It's not just VW

General Discussion
61

“Actually in 1950 we didn’t have any EPA or air regulations and the air was great.”

Obviously, you are talking about rural areas where the air is still likely to be just as great, if not better than it was in 1950. If you had ventured into NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, or L.A. during the '50s, you would have found air that was “visible”, due to the incredible amount of particulate matter in it.

When I was in my teens, we lived ~15 miles from NYC, and my father soon regretted buying a white Plymouth, because it would appear gray and grimy within just a day or two after being washed. The runoff of rain from the roof’s rain gutters actually caused black streaks to form in the white paint and those streaks could only be removed by compounding the paint.

The air where you lived in the '50s may have been “great”, but that certainly wasn’t the case for the bulk of the US population at that time.

62

So the proximate cause of the bad air was the clustering of populations in large cities? Mainly east coast and west coast that the rest of the country needed to also pay for with increased regulations. I’m sure upstate New York as well as Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Montana, etc. had pretty good air, at least as I remember smelling the pine needles. Just to make the point that there is a whole lot of country between the two coasts and one size does not necessarily fit all.

63

My mom grew up in a small town in rural Western PA that had a steel mill. When we visited her family in the 1950s and 1960s, the pollution was awful. It did not matter what color your car was when you got to town Friday night. It was rust red from iron dust fallout when you left on Sunday.

64

Smog (really bad) in the San Fernando valley started shortly after WW II. At that time it was not understood that this smog was Photochemical and caused by oxides of nitrogen. It could occur without any particulates in the air, and looked like a brown gas.

A Dutch chemistry professor employed there first postulated it and was widely reviled that this smog was caused by the locals’ precious cars.

The first fix was the crankcase ventilation system with a PCV valve. to curb the worst of it. The rest is history.

Emission controls came much later to Europe, and many imports performed poorly until their makers mastered emission controls.

Smog caused by burning coal was bad in many cities; in London, England in 1950 or so 1500 people died during one of worst occurrences. Then the city switched to natural gas heating and the air cleared significantly. The London type fog had many coal particulates in it, it was not photochemical.

Most cities located in a geographic bowl still have smog; Vancouver, Canada, the LA area, and many others.

65

Thanks for the links, Mike. Just goes to show…the air in our urban areas, today, is order(s) of magnitude cleaner that it used to be, to the extent that today’s URBAN air is cleaner than at any point in recorded history! Young’uns who complain about air pollution…don’t even know what “dirty air” is. (But do they stop complaining, or advocating for laws that encroach upon…auto enthusiasts, for instance? Of course they don’t.)

But–complain as you want about “smoky Pittsburgh” of the early/mid 20th century–that smoke built a nation; it supplied the metal for tanks/ships/aircraft that won WWII; it helped rebuild the world afterwards, too. Clean air is nice, true, but it isn’t “free.” It is a “good,” that–like ALL economic goods–is subject to the Law of Diminishing Returns. It’d be nice to apply cost/benefit analysis to Clean Air regulations, but–surprise!–it’s actually illegal to do so.

TL;DR: There’s good things about industry, and bad things. As a working-class male, would I “reset the clock” to the mid-60’s, with dirty air, but a valid “bridge to the middle class” for the working Joe? In a heartbeat!

66

“Mainly east coast and west coast that the rest of the country needed to also pay for with increased regulations”

That’s an example of why our country is called The United States of America.

Once the founding fathers realized how dysfunctional things were under The Articles of Confederation–with each state going its own way in terms of laws, currency, trade regulations, etc–they corrected things by enacting The Constitution of The United States, and as a result we act as a nation to fix things that might–in theory–only affect one portion of the population. Otherwise, the victims of various hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters wouldn’t get the type of relief that they need.

One year, one region gets help, another year, it is the turn of another region to get relief. That is just the nature of things in a united country.

67
Clean air is nice, true, but it isn't "free."

Yes steel towns like Pittsburgh did build this country. But we really didn’t know back then how bad it was hurting our environment. But that doesn’t make it good. And as it turned out you can actually run a steel plant that is an order of magnitudes cleaner then they were run 40 years ago.

And still knowing how bad the old steel mills are for the environment…And there are new improved methods to drastically reduce the pollution…Companies like US Steel is not complying…

68

Many cities still have polluting factories (as pointed out in previous post). Car pollution is down, but not out.

69

If all Chinese power plants used state of the art controls, their cities would be a lot cleaner without switching away from coal. In the US and Europe coal fired plants are quite clean, but are now under the gun because they create more CO2 than a gas fired plant would.

In spite of what the EPA calls it, CO2 is not a pollutant (Al Gore, please note). We all breathe it out, together with water vapor.

70

Mike, I would question the validity of PennFuture, and groups like them.

