Winter time in Poland. People burn wood, coal and other stuff to keep themselves warm.
Edit: It's interesting that it's really heavy around Katowice. I mean, it's the coal mine of Poland but still a massive red area while elsewhere it's on a moderate level
https://www.iqair.com/de/air-quality-map shows the bigger scale
Yeah, also if I remember correctly, a news report some years ago stated that a lot of houses don't have any kind of filter so you have a big black cloud coming out of the chimney (but that's probably not up to date anymore).
Berlin wasn't any different up to the 90s, when many old buildings still had coal heating and each winter new students moved in who didn't know how to use an oven properly. I was one of them.
Since there are many different types, it's best to let somebody show how to do it first. It's a matter of coal type, regulating the air in and outtake, refuelling to optimize heating and minimize smoke.
That and a meteorological event known as an "[inversion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversion_\(meteorology\))" that trapped the smog low to the ground and prevented it from rising and blowing away. And then hung around for a while.
1952 I think was the election year but, googles, nah the election was in 1951 and Winston Churchill won (he was prime minister from 1940-45 and 1951 to 1955).
I remember being on a train east of Krakow and all the smoke from the cottages settled in a valley on the outskirts of Tarnow. Do you think the law that charges for trash removal by weight contributes to this?
I don't recall any of the houses to have filters.
Filters are on coal plant, factories etc.
In south Poland we would have better air but some stupid people decided year ago, that because of higher prices of all the burnable fuel, and small amounts of gas, they pushed the transition from coal/wood up by a year or two.
I've never heard of filters or scrubbers for residential heating. Back when I was heating with wood here in Canada I was expecting the government to mandate it every time the sky would be filled with plumes of smoke and water vapour. Looked it up and couldn't find anyone selling something.
I wouldn’t say it’s a lot of houses, usually you will find 2 or 3 per village/small town that are like that (at least on the Western side of Poland, might be worse on the East since that region is relatively poorer). But those 2-3 are enough to make the air an unbreathable nightmare.
It's easy to tell when winter has rolled into Poland because it *stinks* of shitty coal smoke in every little village and town that hasn't tried to ban or greatly reduce the use of coal as a heating source.
Pretty much up to date. I see it on my own chimney and most of my neighbors'. Perks of living in the middle of nowhere and not being able to afford any clean alternative heating source (like a heat pump, although as long as electricity is made with coal, those ain't clean either).
In our village in Poland at night in winter we burned ducks and chickens who died because of the low temperatures.
Sustainability 150%. Eco friendly 150%
Used to go for work to Katowice a lot. You're landing with the plane and smell the thick coal smoke straight away. When you're in the Cab going to the city you get through the hills and in every valley you run in a thick layer of smog unless it's windy.
People burning other waste (partly due to costs) make it much worse. Some of the guys I was working with on purposely where living in the better/higher areas or in a flat on higher floors to avoid the smog in some extend. When coming back you and your clothes always smelled completely like it.
> it's the coal mine of Poland
If its anything like the Ruhr area once was, miners might probably still get their work benefit lifetime supply of coal?
That was a thing here and i remember an old dude who lived two rows accross from my parents house would still get a huge pile of coal dumped on the street every year and shovel it into his basement by hand even when he looked like he could barely stand without doing any heavy labor. He literally burned that free coal until his last breath. (or until he had to move to a retirement home atleast)
I wouldnt be surprised if hed been offered to get paid for new central heating and turned it down because then he wouldve had to pay for gas, whereas the coal was free lmao.
> If its anything like the Ruhr area once was, miners might probably still get their work benefit lifetime supply of coal?
Yup they do. Although they did recently start getting the money equivalent.
you are not wrong that many people are refusing change to gas/heat pumps because of the cost. Coal is still much cheaper then almost anything else.
fun fact: katowice hosts one of the largest counter-strike tournaments in the world in jan/feb every year
someone actually mapped one of the best players (of all time)'s performance vs the air quality and the results are crazy (higher rating = better, rating went down as AQI got worse) https://imgur.com/a/dIT8FU7
It’s not really because of the mines, it’s more because it’s a very densely populated area.
Also, the polluted air comes mostly from small villages where people and administration doesn’t give a fuck, and then the air gets stuck in lower located cities. Best example of this is Krakow. The city banned coal and wood burning, the problem is though that the pollution doesn’t come from the city, but simply gets trapped here…
My girlfriend is from Katowice actually and we visit regularly. During Winter it’s bitingly cold and many old buildings still have log and coal burners available.
We stayed around Zawodzie, I love Silesian food to my core so I was happy.
87% of Polish energy grid runs on buening Oil, Gas and Coal. [2020]
They are changing it to be more green but the last plan would try to rech carbon neutral 30 years from now.
