Every breath we take: the lifelong impact of air pollution

[Psamathe]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/30/uk-air-quality-shows-little-improvement-past-20-years-says-study

Ian

[reohn2]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/30/uk-air-quality-shows-little-improvement-past-20-years-says-study

Ian

And following a link from the article I got to this:- https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... -pollution



It leads one to think the government doesn't give a monkey's about pollution,and that public transport facilities leave much to be desired in backward UK.

[meic]

TBH the answer IMO isn't to change all the vehicles but to stop them going where they're causing the most pollution,this would involve stopping all private vehicles from entering towns and cities,with park and ride on the outskirts and green electric buses only allowed into the centres,and diesel taxis oulawed,deliveries by HGV/LGV being confined to out of hours deliveries.
Parking at train stations needs to be greatly increased and be free,and increased train services along with joined up thinking with local buses to those train stations*.
I seems to me there's a complete lack of public transport integration in the UK matched only by poor investment in local public transport.
If pollution is to be tackled seriously public transport has to be attractive and affordable,but this is backward thinking UK where the car rules and any curtailing of it's use seen as politrickal suicide.
Meanwhile we choke

*our nearest train station to Liverpool or Manchester is 2 miles away,there are no bus routes local to us to that station,and the streets within a 300m to 400m radius of the station are full of commuters cars with woefully inadequate station parking .

I dont take the car into town often but if I do it is because I need the car to carry something big or heavy, having to do that using a bus etc as a connecting link just defeats the point of the journey.
Similarly when doing deliveries you do actually need your van/HGV to carry the packages/pallets all the way to your destination. It isnt just about people being too lazy to walk their idle bodies more than 20 metres with nothing heavier than a mobile phone and briefcase. The vehicles for people who actually lug heavy things around will mostly be diesels as petrol gives astronomical mpgs with such vehicles.

[Mark R]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/30/uk-air-quality-shows-little-improvement-past-20-years-says-study

Ian

Taken from the comments section of the above article. Sums up the situation pretty well IMO:

This article is missing a very important fact: The proliferation of the dirty diesel car. Real life tests have shown that a typical modern over-lean-burning turbo-diesel car produces as much poisonous NOx as 5 to 15 petrol engine cars. Has anyone wondered why the so popular diesel motorcar is virtually impossible to sell in any other part of the civilized world (outside of the EU)? Because it is almost impossible and in any case too expensive to make diesel engines meet the same emissions standards that petrol/gasoline engines achieve without any problem.

In Switzerland, air quality had reached excellent levels 10 years following the introduction of mandatory catalytic converters (all cars built from 1986 - 10 years before the EU/Britain very reluctantly followed). So much so, that it was considered not necessary anymore to have the turbines that evacuate the exhaust gases out of tunnels anymore. Fast forward another 10 years, with the popularization of oil burning cars, and the same tunnels are now filled with diesel fumes and poisonous mono-nitrogen oxides (NOx). Air quality in cities has significantly decreased as a direct result of very weak EU emissions standards enforcement.

Let's face it, car manufacturers do not give a [moderated] about emissions and if they could get away with it, they would not bother fitting any emissions control system. It's not just VW that has been 'cheating' with their emissions (and fuel consumption) figures. Almost all car manufacturers cheat one way or another *especially* with diesel engines: Fiat actually turn off the (already poor) emissions system after 20' and almost all manufacturers will turn it off if the air temperature is low (i.e. during the winter months).

[reohn2]

I dont take the car into town often but if I do it is because I need the car to carry something big or heavy, having to do that using a bus etc as a connecting link just defeats the point of the journey.
Similarly when doing deliveries you do actually need your van/HGV to carry the packages/pallets all the way to your destination. It isnt just about people being too lazy to walk their idle bodies more than 20 metres with nothing heavier than a mobile phone and briefcase. The vehicles for people who actually lug heavy things around will mostly be diesels as petrol gives astronomical mpgs with such vehicles.

There will be exceptions to the rule,but unfortunately we've built a society arranged around the convenience of the motor car,which was OK when motors were fewer.
We're now at the stage where they cause much disruption and many deaths as a result of their over use,packages can be delivered to the purchasers home,internet shopping?
If public transport were clean,affordable,and convenient,some people would find the didn't need a car and our streets wouldn't be choked up with them of an evening parked two wheels on the pavement in ever available space.
Deliveries can be made when there are almost no people on the streets of towns and cities and in an ideal situation distribution hubs on the outskirts shared by multiple businesses could be used by companies from where they can be delivered into town and city centres by electric or hybrid vehicles.
If the UK were serious about reducing pollution it could be made to happen,however.......

