Good to see air pollution moving up both the media and political ladders (see link below). Facts such as possibly 50,000 premature deaths per year and 80% of pollution in urban hotspots from diesel engines. Mention also made concerning diverse release of ammonium nitrate from use of artificial fertilizer and routine slurry and manure operations within the farming industry. I have blogged before on my concerns of the threat to biodiversity of nitrogen enrichment from air pollution.
This beautiful, sunny morning, I was out and about in relation to our pony grazing operations. In the middle of the Ashdown area well away from any roads, the air from time to time carried the odour of traffic fumes. Awhile later, over at the RSPB’s Broadwater Warren reserve, there was a similar problem, this time from the burning of rubbish some distance up-wind. Several weeks ago, builders at work at Bineham Farm, Chailey, were openly burning plastic debris of some description on at least two separate days, the pollution easily discernible at least a mile away.
A spin-off from reducing the demand of diesel would also at a stroke, cut the trashing of tropical forests to allow the production of biofuel products. Years ago, local authority/EA environment officers would very likely investigate plumes of black smoke; with the cutbacks, it’s likely that there are too few of them nowadays.
Listen to: BBC Radio 4, Wednesday, April 27th 2016 @ 7-33am.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b078781j
“Urgent government action is needed to stop up to 50,000 people a year dying early from air pollution-related illnesses, MPs say. Speaking on the programme is Dr Heather Walton, senior lecturer in Environmental Health at King’s College London, and Neil Parish, chair of the House of Commons’ Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.”