Whatever happened acid rain?

Dinny Byrne has Angina

If you're in your 20s or 30s, you may have been exposed to those Beyond 2000 educational programs for schools, which made some far-fetched technological predictions about life in the new millennium, as well as some fairly horrific environmental predictions, mainly around pollution and acid rain.

Whatever happened to acid rain? Did we stop it?

A few minutes' googling seems to indicate that we partially fixed it, but that its consequences were perhaps exaggerated, even in areas where acid rain did have a visible effect.

Just interested in this question because i notice that Danny Healy Rae referred to it today in his climate-change denial speech (totally different issue).

Obviously he's talking BS on climate change, but he does seem to have a point about media vulnerability to apocalyptic environmental stories, such as the idea of acid rain burning us from above.

Lyaiera

They split up and reformed as El Nino.

Harry Palmr

Dinny Byrne has Angina wrote: »

If you're in your 20s or 30s, you may have been exposed to those Beyond 2000 educational programs for schools, which made some far-fetched technological predictions about life in the new millennium, as well as some fairly horrific environmental predictions, mainly around pollution and acid rain.

Whatever happened to acid rain? Did we stop it?

A few minutes' googling seems to indicate that we partially fixed it, but that its consequences were perhaps exaggerated, even in areas where acid rain did have a visible effect.

Just interested in this question because i notice that Danny Healy Rae referred to it today in his climate-change denial speech (totally different issue).

Obviously he's talking BS on climate change, but he does seem to have a point about media vulnerability to apocalyptic environmental stories, such as the idea of acid rain burning us from above.

The acid rain was mainly from Moneypoint in Ireland, more generally there has been move away from coal to gas which is much cleaner. The other thing that has happened is the installation of Flue-gas desulphurisation (FGD) in coal burning stations.

For Forks Sake

Dinny Byrne has Angina wrote: »

If you're in your 20s or 30s, you may have been exposed to those Beyond 2000 educational programs for schools, which made some far-fetched technological predictions about life in the new millennium, as well as some fairly horrific environmental predictions, mainly around pollution and acid rain.

Whatever happened to acid rain? Did we stop it?

A few minutes' googling seems to indicate that we partially fixed it, but that its consequences were perhaps exaggerated, even in areas where acid rain did have a visible effect.

Just interested in this question because i notice that Danny Healy Rae referred to it today in his climate-change denial speech (totally different issue).

Obviously he's talking BS on climate change, but he does seem to have a point about media vulnerability to apocalyptic environmental stories, such as the idea of acid rain burning us from above.

It was ditched in favour of hype about the ozone layer.

Great, great username btw OP.

namloc1980

Remember in school we had posters about acid rain and how it would literally dissolve animals, trees and ultimately people. Teacher fully believed it, even though looking back she hadn't a clue what it was.

Truckermal

Danny Healy Rae lobbied God to get rid of it...

Pac1Man

It ran off into the sunset with Sunny Delight.

smash

After the 80's when people stopped using 15 cans of hairspray a week, the ozone layer stopped depleting at an unsustainable rate and acid rain became a thing of the past!

harry Bailey esq

Disappeared in the early 90s..

Panthro

Dinny Byrne has Angina wrote: »

above.

I stopped reading after this.

Radharc na Sleibhte

I think Jo Maxi and Blue Peter fixed it

Birneybau

I was more afraid of Chocolate Rain.

Atlantic Dawn

It's like global warming, when the figures didn't add up to back up what they preached they lobbed the lot in to the climate change brand.

AnonoBoy

"The only type o' acid rain I care about is the vinegar on me chips, wha?"

/annoying pr*ck on bus.

AnonoBoy

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

It's like global warming, when the figures didn't add up to back up what they preached they lobbed the lot in to the climate change brand.

Ah the Healy Raes are here! Welcome Danny!

I'd put up with acid rain if we still had acid house.

Fox_In_Socks

It's partying forever in that big warehouse in the sky.

shane9689

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA

wil

I only want to see you underneath the acid rain.

