Keith Taylor, Green Party Member of the European Parliament for the South East region, writes of the growing problem to public health from air pollution in The Huff Posts Daily Blog.
“There is a growing realisation of the threats to public health from air pollution. In fact, breathing polluted air has become second only to smoking in the health damage it causes. In fact, breathing polluted air has become second only to smoking in the health damage it causes. About 70% of air pollution comes from transport, with the balance mainly coming from agriculture and domestic heating.
A recent government scientific report revealed that UK air pollution causes 29,000 deaths and contributes to over 200,000 premature deaths per year. In my own constituency, the south east of England, the problem of air pollution particularly affects both city dwellers and the thousands of people who commute into London.
It is children, the elderly and those people with existing respiratory illnesses – almost one in five of the population according to a recent poll – that suffer most from air pollution. Young children and toddlers in buggies are particularly vulnerable to pollution because they are at exhaust pipe level, where the level of pollutants is often highest.
Already this year we’ve seen law-breaking levels of pollution in Putney, south west London and we can expect many more breaches of the legislation across the country. We’re bound to see more examples like that of St Bede Primary School in Winchester which I visited last year, where parents, children and teachers are extremely worried about high levels of toxic nitrogen dioxide at the school. The same breaches of air safety affect the people I represent in cities such as Brighton & Hove, Canterbury and Southampton.”
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