there is this, also.your_own_warNovember 3 2005, 03:33:35 UTC
Passive Driving: Why are we still exposed to pollution that kills 39,000 a year? by George Monbiot ; November 01, 2005
It was fudged - stupidly and unnecessarily fudged - but at least they tried. The ban on smoking in pubs, though gutted by the prime minister's cowardice, will save some fraction of the bar staff who die every year as a result of passive smoking. The moral case is clear: people are being exposed to a risk for which they have not volunteered. While smokers have an undisputed right to kill themselves, they have no right to kill other people. This case being generally applicable, what does the government intend to do about passive driving?
Every year, according to a paper published by the British Medical Journal, some 54 bar staff in the United Kingdom die as a result of their exposure to other people's cigarette smoke(1). And every year, according to the European Union, some 39,000 deaths in this country are caused or hastened by air pollution, most of which comes from vehicles(2). This is a problem three orders of magnitude greater than the one which has filled the newspapers for the past six months, and no one is talking about it.
It is true to say that our air, like that of most parts of the rich world, is much cleaner than it used to be. Since the great smog of 1952 forced the government to legislate, since coal gave way to gas and factories fitted filters to their chimneys, acute pollution crises of the kind which once killed thousands in a couple of days have not recurred. (Our nostalgia for the London peasouper, like the uproar over the disappearance of the Routemaster bus, betrays one of our national weaknesses: a romantic attachment to pollution.) Between 1992 and 2000, traffic fumes fell steeply. But in 2000 the decline in the most dangerous pollutant - small particles of soot - came to a halt(3). Since then the levels have held more or less steady (with a spike in the hot summer of 2003). The British government is in breach of European rules, and the European Commission is in breach of any serious effort to do something about it. So 39,000 lives are shortened every year.
Surprisingly, passive driving strikes mostly at the heart, not the lungs. The effect is not clearly understood. According to the government's Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants, either an inflammation of the lungs makes blood more likely to clot, or the pollutants somehow change the autonomic nervous system's control of the heartbeat. Either way, the committee says, there is a convincing association between "daily average concentrations of a number of classical air pollutants and the number of deaths occurring daily from cardiovascular causes"(4).
While pollution can kill people who are already ill, there is a good deal of argument about the harm it does to healthy people. The committee maintains that "long term exposure to air pollution is unlikely to be a cause of the increased number of people now suffering from asthma in the UK."(5) Given that air pollution was declining until 2000, this must be true. But a study of 4000 children in Munich showed that those who lived within 50 metres of busy roads were twice as likely to suffer from asthma, and suffered more from coughing, wheezing and allergies(6). A massive study in Taiwan - involving 300,000 children - found that those exposed to the heaviest traffic pollution were 16% more likely to suffer from allergic rhinitis (hayfever, housedust allergy and the like)(7). The most carcinogenic compound ever detected - 3-nitrobenzanthrone - is produced by heavily loaded diesel engines(8). Like the other cancer-causing molecules they emit, it is released in very small quantities, and no one yet knows what effect it might have. But exhaust pollutants of the class to which it belongs appear, unusually, to pass straight through the placenta, which means that foetuses might be especially vulnerable(9).
by George Monbiot ; November 01, 2005
It was fudged - stupidly and unnecessarily fudged - but at least they tried. The ban on smoking in pubs, though gutted by the prime minister's cowardice, will save some fraction of the bar staff who die every year as a result of passive smoking. The moral case is clear: people are being exposed to a risk for which they have not volunteered. While smokers have an undisputed right to kill themselves, they have no right to kill other people. This case being
generally applicable, what does the government intend to do about passive driving?
Every year, according to a paper published by the British Medical Journal, some 54 bar staff in the United Kingdom die as a result of their exposure to other people's cigarette smoke(1). And every year, according to the European Union, some 39,000 deaths in this country are caused or hastened by air pollution, most of which comes from vehicles(2). This is a problem three orders of magnitude greater than the one which has filled the newspapers for the past six
months, and no one is talking about it.
It is true to say that our air, like that of most parts of the rich world, is much cleaner than it used to be. Since the great smog of 1952 forced the government to legislate, since coal gave way to gas and factories fitted filters to their chimneys, acute pollution crises of the kind which once killed thousands in a couple of days have not recurred. (Our nostalgia for the London peasouper, like the uproar over the disappearance of the Routemaster bus, betrays one of our national weaknesses: a romantic attachment to pollution.) Between 1992
and 2000, traffic fumes fell steeply. But in 2000 the decline in the most dangerous pollutant - small particles of soot - came to a halt(3). Since then the levels have held more or less steady (with a spike in the hot summer of 2003). The British government is in breach of European rules, and the European Commission is in breach of any serious effort to do something about it. So 39,000 lives are shortened every year.
Surprisingly, passive driving strikes mostly at the heart, not the lungs. The effect is not clearly understood. According to the government's Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants, either an inflammation of the lungs makes blood more likely to clot, or the pollutants somehow change the autonomic nervous system's control of the heartbeat. Either way, the committee says, there is a convincing association between "daily average concentrations of a
number of classical air pollutants and the number of deaths occurring daily from cardiovascular causes"(4).
While pollution can kill people who are already ill, there is a good deal of argument about the harm it does to healthy people. The committee maintains that "long term exposure to air pollution is unlikely to be a cause of the increased number of people now suffering
from asthma in the UK."(5) Given that air pollution was declining until 2000, this must be true. But a study of 4000 children in Munich showed that those who lived within 50 metres of busy roads were twice as likely to suffer from asthma, and suffered more from coughing, wheezing and allergies(6). A massive study in Taiwan - involving 300,000 children - found that those exposed to the heaviest traffic pollution were 16% more likely to suffer from allergic rhinitis (hayfever, housedust allergy and the like)(7). The most carcinogenic compound ever detected - 3-nitrobenzanthrone - is produced by heavily loaded diesel engines(8). Like the other cancer-causing molecules they emit, it is released in very small quantities, and no one yet knows what effect it might have. But exhaust pollutants of the class to which it belongs appear, unusually, to pass straight through the placenta, which means that foetuses might be especially vulnerable(9).
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