From Princes early green days.

maudgonner

wil wrote: »

I only want to see you underneath the acid rain.

From Princes early green days.

I'll see your Price, and raise you: The Thrills, Whatever Happened to Acid Rain?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzhZzIzJqek

jimgoose

Harry Palmr wrote: »

The acid rain was mainly from Moneypoint in Ireland, more generally there has been move away from coal to gas which is much cleaner. The other thing that has happened is the installation of Flue-gas desulphurisation (FGD) in coal burning stations.

The third thing that happened was the Lambda sensor in all petrol cars. That got rid of an awful lot of NOx.

bleg

We recognised the problem and fixed it through appropriate regulation. It probably would have gotten worse if we hadn't acted. Pretty much like the hole in the ozone layer was recognised and largely fixed (by banning of CFCs).

We stop hearing about things when the problem is fixed.

wil

maudgonner wrote: »

I'll see your Price, and raise you: The Thrills, Whatever Happened to Acid

Well if that's the way you're gonna play it.
Round ere we call it acieed.

the evasion_kid

Reformed in 2015...still on tour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoczfad8hgs

mosstin

They just couldn't keep tabs on it.

mad m

PURPLE RAIN, PURPLE RAIIINNNN.

Oh wait, $hit wrong thread.....

maudgonner

wil wrote: »

Well if that's the way you're gonna play it.
Round ere we call it acieed.

Phil wishes it would rain (acid) down. He's a bit of a masochist, is Phil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN6Sw3Rh6ug

wil

maudgonner wrote: »

Phil wishes it would rain (acid) down. He's a bit of a masochist, is Phil

Recommend checking the ph first, but Durga McBroom has a better idea

maudgonner

wil wrote: »

Recommend checking the ph first, but Durga McBroom has a better idea

Ah Durga, she loves a bit of rain. Not like this crowd. WHAT DO YOU EXPECT TRAVIS? YOU LIVE IN SCOTLAND!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXatLOWjr-k

(I'll stop now )

And remember when "the oil running out in the not too distant future" was a worry up until about mid 2008 when the world economy was starting to get rough. The reason we were worried before then but not afterwards is because the news was otherwise devoid of real threats pre 2008 so the media chose *that* (along with terrorism, among other things) to make us feel on edge and press out anxiety buttons. A bit like why people voted for the Green Party here in 2007- when everything is okay economically/fundamentally (which things were in May 2007) people start thinking of "higher level" things to worry about, and so people voted with their mind on the environment etc. Now people just forget about the fact that precious resource of oil is constantly depleting and is depleting at an accelerating rate as all the people in poorer countries get less poor and demand the high material living standards we expect.

wil

maudgonner wrote: »

(I'll stop now )

Thank f for that.

Reaches for suntan lotion.

mickdw

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

It's like global warming, when the figures didn't add up to back up what they preached they lobbed the lot in to the climate change brand.

Yep the global warming didn't quite work out as preached so somewhere climate change was dropped in instead. A stroke of genius - covers all angles and confuses the issue.

beach_walker

Deleted User wrote: »

And remember when "the oil running out in the not too distant future" was a worry up until about mid 2008 when the world economy was starting to get rough.

Awh man in the mid-2000s the Greens in college painted the greatest picture of the world would be like now. Pure Mad Max fighting over the last oil reserves. "It'll never be be cheaper than $100 a barrel again!" Well done lads, the future is boring.

jimgoose

beach_walker wrote: »

Awh man in the mid-2000s the Greens in college painted the greatest picture of the world would be like now. Pure Mad Max fighting over the last oil reserves. "It'll never be be cheaper than $100 a barrel again!" Well done lads, the future is boring.

I had been looking forward to that - most of these bearded, wistful, Env-Botherers can't ride a motorcycle or use a shotgun, so I'd have been sorted. Oh well. See you on the road, scag!

