Theres nothing sweeter than the smug feeling that youre getting the better of the rat race. While your fellow commuters struggle in on the bus, you sail by on your bike or jog along overtaking them at every traffic jam on your way to work. But what if instead of doing your body a favour youre really exposing it to dangerous air pollution?
Exercising or playing sport in Britains cities can be a dirty affair. We have some of the worst air-quality figures in Europe, London is one of the EUs worst offenders for poor air quality and as many as 30,000 people across the country die prematurely each year because of poor air quality – more than die from alcohol abuse, obesity or in car accidents.
The majority of this pollution comes from emissions of toxic gases and particulates from car exhausts and dirty diesel engines. These include nitrogen dioxide NO2 gas and PM10 and PM2.5 particulates, tiny specks of oily and partially combusted matter. There is no known “safe” exposure level to PM10s and air quality is so poor in some places, and particularly in the capital, that the UK is regularly in breach of EU limits and is threatened with a total of £300m in fines. “The last time there was this much concern about air pollution in London was during the Great Smog of 1952,” says Simon Birkett, director of air pollution watchdog Clean Air in London. “Levels of nitrogen dioxide are more than twice World Health Organisation guidelines and legal limits near Londons busiest streets.”
via Urban exercise: beat the smog – Features – Health & Families – The Independent.
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Last week the new monitoring site at Shepherds Bush Green become the third London monitoring site this year to measure more than 35 days with mean PM10 above 50 ug m-3, thereby exceeding the UK Air Quality Strategy objective. In addition to traffic, it is likely that nearby construction (partial demolition of a nearby building earlier in the year and on-going works on the Green itself) has been an important local source of PM10.
via Environmental Research Group (ERG) :: King’s College London :: Latest News.
To find out what PM stands for, read on: What does PM stand for?
Early findings of research into the impact of poor air quality shows that it is reducing the lung capacity of schoolchildren in London, writes Steve Eminton. The lung capacity of schoolchildren in some London boroughs is being reduced through living by and going to schools near main roads, according to initial findings of ongoing Low Emission Zone research .
The early indication of some of the findings relating to lung capacity in research work currently being undertaken by the Lung Biology Group of the Environmental Research Group at King’s College London, was given at last weekend’s air pollution conference “Cities for Clean Air, London 2012”.
via Lungs of London schoolchildren “damaged by poor air quality” | AirQualityNews.
Forest fires and emission of air pollutants, which include fumes from vehicles running on diesel and slow burning of coal and charcoal, release isocyanic acid in the troposphere. In 2011, scientists first detected isocyanic acid in the ambient atmosphere at levels that are toxic to human populations; at concentrations exceeding 1 parts-per-billion by volume (ppbv), human beings could experience tissue decay when exposed to the toxin.
via Gas from pollutants, forest fires at potentially toxic levels.
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A Policy Exchange calls for major information campaign and changes to congestion zone to tackle deadly air pollution
Red labels on the most polluting cars and an end to congestion charge concessions for diesel cars are just two of the proposals being put forward to tackle London’s “invisible” air pollution crisis, in a major new report from the Policy Exchange think tank.
The report, entitled Something in the Air, argues that health problems related to the UK’s poor air quality are comparable to those caused by obesity and alcohol, making air pollution the second largest public health problem after smoking.
Traffic congestion in the capital and smoke from brick kilns are the main reasons for air pollution in Dhaka city, according to the World Bank and the Bangladesh government.
The Ministry of Environment and Forests says that vehicles in Dhaka move 14kmph on an average, which is very slow and causes them to burn more fuel and contribute to air pollution. They say the average speed could come down to 4kmph by 2025 if things do not improve.
A website of the ministry has mentioned this data. The web page is of a government project called Clean Air and Sustainable Environment (CASE), set up with the support of the World Bank to reduce the capital’s smog, produced by brick kilns and vehicles, which has been steadily increasing in recent years. The World Bank and Bangladesh jointly conducted a Country Environmental Assessment and came up with the data.
While politicians like to tout improvements in pollution and air quality, thats not the world that scientists like John Froines see.”Air pollution is not getting better, its getting worse,” said Froines, a retired UCLA professor and director of the Southern California Particle Center.
Speaking at a meeting Tuesday of the Long Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma (Lbaca), Froines said the more that scientists learn about air pollution and its effects, the more alarming the picture becomes.
via Expert paints bleak air pollution picture to childrens asthma group – ContraCostaTimes.com.
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