Visibility in European Ecological Villages

[michael edward badolato jr]

The biggest reason for feeling tired, old, or developing serious disease is the chronic presence of added fats (oils or solid fat) in most commercially prepared food. Fats, including oils, promote oxidative stress; and denser in calories produce a gradual weight gain, and increased possibility of breast cancer. 

Reversing the problem is to avoid added fats (including oils) by care in your selection and preparation of food. Even what you might think of as a small amount of oil, is a lot.

Also, it is important to get enough walking (or running), which is called weight bearing exercise.

Together, proper diet and exercise reduces the body adipose tissue quantity, and also changes the tissue fatty acid composition which reflects the fatty acid composition of the food consumed. Because the consumption of added fats (including oils) sludges blood components short term and narrows arteries with plaque deposits long term, reversing the problem by avoiding added fats (including oils) results in better flow of blood components enhancing delivery of oxygen and nutrients, and also allowing better removal of toxins or other debris from the tissue. Hardened plaque may take 1-2 years to dissolve.

Europe
Good visibility outside population centers in Europe is considered as 40–50 km. These values have been found independent of the location in central Europe, thus this represents the average European “clean” air. Under rare occasions (normally rapid change of air mass) the visibility can be 100–150 km. In towns, the visibility is a factor of approximately 2 lower. In comparison to this the visibility in remote regions of North and South America is larger by a factor of 2–4.

Obviously the lower visibility in Europe is caused by its higher population density. Since the majority of visibility reducing particulate emissions come from small sources such as cars or heating, the emissions per unit area can be considered proportional to the population density. Using a simple box model and the visibility measured in central Europe and in Vienna, the difference in visibility inside and outside the town can be explained quantitatively. It thus is confirmed, that the generally low visibility in central Europe is a consequence of the emissions in connection with human activities and the low visibility (compared, e.g. to North or South America) in remote location such as the Alps is caused by the average European pollution.

USA

Figure 2-1 shows that the mountainous Southwest has the best visibility in the country. Median standard visual range exceeds 150 km in the region comprising Utah, Colorado, Nevada, northern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southwestern Wyoming. In the adjoining regions to the north and south, median standard visual range is also quite good, exceeding 100 km. However, visual range decreases sharply to the east and west of this area. Median visual range falls to less than 50 km in a narrow band along the northern Pacific coast, less than 30 km in the central valley of California, and to less than 15 km in the Los Angeles basin (Trijonis, 1982a). Although some parts of the East (e.g., New England) have moderately good visibility levels (about 40–60 km), median visual range is generally less than 30 km in the large area east of the Mississippi and south of the Great Lakes.

Observations show a distinct relationship between visual range and altitude. On average, visual range is somewhat greater at higher altitudes than in the surrounding areas (Trijonis, 1982a; Air Resources Specialists, 1988). Many national parks are located at higher elevations than the sites from which the data were obtained for Figure 2-1, and the visual range in some national parks could be as much as 50% higher than indicated in the figure (Trijonis et al., 1990).

The National Park Service (NPS) routinely measures particle concentrations and composition in many national parks and wilderness areas. Most of those parks and wilderness areas are located in the West; consequently, few data are collected for the eastern portion of the country. The geographical patterns in the annual average data are summarized in Figures 2-2 through 2-7, which show fine-particle (less than 2.5 µm diameter) mass concentration (Figure 2-2), fine particulate sulfur (Figure 2-3), fine soil-derived materials (Figure 2-4), and absorption coefficient (Figure 2-5). (The absorption coefficient is directly related to the concentration of elemental carbon.) Figure 2-6 shows the distribution of the remaining fine-particle mass (the total fine-particle mass minus the concentrations of fine sulfate, elemental carbon, and soil particles). Figure 2-7 presents data for estimated nonsulfate hydrogen (the total hydrogen concentration less the hydrogen that is associated with sulfates). The remaining mass and the nonsulfate hydrogen are believed to be qualitatively related to the spatial distribution of organic aerosols.

These figures, as well as rural data sets reported in the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP) Visibility State of Science and Technology Report (Trijonis et al., 1990), indicate the following differences between the air quality of the rural West (particularly the arid, mountainous Southwest) and that of the rural East (particularly the area south of the Great Lakes and east of the Mississippi):
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 1993. Protecting Visibility in National Parks and Wilderness Areas. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/2097.

https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/2097/chapter/4#31

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 1993. Protecting Visibility in National Parks and Wilderness Areas. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi 

https://www.lung.org/research/trends-in-lung-disease/tobacco-trends...

