To see the 1 hr. documentary - www.createspace... . I made this film years ago but it is contemporary and has amazing old footage in it. Scenes of Los Angeles etc. To see more of my work, visit www.theHoffmancollection.com.
One of my earliest trips from my hometown of Oakland to Southern California was on a field trip to Disneyland in the 5th grade (around 1981). The smog was so thick it actually made the sunset darker.
I like how the last gentleman's talking; he's just calling the air pollution "Junk." Really cuts straight to the point without being obnoxious, and without cussing.
I visited LA in 1971 as an eleven year old traveling from Kansas with my mom and my grandfather. We were visiting relatives there. I remember my eyes burning so badly I could barely keep them open and they burned constantly. You literally couldn't see more than several blocks and people were driving with their headlights on. Too many people don't understand how bad everything had gotten before the EPA. We did have rivers catching on fire where I was from, even though the air was "okay."
I live in the Suburbs on Los Angeles, Montclair to be exact which is the start of the Inland Empire region, 40miles from downtown LA,on most days you can see downtown when on a hill past the layer of smog and see the mountains everyday, when I was in high school , a teacher who grew up in the 70’s in the area said you couldn’t see the mountains on many days, I believe it now
I remember riding into LA from Ventura and seeing smog come through the air vents of our Mom's 63 Impala. It's changed so much since the 70's. Even the 90's were rough.
I actively searched this video and I’m not surprised Mr. Hoffman uploaded this. He’s a great archive of historical ‘current events’ of the time then. The reason why I found this interestingly enough is that the new GTA VI is coming out and the trailer was just released. Being a big fan of the series I had played San Andreas almost 20 years ago and it’s my favorite in the series. It takes place in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas under the names Los Santos, San Fierro and Las Venturas respectively. The game takes place in the early 90s. Anyhow, they re-released the game on mobile devices and one of the major complaints was the lighting. They kept saying it lost its “orange haze” that LA had back then. I couldn’t help but agree because in pretty much all movies and media I recalled that big bad word: SMOG that we all heard about and learned especially in the 80s. I remember it was really bad in LA but I never saw it myself. It’s interesting to see this short clip and see how much air quality in first world countries has changed. Earlier this year the wildfires of Canada darkened the skies to an orange haze and I would dread to imagine during the 70s which was before my time, the gross air quality back then! I had a friend who said if you wore sandals and walked around all day, your feet would come back with black soot!
People complain about the strict laws in California, but i remember when i was little in the 90s and 2000s, the smog in L.A would paint the sky brown. Something i dont see today
I wonder if a lot of the smog was caused by all the industry and factories that grew from WWII all over the pacific. All of our ships were built in Washington State, the oil industry was all over California which had to be adding to it. I imagine most of the power plants their were using oil to since it would have been a lot cheaper to obtain than other substances more than likely. Also the dry climate has to have some sort of an effect in making pollution worse too. If anyone knows the answers to these questions I’d love to know :)
That picture of the smog in Santa Monica is BS. Anyone from this city would know that. The winds blow to the east from the west. Very little smog on Southern California beaches. Nope that’s high grade fog that you see in that picture.
I am not sure which specific video clip from my film you are talking about but overall, you know and I know that the smog in 1979 was disastrous and quite awful. Many of the smog scenes I filled myself while I was there (as an East Coast guy). I was not familiar with fog and you may be correct about one or two shots. But overall, LA was smog city back then. David Hoffman - filmmaker
@@DavidHoffmanFilmmaker at 0:13 the picture of SM. Winds would pushed it more inland.On a good windy day all the smog would get pushed out the city to Riverside.
Catalytic convertors got rid of much of the smog in the 80's. If carbon emissions are the cause of climate change, we should have seen major issues in the 50's through the 70's. I lived in that smog as a teenager. Im old now but remember the smog days. It was smoggy all over the globe.
Late 80s downtown LA would look like the buildings were in a fog except it would fall like snowflakes and leave a nasty residue on your cars windows and paint.
At that was after the worse had passed. Even today, the first thing you see when landing at LAX is a thick layer of smog. I'm glad it's less bad now, but I hope it improves more as time passes
@@DavidHoffmanFilmmaker I went to the linked website in the description but was unsuccessful. Is there another link I could use? Would love to watch this doc in full. Thanks for the reply!
EMESSIONS ON VEHICLES CHECK INDIA WATERCOOLERS INSIDE SMOKE STAXX COLERS IN TOP OF COOLERS DECREASE EMISSIONS OF BLACK FOG INTERNATIONAL IDEA INSIDE FACTORIES OR OIL PLANTS ETL, COOLPADS INSIDE CHIMNEE
Ooh gawd! I missed out on many of those smog gravy trains back then! Could've been rich too! All one had to do was say 'cars were at fault' as a spokes person, then the LA factories would send me checks! Maybe next time?
they had exhaust filtrations sold since 1930 for automobiles. A little cap to put on the exhaust that separated and took carbon emissions twice the amount of time to get out.
Are you working in an industry affected negatively by us clearing up our pollution? I'm sorry we aren't blessed don't have the topography or climate to handle paying your company to continue poisoning our lungs. But as a large market for products you may sell, we have a large voice, and that voice says don't sell us dirty products that will harm our health. If your financials are negatively affected, I guess that would make you just like your made-up rival here, the "rich spokesperson (from 40-50 years ago!) who works for non-specific L.A factories". On the plus side, there are now less children growing up with asthma in L.A. But I guessing you don't care if they breathe well or what happens to them, (after they are born, of course.). You only care about your politics, and entertaining yourself with displaced smugness
People, he might have been saying that satirically as an explanation for the thought pattern of people in the 1950s. That _is_ what people thought then. However, if it's satire, he explained it poorly for all of us who can't read tone of voice through text.