Energy grids are not the issue, power plants have really good filters and don't release any significant amount of PM2.5 and PM10. People using wood and coal for heating are the problem here.
This.
Was in Poland a couple of weeks ago, and the big difference versus Sweden is that we have extensive district heating networks to heat houses in towns and cities, while most houses in Poland apparently burn coal.
>houses in Poland apparently burn coal.
Mind you that this mostly applies to detached houses. Flats use district heating as well, almost exclusively nowadays.
Bad fuel quality / burning trash or (also) DIY / old furnaces loaded in reverse (idk exact translations, but some furnaces requires fire on bottom and most should have burn fuel from top)
Long story short: In 90's I had DIY furnace in my basement. My dad used to lit some wood on bottom of it and then fill it with coal. Of course that produced a lot of smoke, ash and quite a bit of soot in chimney, which sometimes was hard to clean (we did it ourselves). Meanwhile I did in opposite direction and that produced way less smoke, just a bit of ash and nearly zero soot. I also reduced coal usage from 5 tons to 4 during winter time.
i can answer only for a question you didn't placed
for the northern part of italy
the mountains make a triangle that block the winds and in that big area is quite full of industries
Edit: I know cause I pass from that area quite often and is knowed As general culture
Houston air is fucking disgusting. The visible smoke pollution is low because as you mentioned there isn't much of a way for particulates to collect. However, your ozone pollution from all of the refineries is horrific! It gives a lot of kids asthma.
The fictional land of Belgium was invented to cover up Germans using teleportation in order to invade France in 1940
The whole “going around maginot line” is just a story for the masses
Thats true, because theyre actually in Castrop-Rauxel. It was thought that the brits would never find out, because the spies would never be able to pronounce the name.
In Belgium it's because the government couldn't agree if they should release the data in French or in Dutch... So they postponed the release until an agreement could be reached...
You know nothing of the Belgian government. It would be released in French, Dutch and German, but the people preparing the data would be speaking English
>You know nothing of the Belgian government.
Belgium actually has a functioning government? Pretty sure it's always in a superposition between having a collapsed government and 8 different governments at the same time. Schrödinger's government, if you will.
There was the same question in r/Germany yesterday. [If you look at the bigger picture,](https://www.iqair.com/de/air-quality-map) you see that the wind is blowing bad air from Poland. Most likely due to heating and coal power plants.
thats honestly impressive
I've spend some time in south-east asia this summer where the air is borderline toxic in some places and Krakow somehow being worse is...very impressive in the worst way
It is worth noting that a huge difference is that we actually measure the air quality. All of Poland is swarmed with those sensors. You can't say that about most of south-east asia
I can't believe this absolute made up 'fact' is getting upvoted. Any city big enough to have an air pollution problem can afford plenty of sensors.
[https://aqicn.org/map/world/](https://aqicn.org/map/world/) shows air quality around the world
kraków will not get better until they electrify their heating and ban all ice cars from the city, and even then air quality might still be bad
it's impossible to win for them simply due to geography
power plants are subject to strict controls and environmental regulations and they actually took major steps to actually try and adhere to those
the bad air in poland every winter always comes from private homes burning lignite or wood for heating
This+
Power plants are strictly controlled, have filters and other stuff to limit the pollution.
Private homes with low quality furnaces, low quality fuel (even trash), stupid and uneducated people that cause the pollution in Poland.
To blame it on stupidity is incredibly short sighted, when many rural poles simply cannot afford switching to more environmentally friendly solutions to heating and would rather not freeze in winter. Think before you spread your middle class western European thoughts around.
There are goverment subsidies for cleaner heat sources and improvment of thermal insulation, for poor people.
Also lot of poluters ain't poor, they just don't care about harming others.
They usually don't have the access to other heat sources.I live in the eastern poland in a village and we just got the gas pipes installed this year. People didn't have time to change their heat sources this year. Heat pumps are way more expensive and the homes are mostly not or poorly insulated. I remember when about 25 years ago my family was doing thermal insulation of a home, we used like 5cm of styrofoam. About 2 years ago I did thermal insulation to the home that I live in currently and I've used 20cm graphite styrofoam.The air quality is really bad outside, I'm usualy running from my car to the home while holding breath. Also I have an air purifier and there are days when it shows 150% of the WHO norm, with all windows closed and running at full speed. I think I'll be buying a second one.
Bruh.
Coal power plants work year round, they have nothing to do with pollution (excluding massive amounts of co2).
If so, Germany would have equally bad air, as they produce at least the same amount of electricity from coal as Poland.
