Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
From the Daily Telegraph April 2012:
"Air pollution 'kills 13,000 a year" (In the UK)
"pollution from overall UK combustion emissions causes approximately 13,000 premature deaths a year, with road transport being the biggest source. A further 6,000 deaths are estimated to be due to European Union emissions produced outside the UK."
"The study was carried out by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The study was published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology."
And from Natural Resources Defense Council:
"A recent study estimated that approximately 64,000 people in the United States die prematurely from heart and lung disease every year due to particulate air pollution".
So there you go, folks!
Now try telling the Government this!
Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
To be fair Alexander that's not that many people is it? 13,000 out of a population soon to reach 70 million? It's almost statistically insignificant.
Ok it's a shame for those affected (if the figures are correct which I doubt they are) but people die prematurely from a host of different things but there's no song and dance over it.
Like many things smoking is considered an evil by neo-puritans everywhere.
Why don't they leave us tobacco smokers alone and pick on those who eat too much salt and fat.
Oh they're already doing that? Jeez.......
Remember this folks that no matter how you lead your life there is always someone pointing a finger disapprovingly at you.
They haven't pointed their finger at you yet?
Ah ha ha ha then just you wait.
Try defending your lifestyle choices then cos I won't be there to defend you.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Philip, 13,000 every year, mind!
It'snot just 13,000 out of 60-70 million, but 13,000 each year.
Incidentally, a gas cloud from France hit southern Kent today. Because gas has a distinctive odour to it, people detected it.
So what about chemical pollution in the air that is not so easily detected, but is being breathed in?
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
Received this earlier:
The smell drifting over Southern England today poses no risk to public health. The odour, which is similar to rotten eggs, has been noticed by people mainly in Kent, East and West Sussex and some parts of Surrey.
It is caused by a particularly smelly chemical that is added to odourless natural gas to give that its characteristic smell.
The chemical leaked from a factory in Rouen, France yesterday and has blown across the Channel overnight. It is not toxic and has also been diluted before entering the air over England, so people should be reassured it will cause no harm. It is an unpleasant odour which may cause some people to feel slightly nauseous but it will dispel naturally.
Roger
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
This particular gas is not thought to be a threat to health in Kent.
But it goes to show that pollution in general does blow over from the Continent to Britain. Hence the estimated 6,000 deaths a year here due to chemical substances coming from the EU.
The worst hit area is South East England, in particular Kent, as we are most exposed to it.
So the death rate in Kent due to air pollution must be much higher than anywhere else in rural Britain.
DDC also recognise that pollution in the air in Dover comes partly from Europe, it's on their website.
In Dover we are significantly worse-off, as we also get the full blast of Port traffic and the smoke coming from ferry funnels.
One just has to see the black clouds constantly bursting out of the ferry chimneys in Eastern Docks to get a notion of it.
But the chemical toxic in traffic petrol and coming from factory chimneys in Europe is invisible, so we are breathing in massive amounts of it.
This will be one of the basic points in my representation to DDC on the core strategy, to argue against the building of 15,000 new homes in Dover and District and the trebling of our population, as we would have traffic never-ending streaming into and out of Dover both from the Port and from Whitfield.
There is already far too much traffic transiting along Barton Road, London Road and Folkestone Road, up Tower Hamlets and down Frith Road.
Our schools are also negatively affected by it.
There are in fact two public consultations running on this, one expires in February, the other in March.
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
We have had that smell in Farnham . My wife keeps blaming it on me.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
If the smell persists, Peter, then she's probably right!
Alec Sheldon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 18 Aug 2008
- Posts: 1,037
Dutch Oven Peter.?
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
only sophisticates like us alec will know what that means.
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
not so easy to arrange with a duvet!
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson