Cycling UK Forum

Cyril Haearn wrote:Volkswagen is investing € 44 000 000 000 to convert several factories to produce electric vehicles, the first vehicles are to be produced at Zwickau in 2019
A price of € 20 000 was mentioned, but where shall the power come from?

Mark R wrote:True. But what we absolutely do not need is yet another generation of 'clean diesels' which will surely become gross polluters as their emission control systems progressively begin to fail.

Also....once we have got rid of non-essential vehicles, what about the ones which are actually required (Buses, trains and taxis for example)? Are you happy for them to continue using diesel? I'm not...

Vorpal wrote:

Mark R wrote:True. But what we absolutely do not need is yet another generation of 'clean diesels' which will surely become gross polluters as their emission control systems progressively begin to fail.

Also....once we have got rid of non-essential vehicles, what about the ones which are actually required (Buses, trains and taxis for example)? Are you happy for them to continue using diesel? I'm not...

Not really, but I'd rather share with a few diesel busses than thousands of diesel cars.

Mark R wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gguwJRrzzF8

Graham wrote:

Mark R wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gguwJRrzzF8

Having watched to half way through I get the impression that the film makers are presenting the diesel bans in German cities as unreasonable panic due to reliance on incomplete science.

Having watched the lot I'd go along with the 'unreasonable panic' thesis, but it was only a 28 minute documentary and I'm no epidemiologist.... I'd rather focus on the findings / methods / recommendations of the original RCPCH report.

Guardian wrote:Strikingly, the UK comes near the bottom of the pack for deaths from asthma among 10- to 24-year-olds, with the fourth-worst figure across all 19 countries and the worst death rate in Europe, with a figure double that of the next worst European country in the study.
Recent work by others has found many asthma patients are not receiving basic care for the condition, and that asthma deaths in the UK are on the rise.
In particular, concerns have been growing about the role of air pollution in asthma. The death of nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah from London as a result of an asthma attack has been linked to illegal levels of pollutants, while doctors say they have been shocked at the number of cases of children ending up in hospital choking with asthma, apparently as a result of air pollution.
The World Health Organization, meanwhile, has branded air pollution the “new tobacco” in terms of its impact on public health, while experts say statistics showing it is behind 7 million early deaths a year are probably an underestimate. In the UK, air pollution is believed to be responsible for the deaths of about 40,000 people a year.

Mark R wrote:I wrote to my MP (Peter Heaton Jones) in an attempt to get him to pressure his government to take this crisis more seriously, the scoundrel wrote back saying he was "...proud of his government's record on air pollution..."