I own a diesel car,it very very rarely goes into towns or cities.

[meic]

Using the vehicle (petrol or diesel) has costs and benefits for the user. At the moment the benefits are much greater than the costs for the user.

For reasons of my own, I dont do gratuitous miles and I use my car for carrying things and the journeys are planned efficiently to do several tasks at once. Financially there is little incentive for this type of behaviour, diesel is cheaper than labour.

Until the cost of fuel increases above the cost of our time, or the imposition on our time of trying to use a vehicle in overly congested areas makes it unattractive to use them, we will continue to pollute the streets gratuitously and unthinkingly. Any measures to limit such behaviour will be political suicide.
So the answer is to twiddle with the details petrol v diesel, catalytic converters etc while not interfering with the root source of the problem in any direct way. The cars can be made too expensive to own without a great backlash (as consumers like the prestige and it is good for growth) but trying to limit the actual use of fuel and creation of pollution will generate a backlash in the polling station and for GDP.
This ever increasing expense of tweaking emissions and removing old vehicles from the roads will remove the poorer sections from road use while allowing the majority to continue with gratuitous use of motorised transport.
The answer is as always to increase pump prices (by all means hit diesel harder than petrol) but that just isnt going to happen, instead we will try and fiddle the books by selectively demonising particular types of vehicle, rather than the use they are put to, while letting the underlying problem carry on just as before.

[reohn2]

We're in agreement about the problem but differ in how a change can implemented.
Someone once said education,education,education .
If the government determines to bring the country along with it on a road(sorry) to better health and cleaner air,the nonsensical belief that we can all have our cake and eat it has to stop,and true change of attitude and thinking needs to take place.
It begins with a program of education along with change of our attitude toward the car,and could begin by telling the populous how many people are dying through pollution per year and how it's affecting the quality of life for those who aren't killed by it,especially children who due to their height at just the right level for exhaust pipes,and how much the the quality of life can be improved by improved air quality,not to mention the saving of costs to industry and NHS alike if people are healthier.
I don't know the ratio of private vehicles in towns and city centres,but if the photo in the linked article up thread and my own experience is anything to go by it's as much as 70 to 80%,if those vehicles were eliminated or reduced to an absolute minimum in town and city centres and replaced by green public transport,with a bare minimum of ICE powered utility vehicles,traffic flow would be increased significantly and pollution levels reduced by as a result by no standing traffic pumping pollution out unnecessarily due to less vehicles on the road.
All this needs the government to educate the people as to why such measures need to be made,as it is it's every man for himself in a traffic choked country where to own a fuel guzzling SUV/4x4/luxury prestige car,is looked on as almost a virtue and to park it anywhere you damned well choose has become a right.
Such vehicles should be taxed so high as to make people think before they buy such vehicles,they're for the most part completely unnecessary and unsuitable for UK roads,especially within towns and cities.

I'm still puzzling over the need for you to go into town to pick up a large package when it can be delivered to you door step,though it may need a more flexible system of delivery

[pwa]

We're in agreement about the problem but differ in how a change can implemented.
Someone once said education,education,education .
If the government determines to bring the country along with it on a road(sorry) to better health and cleaner air,the nonsensical belief that we can all have our cake and eat it has to stop,and true change of attitude and thinking needs to take place.
It begins with a program of education along with change of our attitude toward the car,and could begin by telling the populous how many people are dying through pollution per year and how it's affecting the quality of life for those who aren't killed by it,especially children who due to their height at just the right level for exhaust pipes,and how much the the quality of life can be improved by improved air quality,not to mention the saving of costs to industry and NHS alike if people are healthier.
I don't know the ratio of private vehicles in towns and city centres,but if the photo in the linked article up thread and my own experience is anything to go by it's as much as 70 to 80%,if those vehicles were eliminated or reduced to an absolute minimum in town and city centres and replaced by green public transport,with a bare minimum of ICE powered utility vehicles,traffic flow would be increased significantly and pollution levels reduced by as a result by no standing traffic pumping pollution out unnecessarily due to less vehicles on the road.
All this needs the government to educate the people as to why such measures need to be made,as it is it's every man for himself in a traffic choked country where to own a fuel guzzling SUV/4x4/luxury prestige car,is looked on as almost a virtue and to park it anywhere you damned well choose has become a right.
Such vehicles should be taxed so high as to make people think before they buy such vehicles,they're for the most part completely unnecessary and unsuitable for UK roads,especially within towns and cities.