Adult Cigarette Smoking Rates by State

+-Adult Cigarette Smoking by State, 2018American Lung Association analysis of CDC data: BRFSS 2018AKALARAZCACOCTDCDEFLGAHIIAIDILINKSKYLAMAMDMEMIMNMOMSMTNCNDNENHNJNMNVNYOHOKORPARISCSDTNTXUTVAVTWAWIWVWYMin (9.0%)Max (25.2%)Range

In 2018, cigarette smoking rates among adults by state ranged from a low of 9.0 percent in Utah to a high of 25.2 percent in West Virginia: 

Adult Cigarette Smoking by State

State	Current		Tried to Quit		Former	Never
Alabama	761,140	20.9%	477,936	63.2%	851,061	2,024,858
Alaska	111,288	21.0%	62,325	56.4%	135,547	282,910
Arizona	796,004	15.6%	466,429	59.0%	1,262,624	3,058,722
Arkansas	491,610	22.3%	298,202	61.3%	563,476	1,150,802
California	3,203,562	11.3%	1,870,042	58.9%	6,293,776	18,762,085
Colorado	587,137	14.6%	348,676	59.7%	1,026,635	2,399,606
Connecticut	338,849	12.7%	217,014	64.6%	690,880	1,631,877
Delaware	124,011	17.0%	80,920	65.6%	182,470	421,711
District of Columbia	78,869	14.3%	48,946	62.2%	101,374	369,510
Florida	2,577,420	16.1%	1,579,560	61.6%	3,991,988	9,447,002
Georgia	1,307,100	17.5%	766,766	58.7%	1,521,537	4,660,276
Hawaii	136,408	12.8%	78,377	57.6%	284,632	645,201
Idaho	176,982	14.3%	96,202	54.5%	294,300	762,097
Illinois	1,466,080	15.5%	839,248	57.4%	2,185,142	5,832,199
Indiana	1,059,118	21.8%	591,113	55.9%	1,190,558	2,613,609
Iowa	400,049	17.1%	210,459	52.7%	576,456	1,365,701
Kansas	360,137	17.4%	204,313	57.1%	504,098	1,207,388
Kentucky	820,721	24.6%	463,892	56.6%	853,098	1,663,337
Louisiana	776,192	23.1%	496,671	64.4%	772,236	1,818,887
Maine	179,036	17.3%	98,213	55.1%	327,987	527,664
Maryland	619,227	13.8%	370,727	60.2%	983,806	2,868,717
Massachusetts	717,716	13.7%	407,860	57.2%	1,315,564	3,217,937
Michigan	1,441,675	19.3%	862,087	59.9%	1,995,233	4,031,034
Minnesota	594,930	14.5%	321,262	54.2%	1,079,804	2,424,375
Mississippi	472,648	22.2%	264,717	56.1%	459,365	1,198,339
Missouri	948,726	20.8%	490,983	52.0%	1,177,901	2,440,044
Montana	138,198	17.2%	72,063	52.4%	219,520	447,717
Nebraska	214,738	15.4%	119,034	55.6%	343,343	836,857
Nevada	394,177	17.6%	213,046	54.7%	537,040	1,310,157
New Hampshire	161,207	15.7%	90,185	56.1%	312,105	555,758
New Jersey	914,841	13.7%	581,483	63.9%	1,684,792	4,059,118
New Mexico	264,465	17.5%	154,190	58.6%	361,383	886,624
New York	2,058,331	14.1%	1,224,816	59.6%	3,371,378	9,177,289
North Carolina	1,320,956	17.2%	777,239	59.0%	1,989,751	4,371,713
North Dakota	103,343	18.3%	55,925	54.6%	141,110	321,202
Ohio	1,842,396	21.1%	1,004,594	54.6%	2,129,124	4,747,215
Oklahoma	576,977	20.1%	341,869	59.4%	702,843	1,583,890
Oregon	504,603	16.1%	274,275	55.0%	807,163	1,824,790
Pennsylvania	1,837,177	18.7%	1,053,040	57.7%	2,638,284	5,323,118
Rhode Island	120,811	14.9%	73,633	61.6%	230,295	457,003
South Carolina	711,229	18.8%	425,822	60.3%	1,001,709	2,072,533
South Dakota	124,347	19.3%	70,310	56.6%	165,559	355,085
Tennessee	1,119,838	22.6%	614,073	54.9%	1,175,962	2,650,681
Texas	3,139,192	15.7%	2,030,728	65.0%	3,970,863	12,872,578
Utah	188,767	8.9%	108,302	57.9%	318,801	1,618,164
Vermont	76,344	15.8%	44,951	59.1%	142,411	264,013
Virginia	1,047,461	16.4%	624,710	60.2%	1,518,906	3,829,491
Washington	747,860	13.5%	441,815	59.5%	1,507,839	3,288,501
West Virginia	370,689	26.0%	206,010	55.9%	373,876	680,784
Wisconsin	689,747	16.0%	350,171	50.8%	1,102,242	2,512,271
Wyoming	82,278	18.7%	46,852	57.2%	114,056	243,116
United States	39,002,100	16.4%	22,973,300	59.2%	58,368,700	140,810,100

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System 2017, analysed by the American Lung Association Epidemiology and Statistics Unit.