London Air Quality - Pollution

http://streetsblog.net/2014/07/24/how-to-breathe-cleaner-air-while-biking-ride-at-11-mph/

I think air pollution is a big factor in stopping people from cycling in London.

I don't.

I think massive trucks and crazy driving are.

repped

I don't.

I think massive trucks and crazy driving are.

Air pollution certainly isn't as big a barrier as fear of road danger, but some people are so sensitive to air pollution that they don't want to cycle. I've had people tell me that they can't breathe on main streets in London.

I haven't. Must be that vegan crowd you hang out with. "ooh the air is too cough bad cough for me cough lungs eek cough" #veganbaiting

What do they do - drive into town and then wear a mask?

http://streetsblog.net/2014/07/24/how-to-breathe-cleaner-air-while-biking-ride-at-11-mph/

The biggest contributor to pollution intake, Bigazzi found, isn’t actually how dirty the air around you is. It’s how much of it you breathe.

the harder your body works, the more pollution you breathe in.

so healthier to do your working-out (or fast-riding) away from smoggy roads, but better to work-out on a bicycle than not at all.. (!)

(personally, avoid Euston Road in favour of the quieter routes most of the time..)

**in the news today, **

Bloomberg: 'London Plans Diesel Car Charge to Tackle Air Pollution'

Clean Air London: 'Boris takes backward steps on his own ULEZ'

“More than two years after the World Health Organisation classified diesel exhaust as carcinogenic to humans and 60 years after the world’s first Clean Air Act was introduced for the City of London Corporation (5 July 1954), London needs to ban diesel exhaust from the most-polluted places as coal burning was banned after the Great Smog. Boris must end his love affair with carcinogenic diesel exhaust by: scrapping the turning circle requirement for taxis; fitting exhaust filters to London’s entire diesel bus fleet; requiring compressed natural gas, preferably biomethane, for all buses and freight vehicles; stopping the removal of factory-fitted diesel particulate filters in London; tightening the existing low emission zone to include diesel cars and light goods vehicles; and ensuring one or more ULEZs ban carcinogenic diesel exhaust from all the most polluted places in London by 2020 with a meaningful intermediate step by early 2018. Boris should also insist that harmful emissions are disclosed with CO2 emissions to buyers when all vehicles are sold.

“These bold steps are needed to protect public health, reduce inequalities and comply with air pollution laws in legislation since 1999 to be complied with by 2010 (not 2030 as the Government estimates for Boris’s London).”

stopping the removal of factory-fitted diesel particulate filters in London

whats this about?

What do they do - drive into town and then wear a mask?

there are quite a lot of people who choose the mask, do find this choice rather strange as found them to be most uncomfortable.. which for me outweighs any health benefits,

as would walking around with a gas mask on.. (!)

as shown by the google image search 'gas mask walking', its simply dehumanising (!),

de·hu·man·ize
to deprive of human qualities or attributes; divest of individuality: Conformity dehumanized him.

#depressing (!) - rather like working in an office can be at times (!!)

whats this about?

A diesel particulate filter (or DPF) is a device designed to remove diesel particulate matter or soot from the exhaust gas of a diesel engine. Wall-flow diesel particulate filters usually remove 85% or more of the soot, and under certain conditions can attain soot removal efficiencies approaching 100%
.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_particulate_filter

i know what they are, I am wondering why they are removed in London?

I'm guessing the road haulage and taxi industries have lobbied against anything that might cut into their profits through higher fuel bills or other running costs.

In other news, I'm enjoying asthma for the first time ever, and being sent for a chest x-ray...

i know what they are, I am wondering why they are removed in London?

Because a) they blunt performance (the concept of buying a diesel to go fast is lost on me, however), b) some idiots actually like a huge cloud of soot to shoot out of their exhaust, and c) they clog up and fail (and damage your engine) if you don't get out of town once in a while and give the engine a bit of an Italian tune-up.

