"Grey Paree"

Right now, people in Paris may be rubbing their eyes as they look at the Eiffel Tower.  But it wouldn’t be because of anything about the Tower.  It’s because of the air.

©Christonphe ENA/AP

It looks as if Paris, and several other French cities, are going through what I experienced growing up in Los Angeles in the 1950s.  An inversion layer of air seems to be trapping automobile emissions and creating a familiar brownish haze across the city.

As a quick, short-term measure to get people out of their cars, government officials have made all forms of public transport free over this weekend.  Philippe Martin, the Minister of Ecology, estimates the cost at 3 million euros a day, a cost that he says will be shared by all levels of government and the private sector.

How did the City of Light end up with smog?  Commentators point towards cars generally, diesel-powered cars in particular, and agriculture (although it’s not clear exactly this last factor relates to the air pollution in Paris and the other cities).  Apparently, despite successful bike sharing programs and new tram lines in several cities, too little has been done to reduce the use of cars.  Drivers are considered a powerful political force by both the left and right and policy makers are loath to propose anything that would restrict what they consider is a right to free movement on all roads.

In addition, France is distinct in the incentives it provides to auto makers to encourage producing cars with diesel engines.  These cars now make up sixty percent of private cars in the country.  The fuel may cost less, but they are more polluting than normal gas engines, emitting large quantities of fine particulate matter.

Is this a wake up call for the government?  It wouldn’t appear to be.  Ecology Minister Martin talks about gathering other ministries and auto makers to talk about “the evolution of their production.”  But god forbid there should be any talk of reducing diesel’s fiscal benefits.  “That won’t be the issue,” said Martin.

Return. Smog in Rome

I’ve been away from this for too long.  It’s still early in the year and probably still within an acceptable time period for making new year’s resolutions.  I maybe stretching that time, but I hope whoever regulates these things can give me a pass.  So my resolution is to return to writing here regularly.  That doesn’t mean every day, but at least a few times a week.

I’m working on a long-term writing project, a book I hope, on the Loire River.  I'm probably repeating something I've said earlier.  But in any case, it will be about things I saw while riding my bicycle along the river and things I want to know more about, especially environmental things.  I’m also interested in some of the history, certainly about the chateaux, but also about the commercial and industrial history of the river and canals.

So I’ll be posting little blurbs about those topics.  I also try to follow a couple of Italian newspapers and I’ll highlight environmental stories when I see them in those places; and, of course, similar stories in the U.S.

As it happens, the first post of the new year deals with Italy.  I probably should have know this, but Rome has a serious smog problem.  To try to cut down on auto emissions the local government has decreed a series of no-drive Sundays.  The next one will be this coming Sunday, 19 January.  Others are scheduled for 23 February and 23 March.

The government’s decision applies to the fascia verde or green zone, an area including about half of the city inside the GRA, the Rome “beltway.”  The restrictions don’t apply to the entire day, only the morning hours of 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and then again from 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

This may be a way of showing people they don’t need to be so dependent on their cars.  But I doubt it will do much to reduce the smog.