Dinny Byrne has Angina

Deleted User wrote: »

And remember when "the oil running out in the not too distant future" was a worry up until about mid 2008 when the world economy was starting to get rough.

There was a junior certificate science textbook in circulation in the late 1990's which righteously announced that crude oil and gas would be exhausted by the 2020's-30's.

Factually speaking, they will never be exhausted. And although it will eventually become economically unviable to extract oil and gas, the 2030's prediction is a woefully premature miscalculation.

Capt'n Midnight

Rain still contains Hydric Acid which has a pH of 7.0

that's way higher than most other acids :eek:

Ronald Wilson Reagan

In a case of dammed if you do and dammed if you don't, the reduction of sulphur released to the air has actually had the effect of increasing global warming.

failinis

I read the title as "What ever happened to Baby Jane?"

buried

Whatever happened acid techno?

mikeym

Didnt the Nineties cartoon superhero Captain Planet stop the Acid Rain?

gramar

CFC's are another thing you never hear about anymore either. Are they still a thing?

Samaris

CFCs were more or less banned worldwide.

As for "factually speaking, oil and gas will never run out", I have no idea what planet you're living on. How do you think it's made? When a resource takes thousands of years to form and it is heavily used, y'know, maths.

However, peak oil and gas have been extended by decades by the development of commercially viable ways of getting out the oil and gas from more difficult reservoirs (such as shales), primarily by fracking. There was an awful lot of hydrocarbons left in these reservoirs, they were just not commercially viable until a method was developed.

andekwarhola

Haven't a clue. But I like your username.

gramar

Samaris wrote: »

CFCs were more or less banned worldwide.

As for "factually speaking, oil and gas will never run out", I have no idea what planet you're living on. How do you think it's made? When a resource takes thousands of years to form and it is heavily used, y'know, maths.

However, peak oil and gas have been extended by decades by the development of commercially viable ways of getting out the oil and gas from more difficult reservoirs (such as shales), primarily by fracking. There was an awful lot of hydrocarbons left in these reservoirs, they were just not commercially viable until a method was developed.

Would the ban on cfc's have had anything to do with the acid rain no longer being an issue?

SEPT 23 1989

The sheep need a good scare to keep them in line

Samaris

gramar wrote: »

Would the ban on cfc's have had anything to do with the acid rain no longer being an issue?

Hm, that I don't know, it was never a core part of what I studied. Interesting question though, I'll have to look into that.

Totally preliminary guessing - probably not, the main part of acidification comes from hydrocarbon sources. But it's a huge system and many things impact on others.

Edit: Totally preliminary googling suggests I'm completely wrong and it does have an impact, but still, that was a 3 second scan so I'm not much the wiser than I was from guessing!

beach_walker

I also miss the hole in the o-zone layer scare stories. Some quality sh!t (Aussie made) videos in school warning about how nobody would ever be able to enjoy going to the beach again *cut to panning shot of bikini clad babes applying sun cream* Quality.

bonzodog2

wil wrote: »

Thank f for that.

Reaches for suntan lotion.

Ahem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPf2-Ha0HOk

DEFTLEFTHAND

namloc1980 wrote: »

Remember in school we had posters about acid rain and how it would literally dissolve animals, trees and ultimately people. Teacher fully believed it, even though looking back she hadn't a clue what it was.

The oil would run out by 2020 was one we used to hear in Primary school. I used to really worry about it. I thought I was going to be denied my chance to own a car.

maudgonner

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

The sheep need a good scare to keep them in line

Wait, wait, it was the sheep that were causing acid rain? Woah.

And the farty cows are behind climate change and all?

Divils. Divils, the lot of them! We need to eat more cows and sheep, get rid of them before they kill us all :eek:

Stigura

Dinny Byrne has Angina wrote: »

Whatever happened to acid rain?

Lyaiera wrote: »

They split up and reformed as El Nino.

Absolutely one of the Best fcuking come backs I've ever read! Take a bow, Lyaiera. Fcuking brilliant!