Warm weather brings high air pollution warnings for much of England

Posted on April 9, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

Pollution levels will peak on Friday, particularly in areas of south-east England where the government are advising the entire population to reduce physical activity

Harmful levels of air pollution will accompany the warm weather expected across the UK on Friday, triggering government warnings that people with health problems should reduce their physical activity.

Much of central, eastern and northern England will be blanketed in high pollution, according to the official UK Air site, with some of south-east England affected by very high pollution.

The episode is blamed on a combination of dirty air from the continent, the fine weather conditions and Saharan dust, which contributed to several days of serious pollution one year ago. Temperatures are expected to reach almost 20C in some areas on Friday.

defraThis week’s warning comes a day after Islamist hackers took control of UK Air, posting a portrait of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and criticising the UK government for the 2003 Iraq invasion. The site, which is run by consultancy Ricardo-AEA on the environment department’s behalf, is still offline but a spokeswoman said they were working to get it up again “as soon as possible”. Pollution forecasts are being posted on a holding page.

In regions hit by high pollution on Friday, the official health advice is for adults and children with lung problems to reduce their physical activity, and for all older people to reduce physical exertion. In the very high areas, which include Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings, the entire population are advised to reduce physical activity.

A Met Office spokeswoman said the settled weather this week meant the pollution episode was likely to happen, but would be blown away by Saturday.

“We do have a weak front crossing the UK late on Friday which is bringing some cooler, fresher air behind it. Until then we have these fairly calm, settled conditions which means any pollution buildup doesn’t move, it’s trapped there,” she said.

Pollution levels are expected to rise throughout Thursday in advance, but the forecast is for largely low levels by Saturday.

Dr Penny Woods, chief executive of the British Lung Foundation, said: “This latest high air pollution episode, coming so soon after the last, is troubling, and could again put people living with respiratory conditions at risk of worsening symptoms.”

She added: “With periods of high pollution often resulting from a combination of domestically-produced pollution and that coming from mainland Europe, we need urgent action from government to clean up the air we breathe, across all government departments at home and at a pan-European level.”

On Wednesday, the Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint against a Transport for London newspaper advert that claimed Boris Johnson’s planned ‘ultra low emissions zone’ would cut vehicle pollution by half. The ASA rejected two other complaints but ruled that the advert’s claim was misleading because it only referred to two pollutants, NO2 and NOx, and did not include CO2, PM10 and PM2.5 emissions, which would not be cut by half.

TfL said it would appeal the decision.

via Warm weather brings high air pollution warnings for much of England | Environment | The Guardian.

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How India’s New Air Quality Index Works

Posted on April 8, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

It’s no surprise to residents of the country’s capital that Delhi’s air quality can be terrible, but now they can know just how dangerous it is to go outside.

The air quality index from the Central Pollution Control Board is the first national index to explain in layman’s terms the effect that breathing the air in 10 cities could have on a person’s health.

It started producing readings on Monday.

In Shadipur in western Delhi, for instance, the air on Monday morning contained three to four times the recommended level of small airborne particles – pollutants linked to serious health problems, including lung cancer.

The air quality index translates detailed information on different pollutants into a color-coded warning system. Hours where pollution was below regulatory limits are colored green to represent minimal impact on health, the hours in shades of red indicate levels that would affect healthy people and have a serious impact on those with pre-existing conditions.

The index, overseen by the environment ministry, calculates the average pollution for a day, which the government says is a better way to judge air quality.

If a resident of western Delhi wanted to avoid breathing in the worst air on Monday, they would have had to stay indoors until around 8:30 a.m. when the air quality had become less harmful, according to the data.

Shadipur, India

Pollution levels in that area fell as the day wore on, helping to push up the average air quality to “moderate,” or yellow, on the Indian government scale. Moderately polluted air means that it would cause “breathing discomfort” to people with asthma as well as those with diseases of the heart and lungs.

Environmentalists welcomed the move but said it wasn’t enough just to publish the data.

“We like the idea that the government is now making the effort to inform people about health hazards on a daily basis, in a language people understand,” said Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director of the Centre for Science and Environment, a New Delhi-based organization that lobbies for stronger protection for the environment.

Ms. Roychowdhury hopes that the data will make people realize that “hard decisions must be taken to clean up the air.”

Air pollution in Indian cities can be terrible, but it’s also predictable.

“In December, 65% of the days were severe [on the government scale], with pollution levels eight to nine times regulatory limits,” Ms. Roychowdhury said. “In March, there were no severe days.”

