TRYING TO COPE WITH POLLUTION IN PARIS

TRYING TO COPE WITH POLLUTION IN PARIS

The past few days have seen a huge rise in the pollution levels here in Paris, and this has led to a series of hand wringing and blaming other people!

Politicians of all parties and colours blame each other for the current situation while refusing to consider what their respective party did/has done when they were able to. And weather forecasters even went so far as to blame the wind for not blowing the pollution away!

Although there are still a few die-hard climate change deniers, most intelligent people agree that humans are responsible for a large proportion of the pollution that hits our major cities on a regular basis. Unfortunately, they spend so much time disagreeing about what to do that the problem gets worse, health problems increase and the idea that a quick fix solution or a one-size-fits-all approach could make the difference.

Modern cars pollute less than old cars – but there are more of them now! And as Paris has grown in population in the 25 years that I have lived here, plus of course the fact that more people commute here every day from ever more distant suburbs (and in some cases, from provincial cities too – I know people who regularly come to Paris from both Tours and Orléans, both of which are more than an hour away by TGV!), it’s obvious that pollution levels continue to grow. Yet the ideas for alleviating this are quite risible.

One (serious) political group suggested having a series coloured flags to indicate pollution levels, copying the idea of whether it is safe to swim or not at the sea! Other people are all in favour of electric cars and claim they do not pollute at all…yet how do you build the cars and generate the electricity for them. And I believe that the national government should encourage people to leave the city and repopulate the emptying towns and countryside; if there are jobs, schools and universities there, the huge population imbalance between Paris and elsewhere could be significantly altered.

As it turned out, the local authorities “advised” us to stay indoors and public transport was free for a couple of days…while this may seem a good idea to encourage people to leave the car at home and travel by bus, metro, tram or whatever, it strikes me as being slightly unfair. I have already bought my travel pass while those who travel by car all the time – and thereby add to the pollution – are allowed to travel free of charge! What ever happened to the concept of the polluter pays?

Anyway, I stayed in on Saturday afternoon, windows locked, barred and bolted…and had a great time watching the final matches of the VIth Nations! Of course, I was disappointed that Scotland won the wooden spoon and that England beat France, all three matches were brilliant! It was amazing to see such wonderful rugby again as all six teams tried to score as many tries as possible.

Maybe the players have been staying in to avoid the pollution and read my posting “WANTED-MORE TRYS IN RUGBY!...”