I'm still puzzling over the need for you to go into town to pick up a large package when it can be delivered to you door step,though it may need a more flexible system of delivery

Pondering that last point, if Meic asks a company to deliver a large item to his door it will probably come in a larger, more polluting vehicle than Meic himself would use.

[Vorpal]

Pondering that last point, if Meic asks a company to deliver a large item to his door it will probably come in a larger, more polluting vehicle than Meic himself would use.

But that same vehicle can make deliveries to many houses in a logistically efficient manner, which will pollute much less than 40 people driving to town to collect their packages.

[reohn2]

Pondering that last point, if Meic asks a company to deliver a large item to his door it will probably come in a larger, more polluting vehicle than Meic himself would use.

But that vehicle would be on multi drop work,and could be delivering up to say 30 to 40 packages in a day,if 30 to 40 people choose to take their car into town to pick up packages the truck that delivered the package doesn't look so bad after all,and it's pollution is more widespread so causing less of a problem,dispersion of gasses?

Beaten to it by Vorpal

[mjr]

Using the vehicle (petrol or diesel) has costs and benefits for the user. At the moment the benefits are much greater than the costs for the user.

Mostly an aside, but I'm actually not sure about that. I think it's more that there's been some excellent marketing by the motoring industry so that most people just accept the time lost to care, feeding and administration (servicing, testing, insuring, taxing and much more) of their motor vehicles as inevitable - and while you can optimise it a bit, some of it really is only avoidable by getting rid of the vehicle. For example: if you're not losing even an hour or so each year entering/updating your details, obtaining quotes and reading the small print, you're probably spending more than necessary on vehicle insurance.

If we broadly agree on these hidden direct costs of motoring, it would be brilliant if someone could make this more obvious to people, ideally in a way that makes people consider getting rid of vehicles rather than pushing politicians to get rid of insurance requirements or testing or whatever.

[reohn2]

Following on from MRJ's post,I tow a caravan and have never used anything bigger than 1.8l petrol (Mostly Ford and Vauxhall in the past)
We had a Ford C max 1.8l 124 bhp petrol,towing our 'van it was adequate powerwise,without the 'van on the back it returned 37 to 40 MPG towing about 27 mpg.
We changed the 'van for something slightly heavier which almost killed the 1.8l petrol for climbing.
I looked around and found a 2.0l C max diesel 140bhp(we like the C max so much and they suit our needs ideally)the difference is amazing,without the 'van 50 to 55 mpg with the van 35 mpg ish and it romps up the hills with plenty under my right foot.
To cap it all when I had it serviced it was £20 cheaper than the petrol,according to the(dependable)chap at the garage because the oil's so much cheaper for diesels
TBH I didn't really want a diesel but I'm happy I have bought one and not just because of the extra power and running costs.
It's a far more relaxed drive due to the low revving engine and 6 sp box,the petrol had a 5 sp unit but could've benefited an extra higher ratio.
I usually buy a five + year old car that's been looked after,and the diesel is unusually a low mileage 6 year old vehicle with 36K on the clock and an immaculate service history of six stamps with a local Ford dealer.
I usually run them to about 130 to 140K miles before selling on a for something else,I'm expecting the diesel to last an extra 50 to 60K miles more.
BTW my towing miles are usually 3.5K per year which usually involves a trip to France in that.
Why am I writing all this?

Because that's the way things are and whether it be right or wrong it's the fact,my pockets are only so deep and we do enjoy the caravan,more so now due Mrs R2 disabilities.

[pwa]

Pondering that last point, if Meic asks a company to deliver a large item to his door it will probably come in a larger, more polluting vehicle than Meic himself would use.

But that same vehicle can make deliveries to many houses in a logistically efficient manner, which will pollute much less than 40 people driving to town to collect their packages.

That might hold true for deliveries in a dense urban area, but that's not the case with Meic. For him a home delivery could easily mean a van making a trip out and back just for him, with no other deliveries in between.

[reohn2]

Pondering that last point, if Meic asks a company to deliver a large item to his door it will probably come in a larger, more polluting vehicle than Meic himself would use.

But that same vehicle can make deliveries to many houses in a logistically efficient manner, which will pollute much less than 40 people driving to town to collect their packages.

That might hold true for deliveries in a dense urban area, but that's not the case with Meic. For him a home delivery could easily mean a van making a trip out and back just for him, with no other deliveries in between.

It's Wales not outback Oz!

[Vorpal]

Well, it more likely to mean the the delivery vehicle travels further to make 30 or 40 deliveries, not that it travels out just for meic's package.