Cold winter air means that the cities pollution stays where we can breathe it instead of rising into the stratosphere, and the damp fog helps capture all the dust from coal fires and car tailpipes. “There’s an obvious seasonality to it,” Ms. Roychowdhury said.

The next step is for the government to use this data to do something about the pollution. It could follow the lead of other countries but pollution controls might not go down well with Indian car owners—or those celebrating wedding or religious holidays.

In Beijing, the government restricts what days you can drive your car if there are too many consecutive days of high pollution. They shut down factories and prohibit the use of firecrackers and barbecues.

Paris chooses to make public transportation free on days with high pollution.

Indian cities need similar ways to react to pollution and bring the levels down, Ms. Roychowdhury said. “They need to be more proactive about disseminating information, and not just put it on a website,” she said.

via How India’s New Air Quality Index Works – India Real Time – WSJ.

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Paris’ bold plan for solving its air pollution woes: Start a biking revolution

Posted on April 8, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

The City of Lights is spending $160 million to become “the cycling capital of the world”

So far, Paris’ stop-gap attempts to deal with its episodes of crippling smog have been decidedly car-centric. The city’s tried temporarily lowering speed limits. This year and last, it’s banned half of all drivers from the road during spikes in air pollution. And a new program will offer drivers up to €10,000 ($11,422) to trade in their diesel cars for electric models.

But a new plan relies less on disincentivizing cars and instead on making a clean, healthy form of transportation more appealing. That’s right: Paris wants to become a bike city.

Actually, it’s aiming to become “world capital of cycling.” And the city’s proposing a €150 million ($164.5 million) plan to make it happen by 2020.

The plan, which will go before the city council next week, is definitely bold: it aims to double Paris’ current bike lanes and create 80 kilometers (50 miles) of brand-new routes; create five, barrier-protected bike highways; cut vehicle speed limits down to 30 kilometers (18 miles) per hour; provide financial incentives for purchasing electric bikes; and add 10,000 new bike parking spots, with the ultimate goal of tripling the share of bike trips, from 5 to 15 percent.

Critics are skeptical that Paris is going to become the next Amsterdam in just five years. But there’s a lot to like about the city’s ambitions, experts told Wired:

Providing a good cyclist experience—so pedaling around the city feels safe and comfortable—is key, says Geoff Anderson, president and CEO of Smart Growth America, a coalition that works against sprawl. More bike lanes should do that, especially the five proposed “highways” that will be almost entirely protected from car traffic, on some of the city’s biggest corridors, including the Champs-Elysées.

It’s also key to build a real transportation network, Anderson says. “Way too many places are just thinking about cycling in terms of individual facilities, rather than as integrated systems” that actually take you from one place to another. Paris seems to get that as well: Along with all the extra lanes, the plan calls for making biking into and out of Paris safer, with traffic calming measures at the busy intersections around the city’s edge. That makes cycling more practical for inhabitants of the largely impoverished suburbs. The 10,000 new parking stations would make the end of any trip easy instead of a pain.
It’s the comprehensive nature of the plan, in other words, that makes it likely to work (not to mention the millions backing it up). But if the city comes through, it’ll prove that it doesn’t take a miracle — or, say, a $360 million system of elevated bike paths — to make biking appealing to commuters.

via Paris’ bold plan for solving its air pollution woes: Start a biking revolution – Salon.com.

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Weather warning: Air pollution levels to reach high level on Friday

Posted on April 8, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

Air pollution levels could reach a high level in Reading , Wokingham and Bracknell on Friday.

Stronger winds are set to sweep in by the end of week which means it’s bad news for hayfever sufferers.

And those who suffer from lung or heart problems are being urged to reduce any strenuous physical activity, and people with asthma may need to use their inhaler more often.

Anyone experiencing discomfort such as sore eyes, a cough or sore throat should consider reducing activity, particularly outdoors.

Air levels should return to normal on Saturday.

via Weather warning: Air pollution levels to reach high level on Friday – Get Reading.

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India launches air quality index to give pollution information

Posted on April 7, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

India

India has launched its first air quality index, to provide real time information about pollution levels.

The index, announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will initially monitor air quality in 10 cities.

Last year the Environmental Preference Index ranked India 174 out of 178 countries for air quality.

The rising and health-endangering pollution has been mainly blamed on a huge increase in vehicles, particularly diesel-driven cars, on Indian roads.

Polluting industries, open burning of refuse and leaves, massive quantities of construction waste and substantial loss of forests have also led to high pollution levels in cities.

