow. good to know history. and witness change for the good.
I remember playing ,’Pop Warner’ football games as a kid in Orange County when there were active , Smog Alerts in effect and few people were out and about . We had to rotate out after playing only ‘two downs’ at a time , because your chest would feel it was collapsing and we struggled just to breath
I played travel SB in California in the 90’s. I remember the first LA tournament my eyes were burning so bad, I had to take out my contacts mid-game and try to figure out how to fit my glasses underneath my catches’s mask or catch a 55mph rise ball blind. The burning pain in the eyes and lungs…ugh
I remember flying into Denver and the city was buried under a brown cloud.
The ones thinking the next administration is all that are the ones who suffered brain damage from the brown clouds.
I remember when lakes, rivers and ponds had an iridescent slick floating on the surface from industrial chemicals being dumped in them.
I remember when Eagles were endangered because their shells were too weak. The fish they caught from contaminated rivers were the cause
I flew from sf to la my first plane trip when I was 18 with a girlfriend. When came into LA .,you couldn’t see a thing from the sky .. it was literally black sky! The most gross thing ever !! For many many years now.. clear as a bell! EPA is essential .. it works! Clean air matters ! Worth every $$$
I DO!!!! I grew up near East L.A. and there was one street we had a direct view of the L.A. skyline. But when I was little, it was blocked by smog.....as I grew up, the air cleared and could see it quite ckearly.
Growing up in San Bernardino I remember not being allowed to play outside because it was a stage 2. 😫 Driving down from the mountains it was a brown blanket covering everything.
I remember as a SoCal kid in the 70s and 80s. 1st, 2nd, 3rd degree alerts. We were still expected to go out for recess, walk/bike home, etc. I'd make that 3 mile walk crying because my eyes and lungs burned so badly. Now I have asthma.
Born/raised in Southern CA and that was literally my entire childhood in the 70s. My child is 18 and now we live in WA and all I can think is what have I done bringing a child into THIS world?! Heartbreaking.
Yes. I went to college in Claremont in the late 70s (San Gabriel Valley). Mt Baldy 10 miles away was often not visible. My swim test - 5 minutes of treading H20 - was on a smog day and was torture. Industry shutdowns on the worst days.
Also grew up in L.A. and remember smog days, and days that didn't start out that way but got worse as the morning got later, so we would be sent home from school. L.A. skies were so orange and brown. It was nice having a stretch with blue skies. Future generations deserve clean air and water.
Every trip to visit my uncle in San Diego. We would come over the mountains north of L.A. and dad would say “look kids, can’t see the city” and sure enough the sky was just ugly and solid.
I remember when I would visit my Aunts house, when she lived in the proximity of Ohio Edison, and their house, cars, and lawns would be covered in soot!!!
Yes. I remember the taste of the smog in Burbank in the 70s being a lot like a mouth full of copper pennies after PE during smog alerts. They always made us stay outside and play tennis because the Boys classes got the gym, not us girls. Because basketball.
I went to Cali when I was nine in the 80s and I was so confused cus I thought shouldn't it be sunny I swear it should. Because the smog made it pretty overcast. And my aunt assured me that it'd pass by the afternoon
Here in the Columbia River Gorge, it is the same in the winter. We can go weeks without even seeing the tops of the hills that seal us in. I feel like I'm trapped at the bottom of one of the jars of jam my grandmother used to seal with paraffin.
If granny's paraffin had been an ugly, angry gray.
Yeah and it screwed up my lungs coughing and laboring to breathe playing sports outside, and after unleaded gas came in the air became cleaner go figure?
I clearly remember going to visit a friend in So Cal (from the Bay Area) in the late 80's and going to a water park. I said to her family I didn't understand why my lungs hurt so much to breathe in and they just laughed and said "oh that's just the smog!" even as an early teen, I knew that was bad!
Yes, I went to elementary school in Cali East Bay Area. I remember when we went out for recess & you couldn't see four feet in front of you. I still remember that smell!! I also remember the Great Lakes catching fire due to the pollution. This is what this admin is heading back to - WTAF!! 🤬
And if you swam in a pool, the chlorine mixed with the smog to basically form mustard gas in your lungs that would have you laid out, shallow-breathing later that night!
People don’t believe me when I tell them I had smog days like people in cold climates have snow days. I can’t believe people complain about regulations that have helped to eliminate smog days.
In the Midwest we had (and they probably still have) “Ozone Days” where you can’t gas up your car or mow your lawn during certain hours. In the PacNW we have poor air quality days. 😢
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I remember visiting on Base, and it was just high enough you could see the smog line and Clearfield/Layton was completely obscured.
The sky's supposed to be blue. Not yalla. Or a weird offish green.
If we can reverse that, we can eradicate the Trump issue.
Wildfire smoke
So tired of ppl saying we can’t fix things or we can’t fix them enough… so we better do nothing.
They’re afraid that we will.
I remember the 80s as a child where the buildings were drab grey, before the city got cleaned it.
I believe COAL is one of the Republican energy solutions… well, shove an umbrella up their arse before opening it!
It’s simply not
I immediately thought of Victorian London.
Dictators are idiots. Ruthless, yes. But still idiots.
If you are from Utah, check out @utah-aqi.bsky.social for three times daily updates on Utah air quality.
The ones thinking the next administration is all that are the ones who suffered brain damage from the brown clouds.
I remember when Eagles were endangered because their shells were too weak. The fish they caught from contaminated rivers were the cause
Everyone had to stay indoors.
I don't want that for my kids either!
Phoenix had ozone alert days during the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Planes descended through a brown cloud of smog when landing at Sky Harbor airport.
How about we quit coal and oil so we can breathe clean air.
Also not being able to see across the LA Basin.
If granny's paraffin had been an ugly, angry gray.