I'm guessing the road haulage and taxi industries have lobbied against anything that might cut into their profits through higher fuel bills or other running costs.

alright, you've tempted me into referencing a blog post which was much pampered over one morning earlier in the year... night... Zz

Because a) they blunt performance (the concept of buying a diesel to go fast is lost on me, however), b) some idiots actually like a huge cloud of soot to shoot out of their exhaust, and c) they clog up and fail (and damage your engine) if you don't get out of town once in a while and give the engine a bit of an Italian tune-up.

Nail on the head, some big car manufacturers have been making it possible to remove them as an option when buying their sportier model diesels. Audi is a good example, as Blue Quinn mentioned should you never take the car out of a city environment and give it a good ragging it can see your fuel economy drop drastically!

Diesels had a massive boost when fuel prices first rocketed but it was stupid as they suck in urban environments, because of the generally dirty nature of diesel fuel they're very inefficient when used for short stop start journeys.

I can imagine blocked DPFs killing a lot of black cab and bus engines.

I think the govt/industry/boris should be encouraging a transition to LPG for cabs and buses. The engines are quieter, more powerful, last much longer and have virtually no harmful emissions. Economy is worse but fuel is much cheaper. What's not to like? Mercedes and Nissan have surely got suitably torquey large-capacity petrols that could go into their cabs in LPG form.

I can imagine blocked DPFs killing a lot of black cab and bus engines.

I think the govt/industry/boris should be encouraging a transition to LPG for cabs and buses. The engines are quieter, more powerful, last much longer and have virtually no harmful emissions. Economy is worse but fuel is much cheaper. What's not to like? Mercedes and Nissan have surely got suitably torquey large-capacity petrols that could go into their cabs in LPG form.

Given that cabs and buses cover relatively small distances (I'm guessing) with lots of stop-start and they regularly stop at known places (bus stops/stands, taxi ranks) surely electric motors with inductive charging plates would be the way forward.

In other news, I'm enjoying asthma for the first time ever, and being sent for a chest x-ray...

I'm getting that too. what I call my 'diesel cough' has been noticable for a few years but has got problematically bad this summer. yesterday a short but aerobic (hills!) ride was almost instantly painful. Not. Good.
need to register with a doc. then see doc.

I can imagine blocked DPFs killing a lot of black cab and bus engines.

Busses are generally serviced very frequently so that would overcome that issue for them, as for Taxi's I know that until very recently (may still be the case) a lot of black cabs don't have DPF's fitted.

related,

has anybody else noticed references about Lundun-town to this website?

http://www.look-up.org.uk/

better still, does anybody (ideally with expertise! - within your domain @hairnetnic?!) have an informed view on all of it??!

.

the claim,

Retrofitted 3-pipe aerosol delivery system fitted to all Airbus A320 family aircraft belonging to airlines that are known to be involved in climate engineering programs. This one is Easyjet.

Those aerosols turn into cloud-like formations of various types depending on what is sprayed and in what combination. As a result our weather is now being engineered on a daily basis, and all over the world. Most of the strange cloud-like formations we now see in the sky are as a result of substances sprayed from planes. The MET Office have had to invent many new cloud names to try and explain all the strange new cloud formations we see as a result of current Climate Engineering programs.

We now know how they do it, what aircraft are used, the equipment that has been retro-fitted, where the chemicals come from, how the chemicals are distributed and even what types of clouds they produce and the effect they have on our weather. So we have an almost complete picture of what is happening with some extremely strong evidence to back up most of it.

The most scary part of all this, however, is the fact that despite all this evidence, most people seem completely unconcerned by what is happening. Those who do experience concern often try and dismiss the idea by asking “why?” The fact that they cannot explain why, or do not believe any of the explanations given to them, allows them to ignore the topic entirely.

per,
http://www.look-up.org.uk/explain-quickly/

The contrail people are at the wackier end of conspiracy theorists.

Planes create ``clouds'' quite naturally as an effect of rapid pressure changes as they move through the air. Air release chemicals are notoriously bad at wide area spread of chemicals. The winds in the upper atmosphere will quickly disperse anything released there.

More annoying is the effect is has on astronomy!

lol