A World Health Organization (WHO) survey last year found that 13 of the most polluted 20 cities in the world were in India. The capital, Delhi, was the most polluted city in the world, the survey said.

It is a leading cause of premature death in India, with about 620,000 people dying every year from pollution-related diseases, says the WHO.

On Monday, Mr Modi said India “has to take the lead in guiding the world on thinking of ways to combat climate change”.

“The world thinks India doesn’t care about the environment, we must change that… India has always respected the environment,” he said. He also called on Indians to make changes to their lifestyle to help reduce pollution.

Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said the air quality index “may prove to be a major impetus to improving air quality in urban areas, as it will improve public awareness in cities to take steps for air pollution mitigation”.

But he did not provide any details on what the government would do to curb air pollution except introducing new rules on disposal of waste from construction work.

The new index will initially cover 10 cities – Delhi, Agra, Kanpur, Lucknow, Varanasi, Faridabad, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad – and will be extended to more than 60 cities, reports say.

Details of how the index’s data will be gathered were not immediately clear.

But officials say it will provide “composite and comprehensive” information on the air quality, which will be displayed publicly and uploaded on the internet. The public can then know whether it would be safer to stay indoors or to refrain from strenuous activity outdoors.

Environmental groups have welcomed the move.

“Right now, there are around 247 Indian cities that have some air-quality monitoring mechanisms and, of that, at least 16 have online real-time monitoring capabilities,” Anumita Roychowdhury of Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) told Mint newspaper.

“But the good part is the government for the first time is making a serious effort to tell people about the daily quality of their air, which people can understand in a simple way.”

China has also announced a “war on air pollution”, and recently began publishing figures for the air quality in its cities.

 

via India launches air quality index to give pollution information – BBC News.

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Call for action on pollution as emissions linked to respiratory illnesses double

Posted on April 2, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

Study shows over the past five years industry doubled its emissions of a type of fine particle called PM10, linked to asthma and bronchitis

Environment and health groups have called for a rapid crackdown on air pollution after a new analysis showed that emissions of a key pollutant linked to respiratory illness have doubled over the past five years.

A study of the federal government’s annual national pollutant inventory, which was released this week, showed that 435,000 tonnes of a type of fine particle called PM10, named because it is just 10 micrometres in diameter, was emitted by coal companies in 2012-13.

Screen Shot 2015-04-02 at 08.56.23

This level of pollution represents a doubling in PM10 emissions in the past five years, according to Environmental Justice Australia, which compiled the comparative figures. The inventory covers dozens of pollutants emitted by more than 4,300 heavy industry facilities across Australia.

The 10 highest emitting mines increased their PM10 output by between 48% and 1,030% over the past five years, with hotspots including the Latrobe Valley in Victoria, where PM10 levels increased by 27% over five years, and the Hunter Valley in New South Wales.

The increase in PM10, which Environmental Justice Australia puts down to an increase in mining activity, was accompanied by increases in lead, arsenic and fluoride emissions over the past five years.

via Call for action on pollution as emissions linked to respiratory illnesses double | Environment | The Guardian.

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Air pollution: We haven’t seen the stars in a while

Posted on April 1, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

The chief minister of what is today the most polluted city in the world suffers from a notorious asthmatic cough. While Arvind Kejriwal’s cough is widely discussed, what is not, and what should be, is the cause of his chronic ailment.

The data suggests that Delhi’s air has been 45% more polluted than that of Beijing for the past few years. Today, air pollution is one of the leading causes of deaths in India.

A study released last month by Michael Greenstone, an economist at the University of Chicago, revealed disturbing numbers — the 660 million people who live in India’s most polluted cities will lose an average of 3.2 years of life because of toxic air; put together, that is 2.1 billion lost years because of India’s pollution problem.

Over the last four decades, air pollution, degraded lands, depleted forests and declining biodiversity have cut agricultural yields in India by almost half. According to the World Bank, each year environmental degradation costs India $80 billion, or 5.7% of GDP.

Air pollution is an invisible problem and did not even figure on the election manifesto of any political party during the recently concluded Delhi elections. That, when the leader of the ruling party himself so acutely, and visibly, suffers from the symptoms of the problem.

As India embarks on its ambitious mission to transform itself into a global manufacturing hub, we must remember what a wise man once said: “The  foes that are unseen are often stronger than those that are seen.” Take the example of Vapi, an industrial city in Gujarat — today it is the most polluted city in the world due to industrial and chemical waste. The scary question then arises — is Vapi the future of the industrialised Indian city?

