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We’re nothing if not environmentally aware around here and the State of Rhineland-Palatinate has a network of 31 emission monitoring stations, telemetering a whole bunch of data back to Mainz where they’re massaged into usable information.
You can even check up on the interweb to determine your risk of asphyxiation on a daily basis.
Although I wouldn’t bet my life on it – they say that “errors can occur in the digitalisation of the data” and “different browsers can deliver different results”.
Yet another WTF moment so early in the morning…
Anyway.
These monitoring stations are like honey to a tagging bee and they become quite colourful over time. (This one’s bang in the middle of Mainz, just up from the station and it’s probably – at this very minute – sending “You’re all going to die” messages through the vapour. Except we’ll never know due to conversion errors and the fact that Firefox 2.0.04 makes me think I’m safe)
And there’s of course one faction of City Fathers who want everything resprayed boring beige and another who figure that if those rascals are off spraying tin sheds, they’re not creating havoc/mugging old ladies/selling drugs elsewhere in the municipality.
Some councils even actively encourage it.
Tagging, that is.
Unbeknown to the outfit that’s tasked with respraying everything boring beige.
So a couple of months ago, there was a serious outbreak of verbal fisticuffs between the official resprayers and the promoters of Modern Art on Tin Sheds, which went along the lines of
“Listen, Brian, it says ‘ere that I’m supposed to respray this ‘ere Tin Shed. Innit”
versus
“But don’t you see the free spirit and the Picasso-esque structures in this collage of primary and secondary colours”
“No”
The aestheically challenged resprayers lost, I’m pleased to say.
Mainz Daily Photo 
>Well, you can’t manage what you don’t measure and this is a pretty good way of determining whether the policies that are being introduced to reduce inner-city pollution are effective or not.
>I guess I can think of other ways to determine if, and when, I will die. It seems odd to me, but I don’t live there. I like the colours on the tin shed, tho, and wish I could see all the symbols. Yes, very colourful.
>Actually, if the emissions (ozone, especially) go over a certain limit, they’ll close the roads. Same goes for micro-particular pollution. Not very industrial around here, but we have a nasty inversion layer problem.
>A very thoughtful and clever idea to forecast your death. I like the idea of monitoring things and it must go hand-in-hand with many other controls. I would assume auto emissions and industrial emissions. If nobody has their finger in the dike, then I would guess monitoring is an expensive joke on the people. As far as spray painting the tin sheds, as you say, that also would contrubute to local pollution so it seems nobody gets off scott free.Abraham LincolnToday you will get to see the baby raccoons…Brookville Daily Photo