[speaker001:] so what do you think about it
[speaker002:] well uh I've noticed some changes over the past uh thirty years
[speaker001:] um for the worst I would assume
[speaker002:] that that it's gotten worse
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] I can remember uh back in the early sixties when I first started flying a light plane it was quite common for me to take off from uh local airport here and see the uh Appalachian mountains and the Chesapeake Bay at the same time
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] and in the you know fifteen years later it was a rare occasion that I could see both at the same time
[speaker001:] uh-huh you're probably lucky to see the end of the runway by now
[speaker002:] yeah I know uh lot of times when I was coming back home I would uh file instrument flight plan just to get into the Washington area
[speaker001:] um
[speaker002:] but I counted on North Carolina having some good weather for me
[speaker001:] well I'll tell you I don't know I I don't know whether I I I count the stink as part of air pollution and it stinks down here
[speaker002:] well down there you get uh uh some more aromatic aromas like the uh the smell of the pine forest and uh
[speaker001:] it depends on where you are now if you're over
[speaker002:] then you get down wind of a paper mill once in a while
[speaker001:] yeah if you if you're over by Asheville you're pretty good because you're up there in the mountains and you've got some nice ozone and all that over here in Raleigh it's kind of flat and stagnant and just yucky
[speaker002:] um
[speaker001:] it's fine over on the coast because you've got the you've got the breezes off the off the water there
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] but uh seems like it's just dull and uninspiring here
[speaker002:] well I'm not sure that we're going to be able to uh solve much of the problem
[speaker001:] no I don't know they're they keep doing things and it doesn't seem to be doing any good I was I was really amazed because I never would have expected you know this problem somewhere like in Atlanta
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and I drove through Atlanta uh couple of weeks ago and it was unseasonably warm and you could see the smog just sitting on top of the city
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] and when I drove through I it it was terrible I I had to keep the windows up
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] it was just so thick and uh heavy uh I couldn't believe it I because I mean I used to live in Atlanta years ago and it was always fairly clean I mean you you always you didn't have problem with stagnant air like like LA does
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] but boy it was really bad that day and it
[speaker002:] well one of the reactions I have is that uh they put so much emphasis on the private automobile
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] uh as being a major source of pollution and they've uh ignored the trucks entirely
[speaker001:] yeah right
[speaker002:] so I I get to going down the expressway in the morning and uh I don't see very many cars smoking
[speaker001:] but you see all these all these trucks belching out this black smoke
[speaker002:] but then I I get surrounded by twenty or forty trucks and they're just laying out a pall of black smoke
[speaker001:] yeah I know it's I I I I don't understand where the priority is it's uh like in Atlanta they have um they have mandatory catalytic converter inspections
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] there's only three places in Georgia that requires that and uh even with that it hasn't done any good
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] I mean obviously it's gotten a lot worse but you know just like you say you go through there and you watch all these trucks and they're just coughing out all kinds of stuff some of them spitting it out so thick you can't even see past it
[speaker002:] uh-huh yeah
[speaker001:] you know I don't know
[speaker002:] yeah I know along route sixty six the uh people who have residences there uh they can't paint their houses without cleaning them first
[speaker001:] uh-huh yeah because of the stuff settles on it
[speaker002:] uh if they're within a block of a major expressway the houses get coated with oil
[speaker001:] yeah yeah  I don't know things like you know well like acid rain and all these sulphur dioxides being dumped out there I I'm more worried about that than I am just about anything else
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] because uh uh it's it's all I mean it's just like it's just like a big avalanche you know you start putting sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere and you end up with acid rain acid rain kills the trees trees don't scrub the air and there you are
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and then of course you've got all these folks cutting down on the rain forest as quick as they can
[speaker002:] yeah I'm not sure that we're not seeing some of the effects of that already
[speaker001:] I wonder too you know they keep talking about ozone depletion and all this it it seems funny that it's coming around at the time when we're losing the most most of the forests
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] because I I I think that a lot of the pollutants and stuff are being taken out of the air uh you know by the plants and the trees and all that good stuff and here we are losing it and now the now it doesn't have any where to go
