Advocacy & Safety - Poison gas

Ozone is a powerful poison, odorless and colorless. As if carbon monoxide and particulate matter aren't bad enough, ozone is a real killer. Ozone kills many people every year who are the weakest in our population.

In healthy people, ozone can permanently damage the lungs, burning them with a chemical oxidizing action similar to chlorine gas which was used to kill and cripple
soldiers in WWI. In athletes, the effect can be more damaging if the athlete exercises heavily and often in ozone-polluted air.

Where is ozone found? Where does it come from? How can you avoid it? Ozone is produced abundantly wherever there is sufficient sunlight and car exhaust, primarily on hot, sunny, urban and suburban afternoons. The safest period for exercise in areas congested with traffic is generally before 6 p.m. Ozone levels begin to rise around noon and can rise rapidly after 3 p.m. They can become unhealthy after 6 p.m. and can continue to rise even after dark, peaking as late as 9 or 10 p.m. Ozone levels can remain unhealthy until well after midnight.

In the summer, I always monitor my city's ozone levels. As a cyclist, I avoid the higher ozone levels by finishing my rides as early as possible, before 6 pm. I have experienced ozone irritation many times, mostly before I knew about the effects of ozone pollution and how to avoid it.

Don't wait until you feel the symptoms. Check your area's ozone levels through the EPA's AIRNOW website during the spring and summer. Air quality forcasts are given daily for many cities nationwide. Keep your lungs breathing deeply for cycling!

This is the webpage:

www.epa.gov/airnow/where

Pete, what ARE the effects of ozone irritation? And what are the symptoms?

Infatuation with bicycles and actresses…. In the advance stages.

For the rest of us, irritation of eyes and mucus membranes.

Originally posted by dirtsqueezer
Infatuation with bicycles and actresses…. In the advance stages.


Were you reffering to me?

Originally posted by fubar5


Were you reffering to me?

;)

In the UK, the highest levels of ozone are found in the tranquil rural areas of east Anglia, rather than congested cities. Go figure.

Ozone at ground level is a Bad Thing, but ozone in the stratosphere is a Good Thing, since it filters out uv radiation. Ozone does have the properties of a greenhouse gas, but is a fairly minor one, so the hole in the ozone layer is quite different to the problem of greenhouse gas emmisions. Imagine being the poor sucker who has to explain that to Dubya.

Originally posted by MichaelW
[...] so the hole in the ozone layer is quite different to the problem of greenhouse gas emmisions. Imagine being the poor sucker who has to explain that to Dubya.
As long as they're both good for the U. S. economy, all is well at the White House. :)

Originally posted by MichaelW
Imagine being the poor sucker who has to explain that to Dubya.

I take it you don't like Dubya?

Originally posted by fubar5
Pete, what ARE the effects of ozone irritation? And what are the symptoms?
Don't be afraid, but be informed.

I used to get a ticklish cough. The effects are cumulative. The worst I had were bronchitis-like symptoms (not good.)

Monitor ozone levels daily. If they never rise above acceptable levels, you are ok. Generally, windy, overcast or cool days will be fine. Prolonged hot, sunny days with no rain or wind will cause ozone to accumulate to nasty levels.

The solution to this is to come up with alternative fuels.

"Make a buck, make a buck..."

How do you moniter ozone levels? Remember, I don't have TV. Would weather.com have something?

Originally posted by dirtsqueezer


;)

You're just jealous!!!

Originally posted by fubar5
How do you moniter ozone levels? Remember, I don't have TV. Would weather.com have something?
Try http://www.crh.noaa.gov which is the National Weather Service. Also most major cities probably have a hotline you can call to find out the ozone level.

In Kansas City, on ozone "Red Alert" days all bus rides are free, in hopes some people won't drive their cars and make things even worse.

Ok Pete,
Here is a Ozone story for ya!

AS GLOBAL WARMING FANATICS EXUDE MORE FOUL AIR: Wind velocity test on flatulent sheep and flatulence tax
Sheep are going to be taxed for their normal bodily functions!!!! How long before you will be for yours?
What d'ya say how long it'll be before some six billion people will be measured for their own "dangerous" emission of methane gas, for their most natural, necessary, unstoppable, basic, bodily functions? and then be demonized ad nauseam, justifying their annihilation if they can't pay the tax for their bodily crimes? God help us these eco maniacs are psychotic beyond any control or assistance--as they follow the asinine codes of their very rational, scheming controllers. But these pawn nincompoops, tens of thousands of them, maybe millions of them, themselves emitting flatulence from more than one bodily orifice, are under the spell of the pagan god, Pan-Who doesn't even exist! except in the mental and oral flatulence of some very very very overpowered imaginations, incensed by their own toxic emissions. .....stop the world....let me off...la la la la But this is no joke. ac

http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=003621480154535&rtmo=k7YLCqqp&atmo=tttttttd&pg=/et/01/5/21/wbul21.html

Flatulence tax on livestock

A TAX on livestock to offset damage to the ozone layer caused by dangerous gases they produce could cost New Zealand farmers up to £1.5 billion. The proposal is part of the government's policy on climate change, aimed at complying with the Kyoto Protocol guidelines to reduce greenhouse emissions, the Sunday Star-Times reported. The government is aiming to tax farmers between £1 and £17 for each cow and sheep they own, for the gases produced through dung, urine and flatulence.
SCIENTISTS have set up instruments downwind of flatulent and burping sheep to investigate methane gas emissions thought to contribute to global warming.
The study is being conducted in New Zealand, where there are 50 million sheep and 3.7 million humans. Ruminant livestock are responsible for 70 per cent of New Zealand's methane emission, and belching sheep account for half of that.
The nation generates eight times the OECD average of methane emission per head of human population, said Dr Mark Ulyatt of the Grasslands Research Centre, Palmerston North. Two Crown research institutes are monitoring individual sheep to see what affects methane production, while another two measure methane concentrations in the air. Dr Murray Judd, one of the air testers, said researchers from New Zealand Pastoral Agricultural Research found a flat part of the country with consistent wind directions and had set up a tower downwind of the sheep paddocks, with instruments to measure wind, temperature and methane concentrations.
Dr Ulyatt said most testing of individual sheep used a sample device over the noses and mouths of grazing animals. Special respiratory chambers can be used to test emissions from the other end but the team was not testing flatulence this time. "I get a lot of flak from this," he added.


Can you imagine some eco nutball sitting down wind and moitoring that?

Originally posted by Hunter
Can you imagine some eco nutball sitting down wind and moitoring that?
Unfortunately, yes. A good example of going overboard--or just crazy.

Originally posted by Hunter
SCIENTISTS have set up instruments downwind of flatulent and burping sheep to investigate methane gas emissions thought to contribute to global warming.

That's nothing. Check out this thread:

http://216.215.238.193/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1099

Be sure to read the whole thing. Inquiring minds may discover a new product, such as "Grasso," which may be cheaper than the tax on livestock emissions.