Realize that coal-fired power plant pollution here is coming from plants further west, many of which are not required to have emission controls as comprehensive as those here, because those states aren't polluted (cough Ohio cough)

Modern designs such as circulating fluidized beds do limit emissions, but natural gas is still usually cleaner in terms of emission.


Obviously not burning anything is the best.

The thing is, if restaurants, bars, clubs, and other related establishments had actually voluntarily disallowed smoking inside in even significant quantities (*), I'd have felt differently.

Yup, exactly. The thing is, none of these places are willing to voluntarily do it, because they're afraid of losing business to their competitors who don't ban smoking. So there's really no way it ever would have happened voluntarily. It pretty much has to be an all-or-nothing ban in order for it to ever work.

What gets to me is that they're still trying to use the "irreparable harm to businesses" argument. There's now plenty of evidence, in a number of cities, that this simply isn't true. There's a brief backlash while smokers are busy being indignant, but ultimately, people still want to go out, and won't go to the hassle of traveling to the next county (or even out of the city) to do it. Hell, when the ban kicked in here in DC, it negatively impacted bar numbers for all of about two weeks before everything went back to normal. And that was also 1) immediately after the heavy New Years party week, when things usually tend to die down a bit anyway, and 2) the coldest period we'd had yet that winter, so it's hard to say how much of that was even the impact of the ban.

All I have to say is that going out and being able to breathe is a wonderful thing. I never even realized just how badly the smoke impacted me until it was gone.

My brother pointed to an article a couple days ago (I have since lost it, so didn't reference it here) that has shown positive impacts on businesses which have already gone smoke-free in preparation for the ban.

I know that pollutant testing, smog in particular, get thrown off by a recent rain. When Houston had a terribly dry summer, they managed to beat LA for highest smog concentration . . . these tests are very dependant upon situation.

That's interesting, but in Pittsburgh, the most recent rain is usually within the past week, if not the past hour ;-) .

Yah, we've had a wet year too.