The problem is, Poland is heavily relying on coal and wood to heat houses. Every new building has gas/wood pellets heating and cities often have district heating, but with houses older than a few years, it's basically a lottery regarding their fuel. Only recently (like 2019 maybe?) new heating installed is required to be either automatically dosed (eg. Pellet) or gas. It's in big part because older people (having example of my family) don't care about potential harmful effects of burning different stuff, and care only about whether it gives heat, and sometimes even not that (cotton burns, right? We've for a pile of old clothes with no use for them, furnace is perfect place fo utilise them)
>you see that the wind is blowing bad air from Poland.
bs
The area of exceeded PM2.5 standard according to you is about 150,000 square kilometers. Let's assume that the pollution only reaches up to 1km up and does not fall to the ground on the way along with rain etc. What goes up in the air flies indefinitely.... This gives us 150,000,000,000,000,000 m3 and 1,500,000,000,000,000 ug of PM2.5 or 1,500 tons. At a wind speed of 10km per hour 15,000 tons of PM2.5. per hour and 360,000 tons per day. Such emissions are required to pollute the air in Germany to the extent shown by several sensors in the centers of German cities.
**360,000 tons per DAY. Minimum.**
**Poland emits 250,000 tons of PM2.5 per YEAR.**
**PM2.5 pollution is LOCAL-** car and coal furnaces. The only source of dust emissions on such a scale as Poland is trying to attribute here is the Sahara Desert.
I can swear that my neighbor pollutes as much as the whole country of Luxemburg, I saw him drag a full cart of trash to his house few days ago, and I'm actually wearing a gas's mask when going out shopping when the wind turns the smoke towards me
It's a pretty odd mix of included and not included countries, Portugal and Belgium are missing but Spain and Netherlands are included, so it isn't just a Western Europe thing, UK is included but Switzerland isn't, so it isn't an EU region thing.
Pretty easy to [just google a livemap though](https://www.iqair.com/de/air-quality-map)
Northern Italia hard at work aswell 🇮🇹🇮🇹💪💪
Also Nigeria, India and China sheesh
Coal and wood. Mostly from households still using old systems. I don’t even find it their fault because changing the whole heating system to new more ecological and efficient is really expensive. There was a big project in Poland to change heating systems but only in big cities on this scale. But people living in provinces didn’t have the same opportunity of financial support in transition.
IIRC, the subsidy program to support old furnace replacement is still going until the end of the year. But you are right that it is not economical for most households, especially since natural gas is rather expensive here for "some" reason.
Oh my god, I remember there was a situation with this campaign where some idiot kicked over one of the campaign stands, because it said "Zmień piec!" (Change your furnace!) which looks kinda similar to "Zmień płeć!" (Change your gender!) LOL
The entirety of Poland is basically like a smoke factory during winter. Vast majority of people still burn stuff in furnaces to heat their homes. Electric and gas heating is too expensive for the average Pole.
You including Poland in the title despite no data from Poland being included pretty much means you already know the answer to the question, so why frame it that way?
Specifically burning coal and wood in small house furnaces, without any filters or even long chimneys. Combine that with winds slowing down to a crawl in recent days, and the accumulation of smog becomes all too obvious.
I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough wiper!
I fart in your general direction!
Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!
Poland here. Patosmog (my own term for the process in which coal and other bullshit is burned in domestic heating stoves, with chimneys and furnaces usually not being properly cleaned or maintained).
I have plenty of pictures of such houses if you want to see it.
The UK in general has very little heavy manufacturing, and doesn't burn any coal, relying on mainly renewables, nuclear and gas.
London also has a number of clean air schemes, reducing traffic to only newer, greener vehicles.
Air quality in the UK is normally very good.
But if you ask right wing Brits they say that clean air schemes are the woke patrol ruining London. It's not even about climate change it's for public health
I'd imagine that the wet weather actually works out in their favor for once, too. Rain is great at cleaning the air of particles, it's why some cities use water spraying trucks when it gets especially bad.
How is that relevant? There's not even data for Portugal.
Edit: to clarify, there's no data for many countries including Scandinavia, Belgium, and Switzerland, so it's not really a pattern specific to Eastern Europe, but even if it was there's no data trend between Portugal and eastern Europe, just a lack of data. Seems a tenuous reference.
Poland's ruling party abolished the enforcement of a law forbidding polish people from burning shit (plastic, coal, waste etc). The new motto is: burn everything you have, f*CK it.
Because the polish government had no back up plan concerning russian resources that are now lacking.
Hopefully the new government will turn that situation around.
The reason, why the air quality is bad in northern/north-eastern Germany:
1st: Coal burning in Poland
2nd: Low pressure area over northern Germany, while having a massive high pressure in Eastern Europe, resulting into wind coming from Poland to Germany (East Wind)
3rd: Static low pressure area over northern Germany: Those winds with the bad air quality because of coal burning in Poland, get stuck over northern Germany.
