foggy Istanbul winters

Except for my 2 week holiday in december 08/jan 09, this is my first Istanbul winter, and although it snowed last year around Christmas, this year there was only a few flurries that didn't stick and it was very mild, mostly raining. Driving around Istanbul at night, you can see a blanket of fog on the streets and highways which is not from the rain. It took me a while to figure out what this was, until after several visits to my husband's parents' apt in Bagcilar, I was exasperated by this fog as i waited outside by the door as he parked the car within centimeters of the ground floor apartment's window bars. I am a few months pregnant and my nose is on overdrive, overly sensitive to all the smells around me. So I started complaining about the horrendous air quality in Istanbul, imagining it choking our 11 week old baby inside me, and blaming the truck & mini bus exhaust and the lack of emission standards here.
Then my husband told me something far worse - "it's from the coal" he said. Yes, they still use coal in many neighborhoods to heat the buildings, because it is cheaper than natural gas, and cheaper than converting to a more environmentally friendly system. "What is this, Victorian England?" I exclaim, wondering how Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would handle this problem, instead of the apathetic (or pathetic) Turkish government. Some of the political parties even hand out coal to the people to curry votes. Then i imagined my husband growing up in this neighborhood, oblivious to the detrimental effects of burning coal (such as the release of lead & mercury into the air), and was thankful that our neighborhood buildings were mostly heated by gas. I suppose the air is cleaner if you live near the water, something we will have to look into when we move house in 2 years (insallah!).