What would be the most effective way of tackling poor health caused by air quality?
Last week’s poll was predicated by environment secretary Michael Gove’s Clean Air Strategy, which is consulting on a raft of measures to ‘cut air pollution and save lives’.
Pollutants targeted in the strategy include particulates from burning wood and coal in homes, emissions from farms in the form of ammonia from manure and fertilisers, and dust from vehicle tyres and brakes.
Among the details announced by Gove were extra investment in scientific research and innovation for clean air technology and reduction of emissions of toxic pollutants, such as oxides of nitrogen and particulates.
Other details include legislation to ensure that only “the cleanest domestic fuels” would be on sale. This might include controls on selling wet wood for domestic log burners.
Of the 345 respondents, 39 per cent thought the best option would be compulsory clean air zones (CAZ) that remove polluting vehicles from cities, followed 14 per cent who opted for controls on burning wood and coal. A total of 12 per cent thought that local authorities should be given powers to impose CAZs, and four per cent thought farmers should receive subsidies to improve slurry and fertiliser control. Just under a third – 31 per cent – went for the ‘none of the above’ option.
The sources and control of air pollution never fail to stir debate, as seen in the 34 comments received so far on the subject.
“Joined-up thinking is required instead of piecemeal action at the behest of the rich. A Conservative administration (even a minority one) will never act against the short-term, profit-is-everything interests of those who bankroll it,” said Ian Bennet. “Ban all private cars from city centres and have free local buses and trams. Everyone wants everyone else to use public transport to make more room for their own cars, so make public transport desirable for all. Those who are not prepared to use public transport can just stay out of cities.”
Michael Reid added: “There are a number of underfunded new technologies that have been developed over the last decade to solve this problem and they could be brought to bear very quickly if Gove is sincere about investing in that.
“The government have known of the growth of this problem for 20 years and paid very little attention to it despite the massive health care, personal and social cost of the sickness it creates. Gove would go up massively in my estimation if he really does put his money where his mouth is.”
Looking at potential sources of pollution beyond town and city limits, Bill Church said: “Ammonium Nitrate fertiliser is expensive and farmers do not chuck it around for fun. Increasingly, new technologies are allowing application only in areas that need it thus saving money and cutting potential pollution. These technologies often involve a high degree of automation using drones and automatic soil sampling.”
What are you thoughts on the Clean Air Strategy and efforts to tackle poor health caused by poor air quality? Let us know using Comments below.
If the existing smoke control areas were policed, there wouldn’t be any need for new legislation on coal and wood-burning fires and stoves. Installers of stoves already need to be HETAS certified and usually work closely with the shops selling them. Make the shops and installers liable for prosecution if they sell an unsuitable stove in a smoke control area.
You could enforce vehicle emission testing which could target polluting vehicles that have badly tuned engines and keep them off the streets. Also bring forward the Diesel / Petrol Engine ban from 2040 to 2030 to encourage vehicle manufacturers to bring out cleaner vehicles sooner.
No wonder we’re all dropping like flies – not. I spent the first 20 years of my life in grossly polluted Birmingham. People of my generation are living longer than at any time in recorded history. That must mean something.
Having failed, quite deservedly, to get traction on global warming, the Green Blob are now targeting a largely non-existent air pollution threat, to justify taking us back to the stone age.
I believe living in a high-pollution environment can impede brain function.
Not me sunshine! Brightest thing on two legs and so modest.
I take the time to study the data and form opinions based on facts and I don’t worship at the altar of green groupthink.
I started work in 1972 and spent the first 17 years of my working life in the shadow of Spaghetti junction (almost underneath it), I’m now 62, and couldn’t agree more with your comments Bill.
A coherent transport policy would be good for cities, replacing a traffic jam of slow-moving polluting cars with slow-moving less polluting cars does not solve the primary issue.
