I have never spent much time in South Africa before in the past and never much time in the cities as I usually am out in the bush hunting or doing other things, but I was disgusted this last trip by the amount of air pollution over Jo'burg and also Cape Town. Huge clouds of drifting smog and smoke, the sky is actually quite brown. Cape Town was a small amount better due to the sea breezes but it actually takes a trip of several kilometres out to sea before the sky turns blue again.

And it seems a lot of it is not even from industry but from these pathetic little cooking fires.

Disgusting!

quote:

air population over Jo'burg ...

I'm sure you intended to type air pollution. Sorry to hear this report about the pollution.

People sometimes do make a mess of things, but others sometimes can make the needed changes.

When I walked from the Johannesburg airport to downtown and back for a Sunday layover stroll, I noticed that the grass in the medians of the larger roadways was not mowed. It was freshly burned to the ground. They just burn it off periodically? Lovely.

On that hike the only unfriendly behavior I encountered was a caucasian skinhead buck who flipped me the bird as he drove by in his beater car. Guess maybe he just didn't like my looks? Nor I his.

/

Unfortunately, the "solution" is a little itty bitty retro-virus. Mother Nature is pretty hard nosed when it comes to house cleaning.

Alf

And its amazing how these third world countries in the Kyoto Protocol expected the first world to clean up while they were to be allowed to continue to polute at an increasing rate. Thank goodness Australia opted out immediately, and later the USA.

Northern India was even worse, one big open chimney, even in the desert the sky was poluted with grey smog and it wasn't desert dust.

Solutions in Africa?

Radical birth control and banning of open cooking fires. The open cooking fires seem to be the main cause of the thick smoke and smog.

Dar es Salaam is more polluted than RSA.

The whole town runs on private generators during the day, which combines with the exhaust of millions of ill-maintained old autos and burns the eyes, nose throat. Almost all cooking is done over wood or charcoal fires, which does not help any.

I was glad to get out of there!

BTW, the air-conditioning in the Sea Cliff no longer operates in the daytime.

'Radical birth control and banning of open cooking fires"

Good luck with that agenda.

Hi NitroX

Good to see you got home safe and sound. I cant remember when you were here if we were experiencing a cold spell ? during winter it is worse the pollution that is, as the ( how do i say this politicaly correct ) lower class communities make anthracite (coal) fires for cooking as well as for warmth. this is hectic as it spew's out yellow sulphur dense smoke. It get's really bad !!!!

By the way thanx for the excellent cigars you provided they were great......ooops sorry a little cigar smoke is not classified as pollution I hope ????? ( just a joke )

Cheers
Schmidie

" opie-knoppe "

quote:

Originally posted by Pete Millan:
'Radical birth control and banning of open cooking fires"

Good luck with that agenda.

Hey, Pete, I didn't propose any fixes - just pointing out that other places can be worse than Joberg!

Howzit?

It seems you haven't been to China, Jakarta, Singapore, Port Moresby and other wonderful spots on our globe where the poor have no choice but to burn coal or wood to eat. Los Angeles (one of several third world cities in the USA) has air pollution created by the good old horseless carriage.

What are you going to quit doing that makes your life less comfortable and helps the environment?

"Nothing" is the normal answer - let the other guy do it....

/

Sounds as if you should go and live in Oz Alf. South Africa is still a great place to live, has a lot going for it, and there is an optimistic vibe with the younger generation. I have been to a lot of cities world wide. I even lived in London for a while, and opted to move back. All the big cities I have visited had the grey smoke of polution hanging in the air. Must admit though, I have never been to OZ, sounds as if they have the perfect world down under??
And no one would look at you in a strange way if you say you shot something at a waterhole!

quote:

Sounds as if you should go and live in Oz Alf. South Africa is still a great place to live, has a lot going for it, and there is an optimistic vibe with the younger generation. I have been to a lot of cities world wide. I even lived in London for a while, and opted to move back. All the big cities I have visited had the grey smoke of polution hanging in the air. Must admit though, I have never been to OZ, sounds as if they have the perfect world down under??
And no one would look at you in a strange way if you say you shot something at a waterhole!

Ah, the truth....air pollution...yes, worse in winter due to more stable air and more cooking fires in the townships. Is there a large city (remember JHB is massive ITO population) without air pollution? They all produce heaps of it and sometimes it stays, sometimes it blows away, and luckily nice coastal cities usually fall into the latter...but still produce heaps of it. Most 'developed' cities probably produce more due to a higher per capita amount of vehicles and emission producing toys/products etc.

Ever been to Lima, Sao Saulo, Detroit, Toronto, if you look 'carefully' you will see air pollution, as they haven't got hydrogen cars and emmissioless industry just yet!!

In terms of Kyoto, there is no way that most developing nations even come close to producing what the more industiralized ones do. I am not flaming or laying some heinous guilt with them at all, but that is a fact...

