Draft Opinion Editorial (for comment)
Driving a car is the most polluting act an average citizen commits.
The short list of chemical pathogens directly emitted in car exhaust includes:
Carbon Monoxide
Nitrogen dioxide
Sulphur dioxide
Particulate matter
Benzene
Formaldehyde
Polycyclic hydrocarbons
In addition to these pollutants, cars are one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases contributing to climate change. And in addition to that, some of the pollutants in car exhaust chemically react in the atmosphere to form even more hazardous urban smog.
Exposure to the short-list of chemical pathogens and the smog that they create increases the risks to our health - affecting respiratory, pulmonary, and neurologic functions, and increasing the risk of several types of cancer. What we seem to have accepted for the time being is that the convenience of driving is worth the effects on that subset of people who succumb to these illnesses.
What we should never accept is increasing these risks for no benefit whatsoever: excess idling. Idling a vehicle has purpose: to warm motor oil and to move it to the top of the engine; defrosting windshields, and to support other mechanical system in specialty vehicles. Excess idling, stationary running of the engine beyond what is required to achieve these purposes, degrades our air quality and increases risks to human health and the environment for no benefit whatsoever. It should not be tolerated.
One minute of idling an average Canadian vehicle emits 62 grams of pollution. The City of Edmonton’s 2005 Household Travel Survey found that 1.9 million car trips are taken on an average weekday. Shaving a mere minute of excess idling off those 1.9 million trips would prevent 117,800 kilograms of air toxins from entering Edmonton’s airshed.
The most effective way to express that excess idling is not acceptable is to pass a bylaw. Twenty-three Canadian municipalities have already done so. It is an air quality key management concept recognized by members of the global organization of local governments for sustainability - ICLEI - whose 2009 World Congress will convene in Edmonton this June. It is a key recommendation to any municipality whose concentrations of urban smog are at levels requiring management plans, such as Edmonton. It is the low-hanging fruit of vehicle emissions policy.
Many laws rely primarily on voluntary compliance, intermittent enforcement, and citizen complaints such as filing your taxes, speed limits, and neighborhood noise. The excess idling bylaw would be no different and should not be opposed simply because enforcement cannot be comprehensive.
Most effective of all, by passing the excess idling bylaw City council would position any citizen witnessing the wasteful act of idling to ask the simple question, “Did you know excess idling is against the law?”
That single sentence would do more to shape Edmontonians driving habits than another thousands words about ground level ozone and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
The short list of chemical pathogens directly emitted in car exhaust includes:
Carbon Monoxide
Nitrogen dioxide
Sulphur dioxide
Particulate matter
Benzene
Formaldehyde
Polycyclic hydrocarbons
In addition to these pollutants, cars are one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases contributing to climate change. And in addition to that, some of the pollutants in car exhaust chemically react in the atmosphere to form even more hazardous urban smog.
Exposure to the short-list of chemical pathogens and the smog that they create increases the risks to our health - affecting respiratory, pulmonary, and neurologic functions, and increasing the risk of several types of cancer. What we seem to have accepted for the time being is that the convenience of driving is worth the effects on that subset of people who succumb to these illnesses.
What we should never accept is increasing these risks for no benefit whatsoever: excess idling. Idling a vehicle has purpose: to warm motor oil and to move it to the top of the engine; defrosting windshields, and to support other mechanical system in specialty vehicles. Excess idling, stationary running of the engine beyond what is required to achieve these purposes, degrades our air quality and increases risks to human health and the environment for no benefit whatsoever. It should not be tolerated.
One minute of idling an average Canadian vehicle emits 62 grams of pollution. The City of Edmonton’s 2005 Household Travel Survey found that 1.9 million car trips are taken on an average weekday. Shaving a mere minute of excess idling off those 1.9 million trips would prevent 117,800 kilograms of air toxins from entering Edmonton’s airshed.
The most effective way to express that excess idling is not acceptable is to pass a bylaw. Twenty-three Canadian municipalities have already done so. It is an air quality key management concept recognized by members of the global organization of local governments for sustainability - ICLEI - whose 2009 World Congress will convene in Edmonton this June. It is a key recommendation to any municipality whose concentrations of urban smog are at levels requiring management plans, such as Edmonton. It is the low-hanging fruit of vehicle emissions policy.
Many laws rely primarily on voluntary compliance, intermittent enforcement, and citizen complaints such as filing your taxes, speed limits, and neighborhood noise. The excess idling bylaw would be no different and should not be opposed simply because enforcement cannot be comprehensive.
Most effective of all, by passing the excess idling bylaw City council would position any citizen witnessing the wasteful act of idling to ask the simple question, “Did you know excess idling is against the law?”
That single sentence would do more to shape Edmontonians driving habits than another thousands words about ground level ozone and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.