[beebeepka]

Wait till people fire up the coal in their homes like they do every winter.

I feel almost alone when I complain about this stuff. Coal + old clunkers = fantastic. There is no escape unless ones moves far away from all humans

[legulere]

Most countries in Europe have banned burning coal at home for decades. For heating burning wood is a major source of pollution. Other reasons are cars and the relatively high population density.

[mnd999]

Enforcement is pretty lax though, plenty of folks in the suburbs burning coal and logs on their ‘trendy’ open fires.

[mensetmanusman]

The particulate output of these pales in comparison to the coal plants though. Reminds me of when China clamped down on street vendors who used open fires while ignoring the steel plants down the road.

[7952]

Tonnes of release doesnt tell the whole story though. Domestic burners are closer to the ground and other humans. Coal power stations have stacks to shoot the emissions higher in the atmosphere.

In developed countries it just seems like a backward step when people can afford something better than fashion driven legacy technology.

[MichaelZuo]

Exactly, and even in china I imagine the coal plants have at least a basic filtration system, not to mention European coal plants. Which of course no home fireplace has.

[5e92cb50239222b]

It really depends. I am not located in China, but our problems are pretty similar in nature. We have a lot of smaller, I am not sure what they're called, boiler houses? One to two-storey pipes with zero emission control, piping out black smoke 24/7 for most of the year.

[legulere]

Coal plants in Europe are much cleaner than they used to be (still we should work on shutting them down).

Nowadays emissions from traffic, industry in general and heating all are in the same order of magnitude: https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/news/air-quality-atlas-europe-ma...

[danw1979]

There’s an old dude upwind from our house who still heats his home with coal.. probably the last in our village of 4000 people which has had mains gas since the 1990s.

It’s choking outside in the winter, just from this one fire. I’m thinking about offering to put in a heat pump for him and pick up his electricity bill, it’s that bad.

Imagine what it was like when everyone used to heat with it !

[input_sh]

You don't have to imagine it, just look at Balkan capitals that are falling behind.

Sarajevo: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=sarajevo+winter+smog&t=ffab&iar=im...

Skopje: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=skoplje+winter+smog&t=ffab&iar=ima...

Keep in mind that both of these are in the valley surrounded by hills and mountains, forcing the smog to stay for days during colder weather with no rain or snow to disperse it.

On top of that, there's a report published this month that estimates about 19k deaths across Europe in the past three years because of coal-powered power plants in the WB6 area: https://www.euronews.com/2021/09/07/western-balkan-power-pla...

[5e92cb50239222b]

Not bad by European measures, though still pretty light compared to many regions of Asia (speaking from rich experience, sadly)

https://aqicn.org/city/bosnia-herzegovina/sarajevo/us-embass...

https://aqicn.org/city/macedonia/centar/

(Scroll and look for "Air quality historical data")

[5e92cb50239222b]

Hey, at least you have only one such neighbor. Imagine how bad it is with a few thousand of them, burning sulfur-rich coal 10-11 months a year with a few plastic bottles and car tires thrown in for good measure. Wait, I don't have to imagine it, just take a look outside.

[mensetmanusman]

Highly recommend the Crown episode ‘The Fog’ that goes into how bad it once was in London.

[ehnto]

The Australian Wildfires of 2020 were a wakeup call to me for both how important this is to happy living and how shared our atmosphere is.

I spent that entire period watching windy.com particulate maps and forcasts trying to time when I rode into work, for weeks on end it wasn't smart to do so, and those fires were in another state to me entirely, thousands of KM away.

I feek for those who live in countries where polution is nearly as bad year round as those fires were during their peak.