Dare to breath?

Can you smell that?
In 2013, 11,940 premature deaths were caused by NO2 pollution - according to a recent report provided by the European Environment Agency. An estimated 9,400 of these occur in London alone.
To put this into perspective, the UK has been told it has the 2nd highest deaths from this pollution within Europe, behind Italy.
Of course, this is below the 21,000 estimated annual deaths in the US from air pollution, as may be found similarly in other countries around the world, but we must remember this statistic takes all air pollution into account (CO & particulates etc.) and, no matter how much our population grows and we become more crowded, we still live on an island and the US population is almost greater than ours 5 fold.

A great proportion of these emissions originate from the dirty fuel in cars we lavish and can be linked to lung problems.

What certain scaremongers don't say is that this was a decrease of around 2,000 premature deaths since 2012. Isn't that nice to hear? And with Sadiq Khan "implementing hard-hitting measures to clean-up London’s toxic air" with aims for all London buses to meet the Ultra-Low Emission Zone standard during the fast-approaching 2020. This was seen when he unveiled the first ever hydrogen-powered, zero-emission London buses earlier this week!

Cleaner air is on its way, but we can bring it sooner if we want it.

New hydrogen-powered London bus
http://gofuelcellbus.com/index.php/news-events/news-articles/
'The Guardian' reported that "drive, baby, drive" was the message in Philip Hammond's autumn budget statement this year. Fuel taxes are being frozen, costing us £845m, and £1.3 bn is going into building more roads built, whilst train ticket prices will go up?
£150m has been promised to support low emission buses and taxis and £80m for electric car charging points, but it seems a bit whiffy eh?

I'm getting mixed messages here. Do we want to improve our cities, our health and the future of our planet or not?

You can decide.

Currently, Greenpeace have a petition to tell the government to cut toxic diesel emissions. With just a name and email, you can change the path we take. Please click here to sign.

H _ M
    :)

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