Roy's Postcards: 1983/01/18
Inscription:
I went around shopping today - Cali-Mex, Tower Record, Army Surplus, and found this postcard. This shows one of the features of L.A. I drove down: Figueroa from Sunset to Olympic, traversing area in this picture.
Postcard back:
Millions of people driving millions of cars plus temperature invesion provides Los Angeles with a near perfect environment for the production and containment of photochemical smog. Auto emissions are 80% to 90% responsible for smog. Sunlight instigates a chemical reaction between nitrogen dioxide, a major component of automobile exhaust, and hydrocarbons, a product of evaporated gasoline. Temperature inversion exists when there is a layer of warm air at higher altitude - around 1500 ft. - instead of cololer air. The LA Basin Inversion acts as a giant lid over the smog, inhabitants and visitors.
Leonard's comments:
Somehow the back copy makes smog sound like a good thing. Not all the smog stays in the basin: a lot of it leaks over into the San Joaquin Valley, where we would move in a few years, creating health hazards there.It's quite possible this is a snarky postcard created by a New Yorker who hates LA.
See also: la
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