Modern economies rely entirely on the movement of goods and people. Anything that gets in the way of this will have a detrimental effect on the economy. Things have to be made, delivered, used, and maintained. The concentration of people and polluting devices is what causes the problems, so better ways of managing the concentration other than merely introducing fines and taxes are needed. Governments love taxes (despite what some might pretend) as it increases their incomes., they have a vested interest in maintaining taxable systems!
Is this part of the problem? Perhaps, instead of buying new “stuff” with expensive regularity, we should make the “stuff” last longer and buy it less often. There will still be a need to transport food, etc but it might get some HGVs off the roads.
Always the focus on transport and burning. many industrial and agricultural processes have emissions to atmosphere of significant pollutants, weld fume, grinding, wood dust, chemicals, fibres. More needs to be done to stop unfiltered emissions to atmosphere which are now becoming increasingly common despite advances in filter technology. Recognising the need to provide systems to protect not just people but the wider environment would be an important step
Remove traffic lights, remove speed cameras in urban areas, and increase speed limits. The balance between safety and traffic flow has moved far to far towards safety and many cars just sit a lights on idle, even those with stop-start. Many car drivers are frightened to go more than 30 or 40 and continue to do so everywhere regardless of speed limit. As a consequence many cars cannot get up to working engine exhaust temperature, not just the water temp being at normal. Reprogramming junctions so that all lights on red was not the default with no traffic present would mean when cars approach at least one direction would not have to slow or stop. Getting rid of most lights would put the onus back on drivers to be aware of their surroundings at junctions, and traffic would flow better resulting in improved air quality.
Fitting cars with sensible sized smaller engines would remove most of the warm up problem. A maximum speed of around 80mph as in the first Smarts would be fine. A 4.5L V8 for a car that seats 5 is a problem not the speed limits.
Best regards
Roger
What is a sensible small engine? The trend for these small (sub 1 litre) engines is great in the towns and cities where their pollutants are marginally better than bigger engine vehicles (approx. 2L). However, at motorway speeds this is reversed as the small engine has to work much harder. This hard work relates to greater wear, and worn out engines are more polluting. with even bigger engines (3 – 5L) yes they pollute more, but they normally can shut down part of the engine resulting in them being comparable with the 2l engine, but these engines being hardly stressed at all will last even longer.
Why do I point this out, the act of making new cars and scrapping old ones creates more pollution than a cars exhaust will ever produce!
Engineers are trained to examine data and question them: I voted none of above for that reason. The Royal College keep making these unproven and untrue statistics as part of a well orchestrated “Fear campaign”. If they were right, and £ 20b could be saved from the NHS budget one would support this: this would then reduce our escalating health budget: they mean to add to it. However, the WHO and other reports of the last year show that these claims are pie in the sky: the increase in life-expectancy of someone born today was predicted as being 2 to 8 months: with a massive uncertainty.
We all want improvements to the environment, but the cost / benefit assessment needs to be carried-out before such foolish draconian steps are taken. As with the ban on I/C engines, the Law of Unintended Consequences will follow and these will cost us all, but cost the poorest most!
Yes, lets spend all this money to provide us with crystal clear air and a pleasant environment to enable us all to sit out and enjoy a pleasant smoke/vape.
if you look at the graph on page 9 of the CAS – ironically underneath the heading ‘Understanding the problem’ – you might be forgiven for asking ‘what problem’? SO2 down 95%, PM2.5 down 80%, NOx down 70% from 1970 levels, on a fairly steady downward trend. Yet if you look at ’50 years of asthma: UK trends from 1955 to 2004′ http://thorax.bmj.com/content/62/1/85 both fatalities and hospital admissions are flat. I haven’t looked at any other respiratory illnesses yet but something strange is going on, at least for asthma – are the official pollution figures flaky, are we focusing on the wrong pollutants or is there some other causation altogether?
… and for another take on it see https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/default/files/styles/media_large/public/2017-06/Female%20age-standardised%20mortality%20rates.png?itok=FdYh9hF2 Might the (modest) reduction in deaths from respiratory diseases since 1970 not also be related to the reduction in cigarette smoking? Did a 70-95% reduction in some major pollutants have no health benefit whatsoever?