Hi Don,

Good to see you're back!

Bumped into Hanno (Hanri's brother) Geerkens on Saturday, he asked after you.

Cheers

pete

Hi John - AKA (NitroX)

Hope you had a nice trip to Southern Africa (ALBEIT) you experienced what some cities worldwide have to offer.

I dont want to digress away from hunting and wildlife BUT just to balance the debate I trust some of our guests hace been to Mexico City, Cairo, Rio, Los Angelies, to name JUST a few ... WELL those cities pale into INSIGNIFICIECE the likes of Jo-burg and Cape Town IMHO when polution is considered.

That is (one of the reasons) apart from many other why (some of the world's city life) is doomed to ultimate destruction and the things you mention.

WHY do you think (those with some brains) have left and moved to the BUSH to seek some clear air and an assemblance of tranquility (-:

I live near Wellington city (35 kms from it) here in NZ and with all the winds we get regionally any polution is blown away, in fact most of NZ where one cant actually get more than about 75 kms away from the sea we are polution free by world city standards. Christchurch City is proberbly the worst in NZ as it is located within a flat basin area and can experience some of that polution mentioned.

Anyhow back to the fun and games ....

How did the trip to Africa go, did you manage to get to visit Klaus's Vinyard in the (Tulbagh region of C Town) and how is he doing, and has Klaus had any luck yet selling the Vinyard, as I believe he had it on the market !!

Did you manage to get near to the Limpopo Province and Kruger region at all, somewhere up near where my brother Alan has his two safari ranches, well only really one now, as he has finally negotiated/sold over one of the ranches to the infamous BEE esssentially being (The Government) for land distribution back to some of the (so called) underpriveledged black majority.

Anyhow, I do hope your trip and the hunting/sightseeing went well in Southern Africa and is Australia still the jewel of the Pacific to be living in, or has Africa still IYHO some attraction for the hardy adventurer !!

Cheers, Peter

Pollution is the least of SA's problems. I lived in Joburg in the 70s and 80s and there was visible smog back then as well. The winter weather causes a temp inversion, plus heating is done by coal or wood fires, even in upscale Sandton. With the relaxation of the Group Areas Act and the Pass Laws, the sqautter camps and shanty towns have mushroomed so I suppose there is that much more smoke from fires..although it's a mystery what they burn because there is no wood left on the Highveld. Probably trash and coal for those who can afford it. Cowpies also make a good cooking fire.

I took a taxi from the airport to a gunsmith near the Carlton Center and the driver, a black gentleman who had come to the big city to earn more money than he was getting working in Kruger Park, was quite open in his criticism of the ANC. He cited their failures as lack of education for the kids, massive illegal immigration which contributes to lack of jobs for South Africans, AIDs and crime. He even went as far as to say that things were much better under Apartheid, at least pretty much anyone who wanted to work back then had a job. And as we know the only illegal immigrants back then were those that stole across the border at night with an AK47.

Crime is horrendous. Apparently more violent deaths per day than in Iraq. While I was there, a man who stopped to take a leak had his car stolen along with his wife who was shot dead and abandoned in the car within a few miles. A PH lost his wife, murdered as she returned home from a shopping trip. Another person with whom I was hunting reported that his wife was robbed at gunpoint. It seems the bad guys are not only after money, they take pleasure in killing their (white) victims even if they don't resist.

On the way to Botswana, there is a memorial on a mountainside to the farm killings...quite something to see. I don't know the number but judging from all the white crosses on that mountain, it must be well into the thousands.

Spoke to some local businessmen...they really resent having to comply with the "Black Empowerment" policies...requiring a 28% black partner in any company with more than 50 employees, a quota of blacks and women in executive positions etc. Can you imagine the US requiring the same for the "First People"?

Also heard that the vast majority of govt contracts since the ANC took power were let to 3 black-owned companies, who don't do the work but merely subcontract everything and take a profit on the deal.

The newspapers say the economy in SA is growing nicely and consistently, but this is hard to see with unemployment still very high (I heard 40%).

I also gathered that the heir apparent, Jacob Zuma, is another Mugabe....he wants the whites to go back to Europe. He's also facing various criminal charges right now.

Apparently Winnie Mandela, she of the "soccer team" necklacings, is living in a fancy house with a fancy car paid for by the govt, even though she is no longer a govt official.

I don't see any short or even medium term solutions for the social problems. Limiting children to one per family, forcibly removing illegals, quarantining of all HIV positive persons, and summary execution of all violent criminals are things that can only be done under a brutal dictator. (SA no longer has the death sentence...that was considered a relic of apartheid). Perhaps a dictator will step forward, but even so, he's probably going to be more interested in his own Swiss account than the problems facing SA.

