Bristol pollution drops 30 per cent

[whole diary]

[grahame]

I expect that this helps as well (and not just in Bristol).... https://www.flightradar24.com/51.44,-0.45/7

To help get myself a view of "normal", I had a trawl around and found the following from FlightRadar showing a Friday evening towards the end of last month, and last Friday (27th March 2020).

[SandTEngineer]

....and lots of those in the latter view are apparently just pilot training/competency retainment flights (i.e. empty).

[TonyK]

True for gas boilers not so true for oil central heating boilers.

I don't think I have ever been in a house in Bristol with an oil central heating boiler, and I have been in many. Mains gas was available everywhere in the city by the time central heating became ubiquitous. It came later to the village where I now live, but most  have converted. There still around 4 million homes in Britain heated by oil, though there won't be any new ones within a couple of years. Oil is the first fossil fuel in the government's sights as we clean up.

[stuving]

True for gas boilers not so true for oil central heating boilers.

I don't think I have ever been in a house in Bristol with an oil central heating boiler, and I have been in many. Mains gas was available everywhere in the city by the time central heating became ubiquitous. It came later to the village where I now live, but most  have converted. There still around 4 million homes in Britain heated by oil, though there won't be any new ones within a couple of years. Oil is the first fossil fuel in the government's sights as we clean up.

In the early 1970s I knew a gas fitter/plumber who had switched to converting oil-fired boilers to the new-fangled North Sea gas almost full-time (this was in the area around Cambridge). I think it was the availability of conversion kits that made the difference - for houses built before a gas pipe was laid, converting to coal gas when one turned up was probably never feasible.

[grahame]

Further data - Bristol and other cities
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52113695

Coronavirus: Lockdown prompts clear fall in UK^▸ (United Kingdom) air pollution

Environmental Audit Committee Chairman, Philip Dunne MP^▸ (Member of Parliament, or Mile Post - a method of measuring the railway in miles and chains from a starting point - usually London, depending on context), commented: "Coronavirus is not only having an unprecedented impact on how we live our lives, but also how pollution levels around the world are falling as a result of the global shutdown.

"The government has committed to a low-carbon future, and the Environmental Audit Committee will look to explore how we can avoid going straight back to dangerous levels of pollution once this is all over."

Let's just not just explore the options, but actually do it!!

[TonyK]

Easy enough - we just all stay at home permanently.

[Bmblbzzz]

Everyone staying at home clearly isn't going to happen though there probably is room for more working from home and other forms of working. Or indeed of not working. But what's not being explored or at least not mentioned in that article or any of the others I've seen on this, is how we can in the near future – later this year or next year – get around without returning to previous traffic patterns.

[grahame]

To help get myself a view of "normal", I had a trawl around and found the following from FlightRadar showing a Friday evening towards the end of last month, and last Friday (27th March 2020).

Revisiting a week later - what is still running this Sunday morning?



Looking at those showing call signs at Heathrow

[TonyK]

Bristol still has quite a few arrivals and departures scheduled, but nothing like as many as usual. Loganair have cancelled their two. One is from Birmingham, but I would imagine that was a "calling at" rather than to satisfy a demand for flights to and from Brum.