Not if you consider carbon dioxide as pollution :P
25% of Cars Cause 90% of Automobile Air Pollution
101–110 of 157 posts
Re: 25% of Cars Cause 90% of Automobile Air Pollution
#102And 16-container ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world. Perhaps these ships are softer targets to correct than tens of millions of cars? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1229857/How-1...
They produce as much sulfur as all the cars in the world (because cars don't produce very much sulfur). For other types of pollution, cars produce much more.
Re: 25% of Cars Cause 90% of Automobile Air Pollution
#103Here in Europe (well UK and Spain whee I have lived and owned a car) you need to get a check every year for older cars, and that includes an emissions test. Don't you get that in the States / Canada? (It would appear that the study was done in Canada). Saying that, go to many less developed country and the cars are far worse condition. My friend always used to claim that the environmental cost of producing a new car…
In many parts of the States you do, but the strictness of the test varies and the standards are grandfathered. So, for example, in California (one of the strictest) you must pass a visual inspection, a tailpipe sniffer, and an engine computer scan. There are also many rules about acceptable engine modifications. In other states you may only get an engine computer scan. As for standards, cars are (rather reasonably) h…
Even in California, there are exemptions for: "hybrids, motorcycles, trailers, or gasoline powered vehicles 1975 and older."
...which seems shortsighted. Except for trailers, all of those can have mechanical problems that cause it to pollute far more than they should. My daily driver for a long time was from 1974 and I was never sure why older cars were exempt. If it's a hobby car with historic plates, sure, but if you're driving it every day you should have to follow the same rules as everybody else. In my defense, my old car got 68 mpg and was well fussed-over.
Re: 25% of Cars Cause 90% of Automobile Air Pollution
#104Living in a state (Michigan) without any sort of vehicle inspections, I can usually spot a vehicle that will be especially bad well before I smell it. If I'm driving, I'll punch the recirculate button to head off the issue, and look at making lane changes (or even varying my route) to avoid vehicles. This doesn't work as well if I'm walking or biking, however. I have asthma, so I'm especially sensitive to this. I'd l…
Having grown up in Michigan (Detroit area), I'd say that Michigan has generally good air quality (excepting acute conditions like asthma) - as long as you live upwind of most other people and factories. That usually means more north and west. And it usually means more expensive real estate. IINM, this air-quality vs. socioeconomic pattern repeats itself across much of the industrial midwest and rust belt.
Maybe that's another reason you won't see smog checks - a lot of voters probably feel their air is fine, and those whose air has high particulate pollution may not vote much - either because the poor just vote less, or because they have bigger immediate problems than local air pollution.
Re: 25% of Cars Cause 90% of Automobile Air Pollution
#105This article would be more helpful with some historical context. At some point in the past, if all cars were equal, 90% of cars produced 90% of the pollution. Over time newer cars replaced most of the old ones, and now it's 25% of cars. But the overall amount of pollution has dropped too. A future clickbait headline will read "5% of cars cause 90% of the pollution!" and sound very alarming, but in fact that's a measu…
If 5% of cars really caused 90% of the pollution in the future, then we should certainly banish those cars, shouldn't we? It would be a very informative title.
Re: 25% of Cars Cause 90% of Automobile Air Pollution
#106Here in Europe (well UK and Spain whee I have lived and owned a car) you need to get a check every year for older cars, and that includes an emissions test. Don't you get that in the States / Canada? (It would appear that the study was done in Canada). Saying that, go to many less developed country and the cars are far worse condition. My friend always used to claim that the environmental cost of producing a new car…
Italy data point: 4 years after you buy, then every 2 years.
Re: 25% of Cars Cause 90% of Automobile Air Pollution
#107What i allways ask myself is for example if someone has an old car which polutes more than a new one, what would polute more to buy a new one or to continue to use the old one. Because producing the new car releases a lot of polutants as well. I have never investigated this.
I would rather see a massive uptick in retrofitting newer engines into older cars; I've done it a couple of times on older Volvos (240-940 vintage) and other makes, after the engines got really tired. I'd imagine it's cheaper/easier to just manufacture better engines and ECMs than it is to manufacture new cars, and you get to keep cool old cars on the road.
surprisingly (or not) , this is rather difficult to do in California. There is a referee that has to validate that the engine swap was completed successfully and without compromising the emissions equipment of the swapped engine. Though not every ref judges on the same scale. There have been reports of some requiring that the gas tank from the donor car be swapped as well (very difficult since the tank usually fills a space in original car that is unlikely to match with the recipient).
I'd like to see a more thorough emissions test be implemented (i.e. more than testing at two speeds, enough to gauge all operating conditions) so that it could be more objective in its process. This would also have the benefit of allowing a way to bypass the restrictive modification exception system.
Re: 25% of Cars Cause 90% of Automobile Air Pollution
#108Living in a state (Michigan) without any sort of vehicle inspections, I can usually spot a vehicle that will be especially bad well before I smell it. If I'm driving, I'll punch the recirculate button to head off the issue, and look at making lane changes (or even varying my route) to avoid vehicles. This doesn't work as well if I'm walking or biking, however. I have asthma, so I'm especially sensitive to this. I'd l…
Having grown up in Michigan (Detroit area), I'd say that Michigan has generally good air quality (excepting acute conditions like asthma) - as long as you live upwind of most other people and factories. That usually means more north and west. And it usually means more expensive real estate. IINM, this air-quality vs. socioeconomic pattern repeats itself across much of the industrial midwest and rust belt. Maybe that'…
Michigan actually has rather poor-quality air: http://www.stateoftheair.org/2015/states/michigan/
Much of this is due to us being down-wind of Chicago: http://www.epa.gov/med/grosseile_site/indicators/air-polluti...
Re: 25% of Cars Cause 90% of Automobile Air Pollution
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
And even in Virginia, it differs at the county level. You don't need to get your car tested in southwest VA.
It does seem odd that the state requires safety inspections but doesn't require emissions tests in every jurisdiction.
Bland County, VA : 18 people/square mile
Fairfax County, VA : 2,761 people/square mile
Arlington County, VA : 8,309 people/square mile
Any surprise that emissions tests are required in Fairfax and Arlington, but not in Bland County? Largest city in Bland County has a population of 75; it is a different world from the DC suburbs.
Re: 25% of Cars Cause 90% of Automobile Air Pollution
#110This article would be more helpful with some historical context. At some point in the past, if all cars were equal, 90% of cars produced 90% of the pollution. Over time newer cars replaced most of the old ones, and now it's 25% of cars. But the overall amount of pollution has dropped too. A future clickbait headline will read "5% of cars cause 90% of the pollution!" and sound very alarming, but in fact that's a measu…
If 5% of cars really caused 90% of the pollution in the future, then we should certainly banish those cars, shouldn't we? It would be a very informative title.
Only if those were new cars. If electric cars become the norm, then one day 100% of car pollution will be produced by <<1% of cars, but the total will be so low that it won't be worth worrying about those antique internal combustion cars. Percentages can be misleading.