There are a LOT of groups that consist of a few lawyers with a SJW conscience, that exploit the US judicial system via filing lawsuit after lawsuit. The ultimate outcome is largely immaterial–they want to drive the cost of doing business UP to the point that said business packs up and moves to “greener pastures.” Essentially, this is “judiciary sabotage.”

There was a documentary on tv (PIVOT, a fairly liberal channel) about a dispute between Telluride, CO, and a nearby town that wanted to re-open a uranium mine. Talking about a town full of folks on foodstamps, vs an environmental action group that seemed to be, at any rate, comprised of young, wealthy “Trustifarians.”

The eco-action group filed a lawsuit halting mining operations. It was ultimately dismissed, but drug on long enough that the mining company just bought an extant mine in Utah, and left the mining town high, dry, and worried about making the food budget. All the while, the eco group filed appeal after appeal–you could see what their M.O. was.

It’s enough to make you sick. I don’t like groups like them, or PennFuture. If they feel THAT strongly, they ought to do what Ed Abbey advocated, and sabotage companies directly–it’d be a lot more honest than hiding behind some judge’s robe!

The Clean Air Act allows citizens to file lawsuits if they feel regulatory agencies are failing to enforce the law.

See? Nobody in Allegheny County or the EPA has any problem with the Clairton works…but (surprise!) PennFuture does. You’re getting ONE side of the story…from a VERY biased organization…and swallowing it hook, line and sinker.

As a resident of Allegheny County, MY future would be a lot brighter WITHOUT PennFuture in it.

71

I take it you didn’t read the article…

The facilities has been sited with over 6000 violations.

You’ll find companies like that all over this country. You don’t have to look far. But if you think all corporations are ALWAYS doing the right thing…good luck with that.

72

I read the article when it was in the local paper, Mike. I also visited their website (and repressed the gag reflex). Yup, a bunch of legal rabble-rousers that intend to put my brothers and sisters out of jobs.

…and that was the op-ed assessment at the time, too

U.S. Steel remains under a consent order from the Allegheny County Health Department to make facility upgrades and steadily reduce emissions to reach compliance in coming years.
I take that to mean the Parties that Be have granted the plant a waiver until it can upgrade. PF is suing because they're unhappy with the T+C of the waiver (plus, "just because".)

Again, Mike, you've been presented HALF the story from a biased source, and you treat it as Gospel. Why?

73

Hello - could you please bring this back in the direction of the forum’s topic? Thanks.

74
I take that to mean the Parties that Be have granted the plant a waiver until it can upgrade. PF is suing because they're unhappy with the T+C of the waiver (plus, "just because".)

The clean air act and technology to make the plant less pollutant has been around for DECADES…not a couple of months. Those 6000+ violations have been going on for years and years and years. But hey…let’s give them another 20-30 years to fix it.

75

Regarding VW - it just couldn’t get much worse. First the cheat codes, then the inability to come up with a fix, now the news that they were improving the cheat codes, even after the EPA found out, and the latest - VW’s US chief quits, and some VW execs talk about getting out of the US. What a MESS!

76

There’s a fix…but it’s so costly they don’t want to do it.

77

@MikeInNH Yes, for California there probable is not a “doable” fix, and the state may exempt those diesel owners from having to comply rather than having to scrap their vehicles. For the rest of the US the fix may be too expensive although possible. Time will tell. The European market models sold there can have an affordable fix that will work.

As far as VW is concerned, they now face a monumental fine from the EPA as well as numerous class action lawsuits. Leaving the US market may well be their best option. Since Audi and Bentley are free-standing corporate entities those may well be the only ones left in the US market.

78

If VW leaves the US market, dealers won’t be willing to pick them up again for at least a generation, maybe two generations. I don’t think Fiat had the strong US presence that VW does, and look how long it took Fiat to return. It still would not have happened IMO if Fiat had not bought Chrysler and their instant dealer network. A case can be made for taking their lumps and waiting out the immediate problems. If they make the price attractive enough, I would consider buying a VW. Whatever my next car is, it will be gasoline fueled, and poor sales across the board is just fallout from the diesel fiasco.

One more thing: How long do you think it will be before another Corporate Titan decides he can scam the system and get incredibly rich(er)? Toyota stonewalled the NHTSA, GM hid the ignition problem, Takata stonewalled the NHTSA, VW subverted environmental law, and that is just in the last few years. I would like to think that good corporate citizenship is the rule, but I can’t allow myself to do that anymore.

79
One more thing: How long do you think it will be before another Corporate Titan decides he can scam the system and get incredibly rich(er)?

Probably going on all the time…but haven’t got caught yet. I think VW is just skimming the surface.

80

We used to enjoy the stench from the local paper plant(35 miles away) now you can barely smell it ,in the 50s there were fewer cars also .