“Why are you closing all the windows? We have no fresh air.”
“Look out of the window, they are burning again.”
“But it is only white smoke, nothing dangerous. You even see white smoke in the Vatican City when they elect a new pope.”
“But we are far from the Vatican and live in a country village with clean air. We do not need that pollution and we are not catholic.”
“It is not pollution, I cannot smell anything.”
“Of course you can’t, I have shut all the windows.”
“An I am sure if they were open we would have no bad smells.”
“I don’t like it. Since they built that place there is continuously smoke belching out of that funny shaped chimney and the pope doesn’t live here either.”
“I don’t know what they are burning, but I am sure it isn’t dangerous.”
“How do you know? I don’t trust that government lot, they are always up to no good. One morning we will be laying dead in our beds, because of their games with the air. It might even be something to do with a foreign power to show them that they can drop their bombs where they see the smoke signals.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, now open the windows. Look you cannot smell anything, it is perfectly safe.”
“Are you sure, it looks strange to me smoke belching out like that.”
“They are probably just burning local household refuse. It is all done differently today: much cleaner with no smell.”
“I am not so sure, I can even hear a siren sounding”
“That is probably a local exercise, they try them out now and again to make sure they are still working.”
“But look at all those dead cows in that field.”
“They are not dead, just having their midday sleep.”
And so life continued in a small village somewhere next to a nuclear power plant. You get used to the continuous smoke eventually and do not really think about it.
The next morning they were found dead in their beds, together with the other inhabitants of the village. If only they had kept the windows closed, but perhaps that would not have helped. It was the first nuclear power plant in the area, but even they have their problems.
Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss 
Yours is funny, but I have seen that so much. Everyone says “Oh, it’s nothing,” but it ISN’T NOTHING. It’s smoke and whatever it is, it isn’t good for our lungs or the air or the birds that fly. There was a time when all cities were full of chimneys belching smoke. Aren’t we glad they are (mostly) gone!
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Funny and perhaps a little ironic. It is only water vapour that comes out of those chimneys they say, but who knows. This one is Gösgen, half an hour by train from us on the line to Zürich. I always try to get a photo when I am travelling in that direction from the trainn. I grew up in the London smog, so know what the result of factory chimneys is.
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Ad to that and the new nano particles designed for safety. Only safe because it is too hard to capture, trace and measure. But it is easier to find its way into our lungs!
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I don’t trust anything, the air that we breathe isn’t like it used to be
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Probably never will be again. I hope will will evolve or adjust to it in time. (The future generations) There is no hope for our lot though.
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AT the moment I am reading “The Day of the Triffids” and that is a depressing book. It is probably influencing my comments at the moment.
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Funny how something we read can change everything at that moment, then on to the next thing to influence our minds. 🙂
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:O
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Nothing like a nuclear power plant in your back yard.
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I live within 10 miles of a closed nuclear plant — it’s no safer than it was when it was operating, as the spent nuclear waste sits there encased in concrete and sitting in pools of water.
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It’s universal. Switzrland wants to get out of nuclear power, but how. Not only do we have our plants to run down but France has lined their plants up along the Swiss border. And no-one really knows where the waste should be moved to.
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We had a fire that burned within 500 ft of the town, many were evacuated. We were far enough away, we weren’t but the winds turned and the smoke surrounded us. I’d forgotten to shut the window that night, not thinking about the results and woke up with a horrific sore throat as a result. We all mistakenly thought the fire would be out within hours but instead burned for days. White smoke! not dark billowing clouds of gray, but it still had the same effect on eyes and throat.
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The only bad smells we have are when the farmer fertilizes his fields. In our area we have never had a bad fire luckily. We have a warning system if anything would happen: windows shut and listen to the radio.
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Absolutely!
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Some warning system! Like ours — the danger radius is something like 50 miles, but the warning whistles only go 10 miles from the plant! If there was an incident, the clue would be that all the traffic would be going away from the plant!
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I just hope that we never have to find out
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