Joined-up thinking is required instead of piecemeal action at the behest of the rich. A Conservative administration (even a minority one) will never act against the short-term, profit-is-everything interests of those who bankroll it.
Ban all private cars from city centres and have free local buses and trams. Everyone wants everyone else to use public transport to make more room for their own cars, so make public transport desirable for all. Those who are not prepared to use public transport can just stay out of cities.
If the Govt. are so keen on clean air, why will they not install electrical connection points for the new cruiser berthing on the Thames. In order to keep their systems turning over the vessels have to idle their ever-so-clean marine diesels in a known pollution trap.
Just noticed the captions on the graphs behind Gove – both end with “….from PCM Models”.
Not real data then. Somewhere, I seem to have come across models before!
I just saw the bit about agricultural ammonia – so the farmers will be PAID not to pollute … I suppose it makes a change for being paid NOT to produce food …
Ammonium Nitrate fertiliser is expensive and farmers do not chuck it around for fun. Increasingly, new technologies are allowing application only in areas that need it thus saving money and cutting potential pollution. These technologies often involve a high degree of automation using drones and automatic soil sampling.
so the farmers are to be subsidised by tax payers not to pollute AND to save themselves money? Will they be repaying the grant from their reduced fertiliser costs? … no I thought not
This whole debacle infuriates me. Aren’t these the same people that in the late 90’s early 00’s where pushing everybody to buy diesels because of the better mpg’s and lower CO2 emissions. You didn’t have to be a genius to realise how stupid this strategy was when sat behind a bus chucking out black soot. So why should I trust these same idiots when they cannot tell me how long the batteries of EVs will last, never mind how they are going to dispose of them. Secondly where is all the extra electricity to charge these EVs going to come from? Third thing who can actually afford a decent size family EV? Forget hybrids. Most have an electric range of 30 miles before switching to their combustion engine with a 30mpg consumption due to the extra weight of batteries and electric motors, not to mention the reduced storage capacity taken up by said batteries. Fourth how will they dispose of all these fossil fuel vehicles? Fifth what effect will the production and transportation of the new vehicles have on the environment? Sixth when the Government finally destroys car manufacturing in this country how will they replace those jobs?
I live in Milton Keynes which was designed for cars but they are systematically slowing traffic down and causing congestion by putting in traffic lights and closing junctions in the name of Health and Safety. So they are causing extra pollution in the name of Health and Safety! Confused me thinks. Anybody who lives in Milton Keynes will tell you the public transport is atrocious. A 10 minute car journey can take upto 2 hours on a bus and there is no way I would let my daughters travel alone. Taxis at peak times can take upto 45 mins to arrive. I love London as a city but as I get older it is becoming clearer that everything is done to protect London and the economy there. London has a very good public transport system and you are never far from an underground station. Name me another city or town in the UK that has as good public transport. Despite this I recently parked on a side road near Hyde Park. I felt quite proud in my 08 Mondeo as it was quite unique, compared to all the new Bentleys and Rollers. Maybe that is the governments agenda, to make car ownership so expensive it rids the roads of Joe Average and makes it elitist. As soon as I turned 17 I started my driving lessons but the current generation are not starting to learn until much older now. It’s already happening!
I am all for improving the environment and reducing pollution but this seems to be a knee jerk reaction, again. Why are drivers always targeted? What about other pollutants? We live in a capitalist country. Goods have to be transported to and from market. People need to get to work to pay for these goods to keep the economy rolling. It is the poorest workers that will be hit hardest once again, those on minimum wage that are supporting the lifestyles of those Bentley drivers in Mayfair that probably are paying no or very little tax and have no understanding of the struggles of the ordinary man or woman.
Mark, Your are right about hybrids and we should be looking at full EVs. I suggest you go along to “Fully Charged Live” at Silverstone on 9/10th June. Its not far for you and you will see what’s happening with EVs. Lots of informative talks too.