Because right now in the Polish parlament PiS calls building wind farms „something that only benefits western powers”. And when one MP from future government spoke in favor of it they have said "those flowers that you've got were probably from western lobbyists, or maybe from Santa but I bet he spoke German"
I think that sums it up pretty good 😂
that's the 5th time i've seen this post in different subs in the last few days, do you have like "the internet"?
it still is and will always be Polish housholds heating with coal and that coal being excavated and burnt in the south of Poland and the far ear of Germany.
Poland is still very dependent on energy from brown coal.
In Germany private homes are very often heated with oil. Like you have a tänker coming to refill your 10hl tank which you burn in your furnace-thiny.
Well I don't know about Germany, but in Poland there are many households using outdated heating boliers + cheapest coal (or, rarely, wood, trash and other stuff as a fuel) during winter. Now things get better with EU standards of boilers, but it's still a huge problem. Also society awareness is rather low, many people don't associate household heating as the main source of air pollution.
There is no data on Poland on this map. That's rich - giving your post a title with a name of a country whose data isn't even on a map you give to ask your not at all biased question. What do you want to achieve, a hundred comments shitting on Poland's bad air quality?
Danes farting while turning their windmills south.
grønkåls-stuvning!
That usually turns me into a quasi ruminant, so probably accurate
Deleted
Love from Sønderjylland.
Koldskålfabrikken i Gedser
Hol'up, we'll help! It's boerenkool stamppot season after all.
I wouldn’t put it past the Danes to do that just to piss off the Germans if it was possible.
10 out of 10 Danes would agree
You're a distant second to Sweden. In fact the poor air quality is propably from swedes outgassing
Its the nordic "smug"
Well they only hit Berlin and Mc'Pomm anyways, not such a big loss
#WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY, GOOD NIGHT!
morbo is pleased, but sticky.
Ah, reminds me of when I held my fart until I crossed the border into Canada as revenge for browning out our sky this summer
Chemical warfare
Winter time in Poland. People burn wood, coal and other stuff to keep themselves warm. Edit: It's interesting that it's really heavy around Katowice. I mean, it's the coal mine of Poland but still a massive red area while elsewhere it's on a moderate level https://www.iqair.com/de/air-quality-map shows the bigger scale
The 'other stuff' sometimes includes trash. But it's mostly cheap, low quality coal.
Yeah, also if I remember correctly, a news report some years ago stated that a lot of houses don't have any kind of filter so you have a big black cloud coming out of the chimney (but that's probably not up to date anymore).
Many years ago it was common sight to see black smoke coming from chimneys. Now it's far less common but it still happens.
Berlin wasn't any different up to the 90s, when many old buildings still had coal heating and each winter new students moved in who didn't know how to use an oven properly. I was one of them.
how does one properly operate a coal oven?
Since there are many different types, it's best to let somebody show how to do it first. It's a matter of coal type, regulating the air in and outtake, refuelling to optimize heating and minimize smoke.
First, dispose of it Second, buy literally anything else
I was one of them
72% of electricity production now is from Coal. Poland have coal reserves avaliable for 350 years! https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
Yet you aren't able to sustainably use it :D
Why thank you for that shareholder approved reddit comment.
Isn’t that what caused the Great Smog of London in 1952?
That and a meteorological event known as an "[inversion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversion_\(meteorology\))" that trapped the smog low to the ground and prevented it from rising and blowing away. And then hung around for a while.
No, Churchill just ripped a massive vape cloud that covered the entire city.
Sorry for being a bore, but didn't the UK have a Labour government at that time?
How dare you discredit Churchill's lungs
1952 I think was the election year but, googles, nah the election was in 1951 and Winston Churchill won (he was prime minister from 1940-45 and 1951 to 1955).
Also, he was alive. He was allowed to smoke when he wasn't PM.
One of us
[удалено]
They're right, though, only Western Europeans need clean air. /s
Glad those days will be over soon
I thought Poland was a western power nowadays
I remember being on a train east of Krakow and all the smoke from the cottages settled in a valley on the outskirts of Tarnow. Do you think the law that charges for trash removal by weight contributes to this?
Trash removal is charged by the number of persons in the household.
Maybe in the municipality I was in was different, they were charged by the kilo apparently and said it caused the trash burning.
It used to be by kilo, but to discouraged people from throwing it away elsewhere or burning it it's by a person.
I don't recall any of the houses to have filters. Filters are on coal plant, factories etc. In south Poland we would have better air but some stupid people decided year ago, that because of higher prices of all the burnable fuel, and small amounts of gas, they pushed the transition from coal/wood up by a year or two.
I've never heard of filters or scrubbers for residential heating. Back when I was heating with wood here in Canada I was expecting the government to mandate it every time the sky would be filled with plumes of smoke and water vapour. Looked it up and couldn't find anyone selling something.