Many economies have gone through severe pollution and then effectively taken systematic steps to fix the damage, including parts of Europe after the industrial revolution, Japan after World War II and, most recently China as it strove to become the manufacturing hub of the world. India’s late entry into the manufacturing sector in some ways can be seen as a blessing in disguise for we can learn from the mistakes of those who walked before us.

So what can India do to solve her suffocating problem?

India needs to focus on making her fast-growing cities green. Building reliable public transportation systems and introducing mandatory vehicular fuel efficiency standards are two important steps toward reducing toxic air.

Currently, India has one of the worst emission standards for power plants in the world. Shockingly, the country does not even have emission standards for hazardous pollutants like mercury, nitrogen oxide and sulphur dioxide. India needs to set firm targets to reduce emissions. Reducing hazardous particulate matter by 30% would cut average annual GDP growth by 0.04%, but it would also cut CO2 emissions by 30-60% and save $47–105 billion from reduced damage to human health.

The Supreme Court has played a key role in reining in air pollution. For example, mandating the use of compressed natural gas in public-service vehicles in Delhi, or taking vehicles older than 10 years off the road, have led to an improvement in air quality. The court must persevere as the national watchdog of pollution.

I haven’t seen a starry sky in any major Tier 1 or Tier 2 city in the past few years. The harsh reality is India’s problems are likely to get worse before they get better. But even the stars can’t shine without some darkness, so we must focus on correcting the problem while we can, and before it gets too late.

via Air pollution: We haven’t seen the stars in a while.

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Air pollution may be tied to anxiety

Posted on April 1, 2015 by Respro® UK Ltd

Women who live in areas with higher air pollution may also have higher anxiety, according to a new analysis.

“It’s a really interesting finding and definitely suggests that air pollution may be related to mental health,” said lead author Melinda C. Power of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

“If this is truly causal this is going to have a huge effect on the population because everyone is exposed, but we need more research to build this body of evidence,” Power added.

The researchers used data on more than 70,000 women in the Nurses’ Health Study who filled out an eight-question anxiety survey between ages 57 and 85.

Overall, about 15 percent of the women had high anxiety symptoms.

Using their previous home addresses from before they filled out the anxiety questionnaire, the researchers were able to estimate the women’s exposure to so-called particulate matter in the air during the past 15 years, based on factors like distance to major roadways, population density, local sources of emissions and wind speeds.

The researchers found no link between anxiety levels and large air pollution particles, but exposure to fine particles was tied to increasing anxiety levels, according to results in BMJ. The more recent the exposure, the higher the level of anxiety tended to be.

For example, women who were exposed to the most small particles in the air one month before their anxiety test were about 12 percent more likely to have high anxiety symptoms, compared to those estimated to be exposed to the least particles one month previously.

Fine particulates come from combustion sources, including cars and power plants, Power told Reuters Health by phone. The smaller the particle, the deeper it may travel into the lungs.

“Our study can only comment on the population level, on average people who were more highly exposed had a higher level of anxiety,” she said. It did not assess distance to pollution sources or the amount of air pollution an individual would need to experience to have increased anxiety.

Since it was an observational study, it does not necessarily indicate that pollution causes anxiety, she said. Women living in more polluted areas may experience other sources of stress that would be linked to anxiety as well.

The authors suspect that fine particulate pollution may be linked to certain subtle conditions, like inflammation, which may increase the risk of anxiety. Further research will need to explore this possibility, and to look for a similar link among men and people of a younger age, Power said.

It is too soon to think about intervening or giving individuals recommendations based on this result, she said.

However, there is substantial evidence that lowering air pollution would improve cardiovascular health and respiratory health and reduce the risk of stroke, she said. Short-term exposure to particulate pollution is tied to an increase in stroke risk according to an analysis of all published research on the subject, which appears in the same issue of BMJ.

The relationship between atmospheric pollution and risk of heart attack and heart failure had already been established, and this new paper, supported by the British Heart Foundation, adds stroke risk to that category, said lead author Dr. Anoop Shah of the University of Edinburgh in the U.K.

There’s not much an individual can do to decrease their exposure to air pollution as it’s ubiquitous, Shah told Reuters Health by phone. But policymakers do have the power to improve public transport systems in urban areas and reduce the number of vehicles on the roads, which are the major source of damaging pollution, he said.

In fact, as reported by Reuters today, Beijing has introduced measures to limit the number of motorists on heavily polluted days. It’s the latest move by authorities there to battle the choking smog that has blanketed the city in recent years.

via Air pollution may be tied to anxiety | Reuters.

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