As an aside, I heard that elephant hunts in Bots are now going for $1800 per day with trophy fees of $60K and up. Lion at $75K, one per concession. Perhaps a sign of things to come, if SA implodes.

Gentlemen

Of course a lot of very large cities have pollution problems. I have not been to Mexico City so I don't know but most of the pollution is caused by vehicle exhaust and industial pollution.

I lived in London for two years and whne you sneezed there was black soot in your hankey. It was more healthy not to go jogging. It was less healthy to go for a walk along pavements than not. Luckily I lived near Kensington Palace Gardens (Prince Charles and Princess Di were neighbours - and no it was not expensive) and Hyde Park so at least there was the pretence of clean air there.

Many Western cities ban the private burning of rubbish, even wood fires for cooking, for just the reason of air pollution.

Back to topic. A lot of the pollution seemed to be caused by cooking fires. In Cape Town you could see the different colours of "smog" or "smoke", brown from townships and grey from industrial areas.

***

Pete Millan,

Ha ha, not my agenda. No chance of it ever succeeding.

A story of African logic at play which I am sure you do not to be told about:
My wife wanted to visit a township, so we went on a guided tour in the relatively quiet town of Knisna (splg?). The black guide and driver took us up the hill to an area with million dollar views over the town and sea covered with unofficial shanties and official little houses in separate areas. We visited a workshop for disabled or retarded people which was somewhat multi-racial and appeared well run (we bought the necessary produce as a donation), then an orphanage and refuge for abused children, a school and drove past a fully equipped kindergarten which was suspended due to some pilferage of a donation either by the headmaster or the council. We also visited the guides house in the unofficial part of town and it seemed it was shared with a Somali shop as well. The heavy recent rains made the place extremely muddy and she must have had a gutter running through the middle of the house when it rained heavily.

Actually it turned out not too bad, not too much complaining and only one attempt at 'donations' (at the workshop).

During the conversation the guide pointed out the advantages of the "official" and "unofficial" townships. At the official houses built by the government, if below a certain income level you get it for free but only get to keep a single dog. She had been waiting for six years for her free house (I thought in comparison in the West it may take 30 years to pay off our houses which are NOT free but anyway ....)

At the unofficial townships you live in a house made roughly but get to keep cows, goats, pigs, lots of dogs. The stock is necessary for the Xhosa people to slaughter for rituals such as boys "going into the bush" etc etc. It was obviously which she actually preferred ..... and it was living in mud and pig shit, flies and filth, with animals in and out of their houses ........

Change cooking fires? Not even in high-rise apartment towers is my guess.

***

Schmidie,

Good to hear from you. Yes it was a colder period.

A lot of the pollution was the sulphurous coal smoke you speak of. Jaco pointed it out in Jo'burg.

Cigar smoke is self-inflicted polluion.

***

Dogcat

The Indonesians probably hold the record for air pollution by allowing the burning of rainforests for charcoal production and clearing of land for agricultural use a few years ago. They darkened the sky over Singapore, Bangkok, KL, and even parts of Australia were affected.

What a stupid waste.

***

Alf,

I know there is no real solution.

***

Balla Balla,

If you want air pollution everwhere try India, another third world "powerhouse" like South Africa.

For once I agree with you, on the benefits of living in clean country air and tranquility. Except for the shotgun smoke and gunfire.

***

Russ

Perhaps instead of free houses, free electricity, free whatever, the gov't pays an old age pension oneday to people that have had only one child. No need to 33 kids for an old age pension (like a chief in the Omay area of Zim had) .... Pipe dream hey?


***

I have never seen people defend their pollution so vigorously as South Africans.

I guess I shouldn't complain seeing my "signature" line.

Russ Gould wrote:

quote:

On the way to Botswana, there is a memorial on a mountainside to the farm killings...quite something to see. I don't know the number but judging from all the white crosses on that mountain, it must be well into the thousands.

Sorry for very wide picture, but that's to fit it all in - picture taken from main road, some distance.

/

One thing I noticed flying from Joberg to Vic Falls to Binga and back was the amount of smoke in the air. Defenately an air pollution problem. I did notice a few fires burning but for most of Zimbabwe and what I saw of South Africa was heavy with smog.

NitroX This photo is from Namibia this May. The skys were beautiful. The stars at night unbelieveable. Yes there is a God.

not all botwana ele hunting is expensive i hunted the area right next to yohan claitz area with safaris botstwana bound.

hunt cost me 1000day and a 10,000 dollor trphy fee for any size animal with i ended up paying 26,500 all together for a 14 day hunt.

day fees 14,000.....elephant 10,000....tip to ph 1500...tip to staff 500$ other minor expenses 500$

taxes were included.

1800$day.......the place who charges that can kiss my ass. and even there ill never pay 1k a day again when i can hunt else where cheaper.