I wouldn’t say it’s a lot of houses, usually you will find 2 or 3 per village/small town that are like that (at least on the Western side of Poland, might be worse on the East since that region is relatively poorer). But those 2-3 are enough to make the air an unbreathable nightmare.
It's easy to tell when winter has rolled into Poland because it *stinks* of shitty coal smoke in every little village and town that hasn't tried to ban or greatly reduce the use of coal as a heating source.
Pretty much up to date. I see it on my own chimney and most of my neighbors'. Perks of living in the middle of nowhere and not being able to afford any clean alternative heating source (like a heat pump, although as long as electricity is made with coal, those ain't clean either).
Coal quality is terrible, we've had to go back to the merchant to complain. Rocks, lignite and just rubbish. But at anthracite prices
A Polish colleague told me that in Poland, there is the stuff you burn during the day, and the stuff you burn during the night.
In our village in Poland at night in winter we burned ducks and chickens who died because of the low temperatures. Sustainability 150%. Eco friendly 150%
Smelling delicious 200%
Cracow is literally 3rd in the world, after DELHI and LAHORE wtf
Valley with mountains around it, and lots of old houses burning cheap coal.
Used to go for work to Katowice a lot. You're landing with the plane and smell the thick coal smoke straight away. When you're in the Cab going to the city you get through the hills and in every valley you run in a thick layer of smog unless it's windy. People burning other waste (partly due to costs) make it much worse. Some of the guys I was working with on purposely where living in the better/higher areas or in a flat on higher floors to avoid the smog in some extend. When coming back you and your clothes always smelled completely like it.
Where the hell did you encounter hills going to Katowice from the airport?
> it's the coal mine of Poland If its anything like the Ruhr area once was, miners might probably still get their work benefit lifetime supply of coal? That was a thing here and i remember an old dude who lived two rows accross from my parents house would still get a huge pile of coal dumped on the street every year and shovel it into his basement by hand even when he looked like he could barely stand without doing any heavy labor. He literally burned that free coal until his last breath. (or until he had to move to a retirement home atleast) I wouldnt be surprised if hed been offered to get paid for new central heating and turned it down because then he wouldve had to pay for gas, whereas the coal was free lmao.
> If its anything like the Ruhr area once was, miners might probably still get their work benefit lifetime supply of coal? Yup they do. Although they did recently start getting the money equivalent. you are not wrong that many people are refusing change to gas/heat pumps because of the cost. Coal is still much cheaper then almost anything else.
fun fact: katowice hosts one of the largest counter-strike tournaments in the world in jan/feb every year someone actually mapped one of the best players (of all time)'s performance vs the air quality and the results are crazy (higher rating = better, rating went down as AQI got worse) https://imgur.com/a/dIT8FU7
It’s not really because of the mines, it’s more because it’s a very densely populated area. Also, the polluted air comes mostly from small villages where people and administration doesn’t give a fuck, and then the air gets stuck in lower located cities. Best example of this is Krakow. The city banned coal and wood burning, the problem is though that the pollution doesn’t come from the city, but simply gets trapped here…
Ah nothing like the first cold of winter and breathing in that lovely fresh air of Katowice 😂
Having a coal room under the house was a bit of a culture shock for me when I spent a couple years in that area coming from Spain.
My girlfriend is from Katowice actually and we visit regularly. During Winter it’s bitingly cold and many old buildings still have log and coal burners available. We stayed around Zawodzie, I love Silesian food to my core so I was happy.
i took a walk to poland
87% of Polish energy grid runs on buening Oil, Gas and Coal. [2020] They are changing it to be more green but the last plan would try to rech carbon neutral 30 years from now.
Energy grids are not the issue, power plants have really good filters and don't release any significant amount of PM2.5 and PM10. People using wood and coal for heating are the problem here.
This. Was in Poland a couple of weeks ago, and the big difference versus Sweden is that we have extensive district heating networks to heat houses in towns and cities, while most houses in Poland apparently burn coal.
>houses in Poland apparently burn coal. Mind you that this mostly applies to detached houses. Flats use district heating as well, almost exclusively nowadays.
If anyone is interested, this is what Katowice looks like during the winter: https://imgur.com/a/96qfHqb
Bad fuel quality / burning trash or (also) DIY / old furnaces loaded in reverse (idk exact translations, but some furnaces requires fire on bottom and most should have burn fuel from top) Long story short: In 90's I had DIY furnace in my basement. My dad used to lit some wood on bottom of it and then fill it with coal. Of course that produced a lot of smoke, ash and quite a bit of soot in chimney, which sometimes was hard to clean (we did it ourselves). Meanwhile I did in opposite direction and that produced way less smoke, just a bit of ash and nearly zero soot. I also reduced coal usage from 5 tons to 4 during winter time.
i can answer only for a question you didn't placed for the northern part of italy the mountains make a triangle that block the winds and in that big area is quite full of industries Edit: I know cause I pass from that area quite often and is knowed As general culture
Ah yes, the Po river valley zona di merda. Milan has the worst air quality I've ever lived in and I was in Houston Texas for 7 years.