Fortunately Mark clever Engineers are solving the problems of strengthening the grid to charge electric cars and improve battery range and life including recycling of the batteries.
https://electrek.co/2018/05/23/network-ev-charging-stations-2-gw-of-battery-power-uk/
https://electrek.co/2018/05/22/ultra-fast-charging-battery-tech-storedot-investment-oil-giant-bp/
So does Moscow, St Petersburg, and many former USSR cities. Private car manufacture and ownership was great for Midland Constituency MPs and their electors in the 60s et al: now we are paying the price!
The correct legislation should be based on accurate data alone. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Politics and money govern above health.
Pollution isn’t just a car thing. It isn’t just a burning fossil fuels thing. What ever we do as a species creates waste and ultimately pollution. The less we use the less pollution we make. Unfortunately there are over 7 billion of us most requiring food, water and the trappings of a good life. Pollution is therefore inevitable, what we all need to do is cut down our usage, this doesn’t require government interference, it’s that rarest of commodities ‘common sense, sadly lacking in our knee jerk society.
There are a number of underfunded new technologies that have been developed over the last decade to solve this problem and they could be brought to bear very quickly if Gove is sincere about investing in that.
The governement have known of the growth of this problem for 20 years and paid very little attention to it despite the massive health care, personal and social cost of the sickness it creates. Gove would go up massively in my estimation if he really does put his money where his mouth is.
While they are trying to understand the new technology to police the border between the European union and ourselves perhaps they can magic up air barriers as well. I see that the bonfire brigade and the smoking b.b.q. has not been touched.As I have commented before the van laying a fog of Diesel along the road is still polluting- and he will until he is caught by technology -speed cameras catch speed -pollution cameras could be installed if we had a mind.
You have got the right idea, make public transport free and available 24x 7, but stop bus drivers from keeping their buses engines running when they are stationary
I actually attended the Supreme Court hearing where Friends of the Earth or some-such were suing HMG for not at least having a plan in place (which they now have?) to start to comply with EU regs on pollution control. What was clear was that their Lordships appeared to have gained a greater understanding of the issues than the barrister briefed by HMG to defend the indefensible : so nothing new there!
Whilst these are all relevant factors in controlling the pollution of our atmosphere, focussing on making the car more environmentally friendly, there has never been a realistic attempt to reduce brake dust emissions. Up to this day I’m only aware of one plausible solution to achieve such a feat and it comes from a British based company called AirBack.
The AirBack system focusses on reducing the brake drag that acts upon each wheel, by using air pressure reduction within the master cylinder reservoir to retract the brake caliper pistons a small amount during cruise and reversing this process just prior to brake actuation. The system remains active for just a few seconds after brake actuation therefore using minimal power! However, the drag reduction effect is maintained indefinitely until the next use of the brakes thus reducing dust pollution and your vehicle’s fuel bill!
I have seen for myself the effects of this system and I can confidently say that it results in minimal brake-induced drag. However, it doesn’t stop there: Because the system uses a pneumatic pulse to pre-fill the brake fluid reservoir, the responsiveness of the brakes is clearly enhanced thus allowing faster braking through a shorter pedal travel. This is a real game changing system for the automotive industry and I would encourage anyone who is interested in supporting this programme to take a look for themselves and see the potential it has to offer on all road going vehicles.
http://www.airback.co.uk
Whilst on the topic of pollution from cars…does anyone have any figures for the amount of rubber deposited from tyres every day -say per mile of road? Not only that, but where does it go?
I have to hope that the tonnage of this is less than that ejected from cars in the form of ‘domestic’ waste -food packaging, discarded whatever, which scar our countryside and are seen every winter once the leaves are ‘off’.
Can we just clear up one small point.
Governments (like banks) have virtually no money except that they tax from us: and or borrow on our behalf, and with us responsible for and guaranteeing the interest?(see above)