Poland has stronger economic development than the rest EU at the moment.
I’d hazard to guess that part of it is that they accept being on the “don’t over regulate, but grow” path.
Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide
121–130 of 158 posts
Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
Out of curiosity, why would you burn your trash, and especially plastics? It smells and is clearly unhealthy and the caloric content is worthless compared to wood.
It smells to other people . Not in the house.
Old/low quality stoves leak a lot of emissions in the house, but people don't realize it. Also, smoke finds its way back in the house quite easily. Sad that such extreme tragedy of the commons still happens.
Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's the same in Latvia. Riga wants to set up a zero-emissions zone and a toll to enter the city center, but won't ban open stoves or solid fuel burning, which pollutes much more than cars in winter.
Kraków just set up a clean transport zone; it went into full effect just few weeks ago. And people just can't shut up whining about it, even though it doesn't really put much burden on ~anyone. Most people drive petrol-powered cars (usually converted to support LPG, too), and the minimal norms for the clean transport zone are so low, it's hard to find a car that doesn't meet it. You can buy a used petrol-powered car…
Those are useful, but not very effective usually as no one controls it after a few months, unless you set up a costly and complex certification and licence-plate monitoring system.
Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
It smells to other people . Not in the house.
Old/low quality stoves leak a lot of emissions in the house, but people don't realize it. Also, smoke finds its way back in the house quite easily. Sad that such extreme tragedy of the commons still happens.
It doesn't smell therefore it doesn't leak.
/s
Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
How long have you lived in BKK for, and has your health deteriorated because of the pollution?
I've been here since 2015 with the pm2.5 getting noticably worse from 2017 onwards. Hard to tie it to any degradation in health. I have air purifiers at home and wear N95 whenever I go out and it's bad. I know there were a few big studies around the prevalence of cancer rates that correlated with the pollution getting worse in China. But I'm not nearly qualified enough to comment on or vet those
Cool. I'm also interested in moving to BKK soon and was seeing a lot about the pollution there. I guess I'll see for myself when I get there.
Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are people not aware that is absolutely terrible for their health?
Freezing to death is even more terrible for their health. It's also much more immediate. And so is being poor. Breathing dust and smoke is a minor inconvenience in comparison. Any negative health effects will become noticeable in decades if at all. Doesn't help that most of the people responsible likely remember themselves or their parents breathing even worse stuff most their lives, with no ill effect being seen. He…
It's not just poverty, but education about pollution and a common view in the post-communist countries that the common good (clean air in this case) isn't so important. It's the same with things like noise or graffitis for instance.
In Latvia you commonly see rich people with BMW SUVs behaving like this. My friends see no problem with having coal barbecue or very heavy music in the center of Riga. We often have to remind new tenants in our building the benefits of sorting waste - and they are not poor.
Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide
#127I used to live in Gdansk, and later Gdynia, and let me tell you - as soon as it's cold outside, people burn all kinds of shit at home, the air's so thick you can practically cut it with a knife. We theorized that the smog's mainly from residential burning of coal, but of course who know's what's in the stove. All I know, is that it smells really unhealthy, and the smoke coming out of houses is a deep, black colour, a…
Unfortunately this is our national mentality - no one can tell me what I should do, and if I get told to stop, I will double down just to piss off that someone who insulted my pride.
The biggest enemy of a Pole is always their neighbor. One may suffocate in their own fumes, but what's important is that this loser next door dies as well.
Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Assuming a large contributing factor is all the coal plants now running to sustain Germany's independence from nuclear? Berlin's air quality has also tanked a lot since the energy crisis started.
Germany isn't importing that much. Keeping nuclear would have helped exporting more clean power, including to Poland but that's another topic
Not clean, nuclear is dirty as hell.
Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Germany isn't importing that much. Keeping nuclear would have helped exporting more clean power, including to Poland but that's another topic
Not clean, nuclear is dirty as hell.
Nuclear is one of the cleanest sources of power, if not the cleanest period.
It requires least mining and materials over lifecycle vs any alternative per KWh. It requires least land. It's final waste volume is similar to renewables while both sectors do create toxic waste that must be stored forever (used fuel in case of nuclear and forever toxic chemicals like arsenic/lead in case of renewables)
Saying nuclear is dirty as hell means you either are ill informed or spreading lies on purpose
To give an example with Germany, probably being outpaced only by Austria in hate for nuclear power. Germans are concerned about small amounts of nuclear waste that will be stored in deep geo stable facilities (just like onkalo, soon fosmark, terradura and alikes) but germans are perfectly fine having the biggest near surface facility for storing forever toxic and dangerous chemicals on the planet, Herfa Neurode.
Not just that, many are unaware that having a repository longterm is still a must even if they don't have nuclear power at all, due to medical and research sectors
Re: Kraków, Poland in top 5 worst air quality worldwide
#130Fossil fuel heating is _extremely_ polluting, and really costing the population months, up to years of their life. But it's a silent killer, so let's dramatize fantasy nuclear accidents instead.
It depends what you're burning and how you burn it. If you're burning gas, you're burning it either at the perfect fuel/air ratio or maybe just a little lean. You only get water vapour and carbon dioxide out. If you're piling up coal in a stove you're getting all sorts of crap out of the chimney, including radioactive dust. It's one of the reasons that cars have been fitted with catastrophic converters. These remove…
> catastrophic converters
Nice one. Anyway three-way catalytic converters also convert NOx to N2 and O2. It would be quite bad if they wouldn't.
> You only get water vapour and carbon dioxide out.
No, you still get small amounts of the bad (acutely toxic) stuff too. This point is important - whether it's home cooking on gas, gas heating or ICEs running on unicorn farts, there will still be byproducts from imperfect burning. The only real way out is to turn off the fire.