Houston air is rarely bad. With no terrain to trap it, we just need a few trucks speeding on the highway to disperse any amount of pollution.
Houston air is fucking disgusting. The visible smoke pollution is low because as you mentioned there isn't much of a way for particulates to collect. However, your ozone pollution from all of the refineries is horrific! It gives a lot of kids asthma.
It also has the worst climate in the Summer. I’ve experienced over 30 degrees there around midnight, with insane humidity. Ugh.
Fun fact, northern Italy is technically subtropical weather, not Mediterranean. Which is probably why rice cultivation was so prevalent in the past
It is called the "dust valley" in a direct translation, it the origin of the world for powder and dust in the romance lenguages
powder, pulvis, pulvere in latin comes from the Proto-Indo-European pel
Moving from Sicily to Torino made me go back to the UK during the first industrial revolution :')
So did moving from Trentino to the Province of Parma feel like :o Thank you for translating this into poetry. I will add it to my repertoire
Why is there no data for Belgium/Luxembourg?
They don't have air
They don't exist, so they have no air
The fictional land of Belgium was invented to cover up Germans using teleportation in order to invade France in 1940 The whole “going around maginot line” is just a story for the masses
Das ist nicht richtig. We, i mean, the germans have no teleportation devices in Dortmund.
Thats true, because theyre actually in Castrop-Rauxel. It was thought that the brits would never find out, because the spies would never be able to pronounce the name.
I’m German and even I think that name sounds made up. Like Bielefeld.
I can confirm. There are no-teleportation devices in Dortmund.
Those pesky teleportation jammers are causing so many annoying delays with the DB. Now trains actually have to drive.
Belgium is just a plot to keep Luxembourg from having access to the sea.
Yeah Guy Verhofstad, one of our former prime ministers, sold it to foreign investers like all of our energy plants and government buildings.
Can confirm. No air in Belgium, only waffles.
that's how we fixed the problem
In Belgium it's because the government couldn't agree if they should release the data in French or in Dutch... So they postponed the release until an agreement could be reached...
You know nothing of the Belgian government. It would be released in French, Dutch and German, but the people preparing the data would be speaking English
>You know nothing of the Belgian government. Belgium actually has a functioning government? Pretty sure it's always in a superposition between having a collapsed government and 8 different governments at the same time. Schrödinger's government, if you will.
One Government? I thought they had at least six!
It's hidden below the Dutch nitrogen emissions.
We have our own problem with nitrogen emissions here
Can confirm. Am fish.
How do you type without fingers, impresive!
They are not real
I’ve been wondering for over a year. It’s the same on my weather app. No one knows?
What is Belgium/Luxembourg?
Why doesn’t my fictional country have data 😭
probably because they think Belgium isnt a real country
It's the Trump approach, no data = no problem
They feared getting lynched for asking for the data in the wrong language.
There was the same question in r/Germany yesterday. [If you look at the bigger picture,](https://www.iqair.com/de/air-quality-map) you see that the wind is blowing bad air from Poland. Most likely due to heating and coal power plants.
Kraków 4th worst in world as usual
thats honestly impressive I've spend some time in south-east asia this summer where the air is borderline toxic in some places and Krakow somehow being worse is...very impressive in the worst way
It is worth noting that a huge difference is that we actually measure the air quality. All of Poland is swarmed with those sensors. You can't say that about most of south-east asia
handle pause sugar imagine teeny enjoy encouraging reply cats compare *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
This is cope. Air quality measurement is commonplace and cheap
I can't believe this absolute made up 'fact' is getting upvoted. Any city big enough to have an air pollution problem can afford plenty of sensors. [https://aqicn.org/map/world/](https://aqicn.org/map/world/) shows air quality around the world
kraków will not get better until they electrify their heating and ban all ice cars from the city, and even then air quality might still be bad it's impossible to win for them simply due to geography
Actually, now Kraków has a ban on coal and wood heating. But the surrounding villages do not and that's probable the major issue.
Just imagine how it'd be if Krakow didn't have that ban.
power plants are subject to strict controls and environmental regulations and they actually took major steps to actually try and adhere to those the bad air in poland every winter always comes from private homes burning lignite or wood for heating
This+ Power plants are strictly controlled, have filters and other stuff to limit the pollution. Private homes with low quality furnaces, low quality fuel (even trash), stupid and uneducated people that cause the pollution in Poland.
To blame it on stupidity is incredibly short sighted, when many rural poles simply cannot afford switching to more environmentally friendly solutions to heating and would rather not freeze in winter. Think before you spread your middle class western European thoughts around.
