Why do we allow our city habitats to be fouled?
We watched with incredulity the recent TV programmes on the open sewers that blighted the lives of Londoners and Parisians in the past. The Great Stink from the Thames in August forced MPs to flee from the capital.
I can recall the coining of the word 'smog' in the forties to describe the gritty acidic fog that culled thousands of Londoners every years. The Clean Air Act of 1954 was the country's response to possibly 20,000 deaths in the 1952 smog.
The PM10s poisoning our cities after a few days of sunshine is an avoidable pollutant as the smog and open sewers. It was in 1993 that the Commons Transport Committee first fretted about PM10s and inversion that fouls city life.
It's brainless Boris who is responsible for halting progress in cleaning up London's air. Ludicrously he now blames Europe. Thank goodness there is the sensible voice of London Green Jenny Jones. In a letter to the Mayor, she said he had a duty to help protect the health of vulnerable Londoners and the hundreds of thousands of visitors who will descend on the capital for the royal wedding weekend unaware of the danger to their health.
London is expected to breach its European air quality limits within the next 24 hours. A site in Marylebone Road has tipped the capital over the maximum number of breaches allowed.
Ms Jones said: "London is currently experiencing an air pollution episode and this is likely to carry on through the next week.
"The Government have issued smog alerts on occasions and I feel that the Mayor should step forward to help protect the health of vulnerable Londoners and those visiting the capital. He should be making people aware of what they are breathing in and the risks to their health.
"It is important information for people to know if they suffer from a pre-existing respiratory problem."
She added: "We have the prospect of hundreds of thousands of visitors flocking to central London to stand around all day for the royal wedding, in one of the most polluted cities in Europe."
The Mayor's own health impact study estimated up to 4,267 deaths in London in 2008 were attributable to long-term air pollution.
Boris has failed to improve public transport which is the only answer to mass pollution by cars and lorries. Enslaved to his prejudices, he has wasted £millions on reviving an outdated bus model and failing to expand the pollution cutting congestion areas.
Many potential visitors spurned last year's Olympics because of pollution levels in Beijing. London's killer pollution is now world news.
It a choker, Boris.
Pollution the biggest evil which spoils the human life more!
Posted by: Fenphedra | April 23, 2011 at 05:09 AM