UK air pollution: why are we only now waking up to this public health crisis?

[knocker]

Traffic fumes across the country are provoking increased instances of asthma and other respiratory diseases. So what is being done about it?

After years of focusing on climate change, government and environment groups are only now slowly waking up to the public health crisis. In 2011, the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee calculated that living in an air pollution hot spot could shave nine years off the lives of the most vulnerable people. It concluded that it cost Britain £6-19bn a year, or up to 17% of the total NHS budget, and that 15-20% more people died prematurely from it in cities with high levels of pollution than those in relatively cleaner ones.

London, with 4,300 deaths a year, is one of the worst in Europe and the pollution monitor on Marylebone Road shows the fourth highest levels of NO2 of over 2,000 monitoring stations in Europe. The city has 2,500 schools and 180,000 children within 150m of roads carrying 10,000 or more vehicles a day.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/19/uk-air-pollution-health-crisis?CMP=twt_gu

[Reefseeker]

This is worrying in the light of evidence of a link between air pollution and autism; with these highly complex disorders, it will never be possible to establish conclusive cause and effect relationships, but as the mum of a 13 year-old with autism, I have to consider these things carefully: http://www.huffingto...000003&ir=Green. Note also the 2004 study, albeit by an environmental advocacy group, finding on average 200 industrial chemicals in the umbilical chords of 10 babies; again a small sample from a group with an agenda, but still those chemicals were there.

I am trying to find statistics measuring air pollution in my area and seem to end up going around the houses - can anyone recommend a good source?

[Mountain Snow]

This doesn't surprise me, one reason why I moved to the country a few years back.

During a high pressure spell, must have been during 2007, maybe April of that year, I was sat on a hill called White Nancy near Macclesfield. It has a fantastic view all across the Cheshire plain to the hills of North Wales and North across Manchester to Winter Hill. On this day there was a thick yellow smog hanging over the city which stretched quite a way into Cheshire. Once back in Manchester I looked up and all I could see was blue sky, the smog could only be seen from high up looking though it. Really turned my stomach knowing all these people were oblivious to the rubbish they were breathing in.

[knocker]

This is worrying in the light of evidence of a link between air pollution and autism; with these highly complex disorders, it will never be possible to establish conclusive cause and effect relationships, but as the mum of a 13 year-old with autism, I have to consider these things carefully: http://www.huffingto...000003&ir=Green. Note also the 2004 study, albeit by an environmental advocacy group, finding on average 200 industrial chemicals in the umbilical chords of 10 babies; again a small sample from a group with an agenda, but still those chemicals were there.

I am trying to find statistics measuring air pollution in my area and seem to end up going around the houses - can anyone recommend a good source?

Off the top of my head the only one that comes quickly to mind is the DEFRA site.

http://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/

[Reefseeker]

Off the top of my head the only one that comes quickly to mind is the DEFRA site.

http://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/

Thanks, I'll perservere with that one:)

[RebeccaHowards1]

Hey guys. Related to your discussion above I want to remind you that today we celebrate "Earth Day". Take a look on this 

. We can chat later on

[Gael_Force]

The MACC project has fairly extensive air quality monitoring and modelling on its website.

 

http://www.gmes-atmosphere.eu/about/product_portfolio/

 

eg Nitrogen oxides mentioned in the above article.

 

[Methuselah]

Traffic fumes across the country are provoking increased instances of asthma and other respiratory diseases. So what is being done about it?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/19/uk-air-pollution-health-crisis?CMP=twt_gu

Boris Johnson spent several £million on having glue put onto London's roads. Needless to say, it didn't work...But it did remind of what my dad always did, whenever anything broke: run around shouting, "where's the bloody Araldite!"

 

Welcome to Netweather, RebeccaHowards1!

[frogesque]

It took the Clean Air Act in 1956 to get rid of the smogs that plagued London and other big cities. Following on, lead had been removed from petrol, considerably reducing airborn and surface heavy metal pollution.

It takes corageous governments with opposition backing to force these measures into being. We really need to rethink our ideas on what constitutes 'clean' energy. I know my own asthsma is much better when I visit country districts of West and Highland Scotland than when at home in Fife downwind of the Central Belt.

[Bobby]

We get pretty good air here being just 30 miles or so from the Atlantic ocean to the SW and the prevailing winds. Don't like those dirty dusty winds from the continent though.

[scarlet5]

I think the best idea is to move far from the big cities and run your own farm with animals and plants.. Of course if you can't afford it at least move out from big cities or try to be surrounded by forests trees etc... Because this air pollution is really too much even for a healthy people doesn't mention asthma. But thats why I mentioned try to live "ecofriendly" life and if you doesn't live in a big city its easier..

[RebeccaHowards1]

I think the best idea is to move far from the big cities and run your own farm with animals and plants.. Of course if you can't afford it at least move out from big cities or try to be surrounded by forests trees etc... Because this air pollution is really too much even for a healthy people doesn't mention asthma. But thats why I mentioned try to live "ecofriendly" life and if you doesn't live in a big city its easier..

i totally agree with you. Actually, it is one of my dreams, to repair an old house that belonged to my granny, and have a farm of my own, and have some chickens, maybe a cow, to have milk and cheese... I would like my children to breathe fresh air... 

 

Thank you Rybris Ponce, glad to meet you all!