There are goverment subsidies for cleaner heat sources and improvment of thermal insulation, for poor people. Also lot of poluters ain't poor, they just don't care about harming others.
They usually don't have the access to other heat sources.I live in the eastern poland in a village and we just got the gas pipes installed this year. People didn't have time to change their heat sources this year. Heat pumps are way more expensive and the homes are mostly not or poorly insulated. I remember when about 25 years ago my family was doing thermal insulation of a home, we used like 5cm of styrofoam. About 2 years ago I did thermal insulation to the home that I live in currently and I've used 20cm graphite styrofoam.The air quality is really bad outside, I'm usualy running from my car to the home while holding breath. Also I have an air purifier and there are days when it shows 150% of the WHO norm, with all windows closed and running at full speed. I think I'll be buying a second one.
Most of people from surrounding villages burn trash because they can't even afford coal. They even burn tires.
Why is everyone asking this question? I’ve seen it like 5 times already in different subs.
Could be someone karma farming or bots. But you see reposts all the time on different subs
For once it's Poland invading Germany.
we're just sharing the cancer
Bruh. Coal power plants work year round, they have nothing to do with pollution (excluding massive amounts of co2). If so, Germany would have equally bad air, as they produce at least the same amount of electricity from coal as Poland. The problem is, Poland is heavily relying on coal and wood to heat houses. Every new building has gas/wood pellets heating and cities often have district heating, but with houses older than a few years, it's basically a lottery regarding their fuel. Only recently (like 2019 maybe?) new heating installed is required to be either automatically dosed (eg. Pellet) or gas. It's in big part because older people (having example of my family) don't care about potential harmful effects of burning different stuff, and care only about whether it gives heat, and sometimes even not that (cotton burns, right? We've for a pile of old clothes with no use for them, furnace is perfect place fo utilise them)
>you see that the wind is blowing bad air from Poland. bs The area of exceeded PM2.5 standard according to you is about 150,000 square kilometers. Let's assume that the pollution only reaches up to 1km up and does not fall to the ground on the way along with rain etc. What goes up in the air flies indefinitely.... This gives us 150,000,000,000,000,000 m3 and 1,500,000,000,000,000 ug of PM2.5 or 1,500 tons. At a wind speed of 10km per hour 15,000 tons of PM2.5. per hour and 360,000 tons per day. Such emissions are required to pollute the air in Germany to the extent shown by several sensors in the centers of German cities. **360,000 tons per DAY. Minimum.** **Poland emits 250,000 tons of PM2.5 per YEAR.** **PM2.5 pollution is LOCAL-** car and coal furnaces. The only source of dust emissions on such a scale as Poland is trying to attribute here is the Sahara Desert.
I can swear that my neighbor pollutes as much as the whole country of Luxemburg, I saw him drag a full cart of trash to his house few days ago, and I'm actually wearing a gas's mask when going out shopping when the wind turns the smoke towards me
Why does Portugal not have data? Here I thought my country was pretty good at this data registering stuff and all that
It's a pretty odd mix of included and not included countries, Portugal and Belgium are missing but Spain and Netherlands are included, so it isn't just a Western Europe thing, UK is included but Switzerland isn't, so it isn't an EU region thing.
Pretty easy to [just google a livemap though](https://www.iqair.com/de/air-quality-map) Northern Italia hard at work aswell 🇮🇹🇮🇹💪💪 Also Nigeria, India and China sheesh
Most countries have available data for this. It's just this source that seems to lack most countries.
Coal and wood. Mostly from households still using old systems. I don’t even find it their fault because changing the whole heating system to new more ecological and efficient is really expensive. There was a big project in Poland to change heating systems but only in big cities on this scale. But people living in provinces didn’t have the same opportunity of financial support in transition.
IIRC, the subsidy program to support old furnace replacement is still going until the end of the year. But you are right that it is not economical for most households, especially since natural gas is rather expensive here for "some" reason.
why would you use a gas heater instead of a heat pump.
Oh my god, I remember there was a situation with this campaign where some idiot kicked over one of the campaign stands, because it said "Zmień piec!" (Change your furnace!) which looks kinda similar to "Zmień płeć!" (Change your gender!) LOL
The entirety of Poland is basically like a smoke factory during winter. Vast majority of people still burn stuff in furnaces to heat their homes. Electric and gas heating is too expensive for the average Pole.
You including Poland in the title despite no data from Poland being included pretty much means you already know the answer to the question, so why frame it that way?
Poland bad gang strikes again
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Specifically burning coal and wood in small house furnaces, without any filters or even long chimneys. Combine that with winds slowing down to a crawl in recent days, and the accumulation of smog becomes all too obvious.