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] but ozone
[speaker002:] well we've sort of been seeing a little climatic shift here on the East Coast or at least it seems that way that uh the winters have been milder for the last five years and uh
[speaker001:] uh-huh yeah well it's like our winter here I mean it was the winter that wasn't you know we were having having hot days in December and January
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] and got in
[speaker002:] yeah the first the first winter I moved out here I had a big snow plow on the tractor and I had to use it we had three uh fourteen inch uh snows
[speaker001:] uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh
[speaker002:] and I haven't used it since
[speaker001:] yeah you might you might as well sell it for scrap or something because you probably never will use it it's a shame too because I miss all the cold weather I I enjoy winter
[speaker002:] and at the same time I I see some colder winters in the Midwest I think they've gotten more snow in the past five years than we're having here on the East Coast
[speaker001:] yeah yeah well it was an interesting day the other day uh I think it was um yeah it was last not not this past Friday but Friday a week ago
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] we had I don't know I think you had some bad weather up there too we had tornadoes and everything down here
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] um that was the most historic weather day in recorded history for severe weather in the country
[speaker002:] oh I didn't know that
[speaker001:] on that one day I mean you know of course you always have severe weather somewhere but there was more of it on that one day than ever recorded before over four hundred reports of tornadoes hail and heavy winds
[speaker002:] huh
[speaker001:] amazing it's a little bit scary
[speaker002:] well it may have been uh the fact we had this early season warm spell
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] that did that because I know that the the preceding the preceding day Thursday I got my first sunburn for the season out on uh Ocean City Beach
[speaker001:] um I read an article a couple weeks ago they were talking about uh talking again about the ozone layer they said that the uh the ozone deteriorate is greater than they had originally thought over some of the major metropolitan areas that's a little bit scary to think about because that's certainly not going to improve things around there
[speaker002:] yes I didn't notice that uh know that they'd discovered any thinness or over metro metro areas I'd only heard about the uh North and South Pole
[speaker001:] yeah well that's that's yeah that had that had been the thing that had always I mean I I I have always thought about the ozone layer as sort of like a layer and it would move around I didn't know that the hole just stayed there you know I guess I I don't I'm not that much of a meteorologist but uh yeah I was a little surprised at that too because up to that point all I'd heard about was the one over the pole
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] and I said well I'm not too awfully concerned about that if it's going to start melting the ice cap it's not going to be for a long time yet but opening opening up over major metropolitan areas now that's uh that's
[speaker002:] yeah that that doesn't uh fit my picture of uh of uh meteorology I can understand the Poles because they're uh a permanent high pressure area
[speaker001:] yeah yeah
[speaker002:] and uh you know there isn't that much uh circulation but uh the temperate zone is uh a constant moving uh wind system
[speaker001:] yeah course the ozone is up there so
[speaker002:] and it's I'm surprised that the ozone doesn't have it's own wind pattern
[speaker001:] yeah I I mean didn't I don't even know I don't even know if the ozone layer does move I mean apparently it doesn't but of course it it might be just a couple of scientists trying to get their name in the paper sort of like cold fusion
[speaker002:] yeah cold fusion right the same thought flashed in my mind
[speaker001:] yeah I'll tell you I I was real excited when I first heard that I said hot dog they finally did it you know
[speaker002:] yeah I uh I may have put out an exclamation here at home when I heard that news
[speaker001:] um I too
[speaker002:] and uh everybody wanted to know why I was so excited and I tried to explain to them
[speaker001:] I mean I'm yeah I mean I'm an old science fiction buff from way back when I was a little boy and this is the kind of stuff that science fiction was made out of
[speaker002:] yeah uh-huh
[speaker001:] and it's the days that I keep looking for that aren't going to happen in my lifetime
[speaker002:] but
[speaker001:] you know we're supposed to have moon colonies by now but uh yeah cold fusion would have been great
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] could have gone might have started making a little inroads on air pollution with that
[speaker002:] I think so
[speaker001:] but who knows
[speaker002:] except we might have uh bad case of paladium poisoning now
[speaker001:] yeah yeah there's there's always a drawback to everything I mean I don't know well
[speaker002:] I know there was uh a pipeline going in up in uh southern Pennsylvania and there was a group in uh Bucks county that was fighting it and uh one of the women that was leading the group said well they say they're going to pump uh oil through there but before long they'll be pumping radioactivity through it
[speaker001:] okay