SATURDAY PM UPDATE: Mission accomplished, says CBS4 Denver:
The website IQAir.com, which tracks air quality for major cities around the world, listed Denver as the most polluted on the planet as of early Saturday afternoon. The AQI was listed as 162. Rounding out the top five list was Salt Lake City, Utah.
On the upside, you’re already supposed to be wearing a face mask.
—–
Sorry folks, we’re just the messenger:
FOX 13 Salt Lake City reporting on behalf of our divinely undergarbed neighbors to the west:
Because of current smoke conditions, northern Utah has the worst air quality on the planet, according to IQAir, a website that monitors pollution levels around the world.
A thick haze fell on northern Utah Friday morning as winds shifted and brought in wildfire smoke from Oregon and northern California. The air quality is as bad as the worst inversion conditions found during the winter in northern Utah.
Salt Lake City and Denver, which is also being affected by out-of-state smoke, are the only two U.S. cities ranked among the top 20 most polluted areas.
The Front Range of Colorado is enjoying a slight reprieve today from the nasty air we’ve seen much of the week month summer, but the forecast for Saturday is nothing short of dismal–air quality bad enough to make outdoor activity uncomfortable even for healthy people as the smoke choking out Utah flows into Colorado. The smoke from another season of massive Western fires is bad enough, but keep in mind it’s the ground-level ozone pollution from cars and fossil fuel production giving these smoky summer afternoons an extra-special burn.
Welcome to the “new normal” in a world where human-caused climate change is now set to at least some degree take its course, after years of inadequate response to a problem we knew was building right before our eyes–but if we could mitigate the damage with better choices going forward it would be nice. Colorado may not be directly threatened by rising sea levels, but the prospect of inhaling the smoke from the Western U.S. burning to ash in the coming decades is…unappealing.
For today, all you can do is adjust your weekend plans accordingly.
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Remember folks, Trump digs coal!
Remember folks, climate change is not an "existential threat," . . .
. . . fuxsakes, I guess it's time to go shopping for an air purifier . . .
See? It’s causing you to stimulate our economy!! How could that be a bad thing?
…and wind turbines give you cancer!
The air is bad here in western Garfield County this morning…really bad. Just a small effort outside is tough.
Best stay indoors if you can.
Just imagine how bad this would be if climate change was real?!?
Skies were briefly blue at about 7AM. Now it's all grayish white with brown stuff moving in from the north.
I'm staying inside today.
Meh . . .
. . . like every swinging Kocholyte out there doesn’t already know . . .
. . . blue skies for the masses to enjoy are just more evidence of a socialist economy operating at suboptimal capacity.
Right. I think I will go burn some tires or something…
That’s the MAGA spirit!![laugh laugh](https://www.coloradopols.com/wp-content/plugins/ark-wysiwyg-comment-editor/ckeditor/plugins/smiley/images/teeth_smile.png)
![devil devil](https://www.coloradopols.com/wp-content/plugins/ark-wysiwyg-comment-editor/ckeditor/plugins/smiley/images/devil_smile.png)
Smells like . . . Freedumb!
Roll Coal, baby!! YeeHaw!
Hate to say it, but that’s actually funny, Michael. Big surprise for the guy with his feet sticking out his window.
Have you seen any of the YouTube videos about the can opener bridge in North Carolina? It’s amazing that people ignore warning signs about height & clearance, and even a light board saying “Too High. Must Turn.”
The truck on the left is from the Americans for Prosperity fleet 🤣 the one on the right represents a theoretical, free market system!
Respectfully, disagree.
In a free market there is an exchange of information that allows choice based on that information. But when that information is so asynchronous, the free market breaks down.
The guy on the right has no relevant information, so no choice. I understand why people would laugh the same way people laugh when coyote goes off the cliff chasing roadrunner.
The intended point was that AFP’s bantied, theoretical free market gives us air quality that is choking / killing us.
My grandkids ( 2 and 5 months) both have hacking chest coughs.
We got home late yesterday after an epic road trip to Montana and Yellowstone for family activities and touring. Included was a full day at the Museum of the West in Cody, which is not to be missed.
Smoke was terrible everywhere from the California and Oregon fires with a couple of smaller (so far) Montana blazes thrown in. It lightened up some in the mornings occasionally. At a canyon overlook in Yellowstone, I overheard one of our fellow Americans wonder why they didn't use fire extinguishers on the fires. His companion thought sprinklers would work better. Oh, my country.
That's the same mentality that asks national park and national forest rangers if they can spray for the mosquitos.
The same mentality that calls the tourist offices in Albuquerque and Santa Fe asking if a passport is required to enter New Mexico.
And don't forget – we should be raking the forests!
I certainly would not have been expecting to run into Moderatus and Clarice six hundred miles from home . . .
Now THAT’s funny 😂😂😂
And probably some of that smoke up north is from the second town in British Columbia that has burned to the ground from fires up there.
Fire extinguishers and sprinklers would be great. But the necessary size would be challenging and expensive.
I was thinking the same thing, MattC. Fires eventually WILL be put out by sprinkles or fire extinguishers — just a little tough to arrange the logistics of big enough Cumulonimbus clouds, getting them to where they really are needed.
A "Late Lament" seems appropriate today:
Breathe deep the gathering gloom
Watch lights fade from every room
Bedsitter people look back and lament
Another day's useless energy is spent
Cue Moody Blues.
This shit isn't just wood smoke. It includes incinerated hummingbird wings, grasshoppers, bear intestines, tires, propane, arsenic and a whole witches brew of toxic chemicals. The rocks that are melted yield all kinds of heavy particulates into the atmosphere. In Hawaii, they call what's spewed from the volcanoes 'Vog'. In Gilpin, we can't even see the Continental Divide from ten miles away. It's awful stuff that you don't want to be swimming in.
Geez, thanks, GG. As if it wasn't already shitty enough.
Well said.