High pollution measures

LiamO
new

33 min 19 sec ago

I might be commenting after the horse has bolted but I can't help but feel that a lot of people posting on this site have bought into all of the scaremongering that we are all going to die from respiratory diseases caused by motor vehicles (predominately diesel ones). I would like to make a few observations about the ULEZ:
The start point of charging is surely arbitrary - there is no magic barrier between one side of the North/South Circular or the M25. Toxic fumes travel in the air and are dissipated.
We used to manufacture many things in this country, particularly during the Industrial Revolution, but somewhere along the line our commercial and political leaders decided that it would be better to have the Chinese do it for us, leaving us with crisp, clean air. The Chinese then built new cities and hundreds of coal powered power stations and embarked on a financial splurge on consumer goods and the world's mineral and water rights. The upshot is that their new cities are under a cloud of smog the likes of which we haven't seen since the 1960's. However, this smog doesn't just stay there - it travels around the globe - so the hand wringing about this side or that of the North/South Circular means very little.
The devices you are using to post your comments were invariably manufactured in China and you are not as carbon-neutral as you would like to think. Why do TfL and the local authorities sell the notion that they can reduce emissions on a street by street basis? Why is it that a lot of the roads being closed to through traffic are in more affluent areas, where residents stand to gain from increases in their property value? Why does Kensington & Chelsea have the 2nd longest life expectancy in the country when they have some of the heaviest urban traffic flows?
The much vaunted 9k deaths per year never seems to fluctuate and is never explained in regional differences - those living near the busiest roads should have the highest mortality rates - and the data doesn't filter out respiratory conditions caused by smoking or industrial pollutents and doesn't clearly explain what "early death" is. These are not people dying in the prime of life but they may not be meeting the predicted life-span. The main factor, I believe, is poverty - it kills more people than emissions. Those below the poverty line have a worse diet and more medical complications than those on average earnings and are therefore more susceptible to "early" death.
We do need to plan for the future and reduce (on a global basis) our human detritus but this will need to be done from a much wider perspective than the one adopted by our local authorities and TfL. We badly need the Department of Transport to instigate a review of road and traffic planning in our major cities so that the response is balanced and not the scalpel approach that makes motorists the cancer and local politicians the scalpel.
The main point to remember is that we all need the tansport network for everything we consume. Waging war on commercial diesel vehicles is akin to chewing on your own arm.

WOW LOOK AT THIS FOLKS !!
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/london-is-not-bound-in-tox…

6 months ago we were TALKING about information, warnings, forecasts, etc., and we are currently in a moderate to high pollution period. In the intervening period NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE - JUST MORE TALK!
If the Mayor has to have any value, he must demonstrate some ACTION to reduce the levels of pollution in and around London. He must have the courage of his convictions, and the evidence, and BAN DIRTY VEHICLES. Everybody will claim that their vehicle is the exception, when it isn't, and a radical move such as painting double yellow lines on one side of every bus route road would free up the reduced level of traffic, cutting pollution into the bargain.
Not all Paris' range of emergency measures might be practical in London, but which have been tried so far? NONE. Who will be paying the EU's fine on the UK for failing to clean up our air? Not the Mayor, the PM or any other politician - just the UK taxpayer, as per usual.
Let's cut out the talk and give us some radical action ASAP.
I do have a particular vested interest, in that my wife has suffered from COPD for the last 15 years.

I do change my routine based on pollution levels. Fortunately I have an employer who istolerant to this, as some aren't. Forcasting in the short term is not as difficult as is suggested. Certain metrological conditions (static high pressure systems) are always precursors to high pollutant levels.

Why not use pollution data recovered from air quality stations throughout the capitol, and scientific knowledge beyond the grasp of most of us, instead of relying on largely sentimental, prejudicial, often imaginitive and always self-interested reaction from a scientifically uninitiated public.?
I believe I am unaware of the most significant elements of all the most important factors, because I am dependant on government and industry for my information. Both are inevitably biased in their own interests.

I think this risks being a displacement activity where we spend money on helping people get around a problem rather than tackling the problem.

I'd like to see evidence from Paris or elsewhere that providing such information does actually change behaviour - it looks a bit like a cones hotline to me.

And I'd like to see what we would get if we put the money that this scheme would cost into actually reducing pollution instead.

A website, FB page or email update alerting to particularly high days of pollution would be handy. Incidentally, the very high pollution days seem to be more related to dust and pollution blown in from overseas than traffic in London itself, so the ULEZ and related schemes seem to be a pure tax raising and PR exercise.