McRat,
I remember (back in the 80s) when the smog would get so thick in the city of Riverside you could barely see across the street. I see you live in Norco, are you old enough to remember the smog backing up into the Inland Empire?
What a difference today?
I would love to hear your thoughts on what caused the change???
Love is a pretty strange emotion to describe my rants, but here goes. We could not play outside at recess or lunch on smog days, and we had Civil Defense Drills to duck and cover, so I suppose I'm old enough. My love with automotive technology started in the 1960's.
The Inland Empire smog issue was LA and geography. It wasn't until the air actually was deadly in LA from a few summer inversions before "California" did anything. Reagan signed the first serious California-specific legislation into law roughly the same time the Federal government took action. We have 2 centers of political action, LA and SF. Nearly all legislation is done to assist those regions. Reagan was part of that game.
Corona had less than 20k people and was citrus and dairy back then. But the fact that LA/Orange counties were coastal cities, and Corona/Riverside are in the valley leading to the inland deserts creates a daily breeze the cleans the sewer that is LA by flushing it down the Inland Empire. Not sure where SF's toilet is, I never studied their ecosystem. But you can bet it has one. The large metro areas were far cleaner than the outlands.
Scientists and engineers helped clean the air with 2 very important discoveries, the catalytic converter, and digital fuel injection, but only after LA City had issues. Transistorized fuel injection and catalytic converters were invented in the 1950's. As long as the smog problem did not affect LA severely, no attempt was made to use that technology. So yes, I remember the IE being LA's toilet.
There is pragmatic environmental safety, and there is silliness to keep the bureaucracy alive. Californians love bureaucracy. It means we are doing something, not just talking about it. Wood might be a carcinogen, but WTF is a warning sticker going to do about it. Really? The "self-closing" gas cans increase air pollution in actual use since they block your ability to stop dispensing in an orderly manner. And the self closing feature is not as air tight as real lids are either. Black cars are not a big threat either. Or are aftermarket wheels. Heck, Tesla ships cars with them pre-installed. Personally, I find them dumb, but I'm not chewing the air because of 21" wheels. And backyard BBQ's were never proven to be a significant source of pollution in California. Burning wood for heating or cooking was a larger issue as was leaking propane during the fill cycle.