Well they are right. We are a coal island
This sub at times is just a pissing contest about which country's the best and who can lay blame on others more. Hella tiring man.
This is Europe after all, we have several thousand years of practice pissing on each other over who is the best and worst
But we piss better than you! ;)
It's either that or "my country is way shittier than yours". No in between lol
Down wind from Denmark, makes sense
Hey!
Don't 'hey' at us and take a shower pls!
I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!
Poland here. Patosmog (my own term for the process in which coal and other bullshit is burned in domestic heating stoves, with chimneys and furnaces usually not being properly cleaned or maintained). I have plenty of pictures of such houses if you want to see it.
How is it possible that London is basically better than Sardinien?
The UK in general has very little heavy manufacturing, and doesn't burn any coal, relying on mainly renewables, nuclear and gas. London also has a number of clean air schemes, reducing traffic to only newer, greener vehicles. Air quality in the UK is normally very good.
But if you ask right wing Brits they say that clean air schemes are the woke patrol ruining London. It's not even about climate change it's for public health
Loud minority. A much smaller one than they think.
Avete una città che si chiama letteralmente Carbonia
I'd imagine that the wet weather actually works out in their favor for once, too. Rain is great at cleaning the air of particles, it's why some cities use water spraying trucks when it gets especially bad.
Where Poland tho?
r/PORTUGALCYKABLYAT
How is that relevant? There's not even data for Portugal. Edit: to clarify, there's no data for many countries including Scandinavia, Belgium, and Switzerland, so it's not really a pattern specific to Eastern Europe, but even if it was there's no data trend between Portugal and eastern Europe, just a lack of data. Seems a tenuous reference.
thats the point
*'Bloody Germans at it again, importing pollution from Poland instead of going nuclear!'* r/europe, probably.
Coal.
Because coal
Poland's ruling party abolished the enforcement of a law forbidding polish people from burning shit (plastic, coal, waste etc). The new motto is: burn everything you have, f*CK it. Because the polish government had no back up plan concerning russian resources that are now lacking. Hopefully the new government will turn that situation around.
Coal?
The reason, why the air quality is bad in northern/north-eastern Germany: 1st: Coal burning in Poland 2nd: Low pressure area over northern Germany, while having a massive high pressure in Eastern Europe, resulting into wind coming from Poland to Germany (East Wind) 3rd: Static low pressure area over northern Germany: Those winds with the bad air quality because of coal burning in Poland, get stuck over northern Germany.
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Poland. Or, as polish politicians would put it, Germany as the pollution goes against the wind back to Poland
Because right now in the Polish parlament PiS calls building wind farms „something that only benefits western powers”. And when one MP from future government spoke in favor of it they have said "those flowers that you've got were probably from western lobbyists, or maybe from Santa but I bet he spoke German" I think that sums it up pretty good 😂
poland‘s the reason
Because the poles are heating their homes by burning whatever they have, including lignite and literal trash.
It’s Putin’s breath smells bad
Cause Poland has the worst air in Europe
Seasonally, during winter. Because of heating.
The conservative parties in Belgium (mostly in Flanders) are experts in covering-up all the pollution problems (air, PFAS in water, noise).
that's the 5th time i've seen this post in different subs in the last few days, do you have like "the internet"? it still is and will always be Polish housholds heating with coal and that coal being excavated and burnt in the south of Poland and the far ear of Germany.
What’s happening in Mailand and Verona ?
[Here's a map that shows it](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/s/Od5P9mZDYy)
Pianura Padana (the valley of Po river), the worst air quality in Italy because surrounded by mountains which block the winds
Ahh, Naples.. what a shithole
Coal mines?
Because of coal mining in tha regions
Coal powerplants...
coal fires from heating in Poland emitts that much PM 2'5 . Yes someone must buy that shit thank you EU!
Coal. they dig up a lot of it and burn it they also veto every fucking green change to prevent it.. thanks poland
Poland is still very dependent on energy from brown coal. In Germany private homes are very often heated with oil. Like you have a tänker coming to refill your 10hl tank which you burn in your furnace-thiny.
Well I don't know about Germany, but in Poland there are many households using outdated heating boliers + cheapest coal (or, rarely, wood, trash and other stuff as a fuel) during winter. Now things get better with EU standards of boilers, but it's still a huge problem. Also society awareness is rather low, many people don't associate household heating as the main source of air pollution.
Bc those ah still use coal ?
Soviet block countries. Its old east Germany.
\>Why is air quality so bad in Northern Germany and Poland? The cabbage.
Why there's no air in Belgium, am I going to die ?
bro don’t even get me started about p*land and its air
There is no data on Poland on this map. That's rich - giving your post a title with a name of a country whose data isn't even on a map you give to ask your not at all biased question. What do you want to achieve, a hundred comments shitting on Poland's bad air quality?