L. A. Smog is NOT MY FAULT

I was born in smoggy Southern California and lived there until three years ago. Yes, the LA basin is smoggy just like many other places in the world. But, contrary to all the green blather from the environmentalist, it’s not my fault and it isn't bettered by the thousands of people escaping the west coast. Los Angeles is basically situated in a large, low basin surrounded by mountains, which is a natural trap for air pollution.

In 1542, two ships, commissioned by Spain, sailed up the California coast in search of the mythical Seven Cities of Gold and the Strait of Anián (believed to be the Northwest Passage).

The voyage was a failure but they hoped they might discover a coastal route to China. 

 

Nevertheless, commanded by a conquistador named Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, the voyage brought them to, what is now, San Pedro Bay in Southern California, where they encountered a huge, low-hanging haze over the area. From that voyage, we have the first recorded observations of the sparsely populated area that is now Los Angeles.  Cabrillo named the valley, Baya de Los Fumos, which translated, is Bay of the Smokes.

But the region already had another name given by the Chumash tribe of Native American Indians who settled there hundreds of years earlier. The Chumash people noticed that the smoke from their cooking fires would just hang low throughout the whole basin. And the characteristic smog was consistent and significant enough to earn the name, which, translated into English, means “Valley Of Smokes.”

The haze, then, was not caused by internal combustion engines, backyard incinerators, or industrial factories.  It was just smoke emanating from the Indian villages. The smoke would rise into the air and flatten out against an invisible, atmospheric ceiling caused by temperature inversion.

The inversion layer forms when ocean breezes draw cool marine air onshore beneath a mass of warmer air above. Held in place by the mountains that surround and shelter Los Angeles on the north and east, the cool air then stabilizes, unable to rise through the warm air above. 

So, there it is, folks. The EPA, Algore, and all the nature-loving, earth-worshiping whackos have been blaming YOU!  The L. A. basin will never be smog-free even if you could prevent all the dairy cattle from flatulating.