ULEZ Letter

[Scottyboi]

Them "smog free towers" look good why not build loads of them around London only 7 metres tall.

 

[meltonblue]

If as suggested this is an existential threat to mankind and of such urgency, why is it only going to happen if it costs the man in the street?

The pandemic saw what government can do re finance when needed and yea, taxpayers will foot that bill for years to come but at the time of need, funds where provided to ensure what was needed done, got done.

Is it not ok to think government the world over should step up here?

It’s not dissimilar to housing or energy in general where because we have governments that are more interested in the short term and increasingly populist with it too, we sit on problems until they become much more painful to fix.

Personally I’d like to see a complete overhaul of our tax system as I don’t think it’s fit for purpose right now - wealth disparity has grown to too big a level and needs a bit of a reset somehow and couple that with investment in the right areas with long term aspirations in mind. Renewables is a prime example where we could have been a market leader and it would have been great for economic growth as well as net zero commitments. We’ve already let others take the lead on that too.

 

[Blue Maverick]

£3.7bn? Are you sure? NHS states that UK wide it’s £160m per year (this includes both acute and social care costs) where there is robust evidence linking pollution and health rising to £550m where there is less robust evidence. Who is this “we” btw? Do you work for the mayor or TFL?

I think where people get annoyed is not in the principles of clean air, it’s they get told to do x and it’ll all be good so spend money doing x only to be told it’s not good and to now do y. Y is currently go electric, ignoring manufacturing environmental impacts and battery life cycles / accident damage / where the electricity comes from we also know that even electric cars generate particles from tyre and brake wear that can have negative health impacts, some research has suggested it’s worse than fossil fuel car exhausts in some cases, although you would expect these to be more disbursed outside the cities rather than in those current exhaust emission hot spots where traffic is going to be stationary/slow. Today the EV is our saviour, 10-15 years from now EVs are going to be public enemy number 1.

Remember when diesel was the saviour! Coffee was good for you then bad for you then good for you! Hydrogen is probably the way forward, EVs for most people are not practical, never mind the mileage issue it’s the charging issue , go down a terrace street and tell me how you charge overnight? The £3.7bin he quoted was from 2016 report,https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-ar...arch into,and inconvenience to family members.
it may well be better now in fact in the world London is 96 in the list!

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

Woah there, as tempting as it is on emotive subjects let’s not get into sensationalism. The little girl didn’t die from air pollution.

It's not sensationalism it was recorded on her death certificate as cause of death.

What expertise and special knowledge do you have to deny it and argue differently?

That’s not to say air pollution in some of our cities isn’t a problem to some degree and adversely impacts people with other health conditions. I can visit some of the less developed parts of the world as part of my job and you can literally taste the pollution, my breathing and health is noticeably impacted in a very short space of time. So pollution does cause significant problems in people, in the UK our air isn’t too bad but could certainly be better in places.

I’ve no issue whatsoever with the stated objectives of ULEZ. I doubt anyone has.

 

[metalblue]

Remember when diesel was the saviour! Coffee was good for you then bad for you then good for you! Hydrogen is probably the way forward, EVs for most people are not practical, never mind the mileage issue it’s the charging issue , go down a terrace street and tell me how you charge overnight? The £3.7bin he quoted was from 2016 report,https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-london-assembly-does/questions-mayor/find-an-answer/air-pollution-economic-impact#:~:text=TfL has undertaken research into,and inconvenience to family members.
it may well be better now in fact in the world London is 96 in the list!

And unleaded petrol!

Cheers for the link mate, he is using a report to back up his case for expanding ULEZ when they actual report is focusing on the life time cost of PM2.5 of which 12% comes from transport and 75% comes from outside London. Less than 1% of London’s roads apparently fall below WHO guidelines on PM2.5 and this seems like it’s a national problem to solve if the majority is coming from outside of the city itself. ULEZ will do nothing here.

That said reducing NO2 is important and great strides have been made with this and that is thanks in no small part to ULEZ. Boris Johnson and the tories can take pride in this legacy here given it was all their idea ;)

 

[metalblue]

It's not sensationalism it was recorded on her death certificate as cause of death.

What expertise and special knowledge do you have to deny it and argue differently?

It literally wasn’t. What expertise do I have? An ability to read I suppose

Giving his conclusion over almost an hour, the coroner said: "I will conclude that Ella died of asthma, contributed to by exposure to excessive air pollution."

Ergo cause of death was asthma.

 

[meltonblue]

It literally wasn’t. What expertise do I have? An ability to read I suppose

Giving his conclusion over almost an hour, the coroner said: "I will conclude that Ella died of asthma, contributed to by exposure to excessive air pollution."

Ergo cause of death was asthma.

To be fair, that does mean that she died due to air pollution, which was the original point you were arguing wasn’t it?

 

[metalblue]

To be fair, that does mean that she died due to air pollution, which was the original point you were arguing wasn’t it?

PM levels were considered a contributing factor to both her tragic death and severity of her rare form of asthma.

Anyway we’re going down a rabbit hole here and getting away from this thread so will leave this here, particularly as talking about the death of a child no matter what the circumstances.

 

[meltonblue]

PM levels were considered a contributing factor to both her tragic death and severity of her rare form of asthma.

Anyway we’re going down a rabbit hole here and getting away from this thread so will leave this here, particularly as talking about the death of a child no matter what the circumstances.

Right but air pollution exposure is specifically called out as one of the medical causes of death too, that’s why it got the publicity it did at the time.

Agree with your second paragraph.

 

[metalblue]

Right but air pollution exposure is specifically called out as one of the medical causes of death too, that’s why it got the publicity it did at the time.

Agree with your second paragraph.

They reopened the inquest and there was a sense when it was reopened it could be the first time in the UK that air pollution was the cause of death. The second inquest upheld the conclusion of the first.

Irrespective of the semantics the quality of air was considered way below where it should have been for her due to local PM levels and no one should have to live in those conditions. ULEZ won’t solve this, nor would taking every car/van/ bus off the roads of London or making them all electric.