Sunday, May 12, 2024

The Infamous Smog of Los Angeles

Smog is infamously a huge issue in Los Angeles. There are a lot of cars, a lot of industry, and all of it goes up into the air. 

Of course, Los Angeles is caught in between the ocean and the mountains, so all of that pollution cannot fully escape. Thus, it seems that there is a permanent cloud of smog hanging over the city. It affects air quality, as well as visibility. 

Now I was able to see this much with my own eyes. Usually, there was at least some visible smog hovering over the city, often obscuring the view. But on the morning of Tuesday, April 30th, I could not even see either the buildings of the Los Angeles skyline nor the hills surrounding the city early in the morning. Those pictures are more on the bottom. As nice as visiting this city and metropolitan area is, the smog (which of course is another word for pollution) would at least give me, personally, some serious hesitation before ever thinking about moving to a place like this (and then, surely, contributing to it). 

Observing it during this trip was rather fascinating. I had heard about it and seen images of it on television or the movies. But it is different seeing it in person, and seeing the clearer views from just days or hours (sometimes even minutes) alter, often radically. It is a major enough issue that it seriously detracts from the qualify of life for residents of Los Angeles and the area overall. 

As an illustration of this point, I added the links to two articles which address the seriousness of the issue of smog, and how it is really beginning to detract from the standard of living for local residents of the Los Angeles region. In fact, California cities in general have major problems with pollution that transcend what we see in other parts of the country, or in North America. 

To me, this seems like a huge and growing issue. After all, the population of Los Angeles, and other California (and western more generally) keeps growing. On the one hand, it is understandable. Yes, the weather is idyllic, and the landscapes often exotic. However, th environmental strains of having so many people in small urban areas like that. We have all heard of some of the problems which comes from this strain, such as shortages of water leading to mandatory water restrictions. But it seems to me that the smog issue is also quite significant.

Significant enough that it is now seriously detracting from the quality of life of residents living in the greater Los Angeles region. Yes, despite the sunny paradise kind of reputation that this area has, the issue of smog has become enough of a problem that it is detracting from this otherwise sunny, healthy image of a near paradise. 

Below are some pictures which I took which really show the level of smog in Los Angeles. Again, this was quite visible at times. In some of the pictures (as well as in person), it almost appears like rain off in the distance, although that is obviously not what it is. It feels like this constitutes a major problem which will have to be seriously addressed at some point or other. It seems that, for now, we are not quite ready for a serious discussion on the matter yet. 




LA County's quality of life drops back to lowest-ever level, UCLA says by Matthew Rodriguez, Jui Sarwate, KCAL News, April 26, 2024:

https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/la-countys-quality-of-life-drops-back-to-lowest-ever-level-ucla-says/




Over 20 million residents live in CA cities with worst air quality in US due to smog, report says by David González KABC, Friday, April 26, 2024:

https://abc7.com/los-angeles-long-beach-region-ranked-worst-for-air-quality-in-the-us-due-to-smog-american-lung-association-state-of-report/14729085/














An early morning, smoggy sunrise in Los Angeles early on my trip:
















These four pictures below were taken minutes apart, at about 8:17 in the morning on April 30, 2024. You could almost see the clouds of smog moving, as they seemed to obscure the buildings more towards the left of the picture here. Yet, even if it might not be obvious from looking at these pictures, the sun was actually shining (seriously!)







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