Forum topic: Enfield Council's climate action plan: 'The wrong target, too slow and too secretive'
Enfield Council's climate action plan: 'The wrong target, too slow and too secretive'
Basil Clarke
20 May 2020 15:40 #5478
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Edited highlights of the EnCAF meeting, held online on 29th April, are now available on the GlobalNet21 YouTube channel (and above). As well as the analysis of the council's plans, presented by David Flint of Enfield Green Party, the meeting discussed waste management during the Coronavirus crisis, and how to hold public bodies accountable - with particular reference to the plans to build a huge new waste incinerator in Edmonton.Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Enfield Council's climate action plan: 'The wrong target, too slow and too secretive'
Karl Brown
14 Aug 2020 10:16 #5479
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Once upon a time air pollution was the leading environmental matter. Subsequently climate change became a more pressing concern but a USA article, based on the burgeoning field of global research into air quality, makes the seemingly astonishing claim that by focusing on the health benefits of air quality the issue of climate change can be resolved.
Ever more problems are being identified as being associated with adverse air: premature deaths, illness and lost productivity. Bigger data pools, China being particularly mentioned, are now revealing that what has already been a rapid growth in known problems was not awful enough.
“The scientific evidence is unequivocal: air pollution can harm health across the entire lifespan. It causes disease, disability and death, and impairs everyone’s quality of life. It damages lungs, hearts, brains, skin and other organs; it increases the risk of disease and disability, affecting virtually all systems in the human body.”
Focusing on USA metrics it concludes the financial benefits of good air alone are enough to pay for the transition to clean energy. Fossil fuels disappear, with huge benefit to climate gases in the atmosphere. The near term benefits are from air quality; longer term the climate benefits.
The author tackles the free-rider argument, ie why bother since China and India are such huge polluters. The modelling suggests that the health benefits would still be of sufficient scale to financially cover the costs of transition to clean energy, whatever any other country decided not to do. What is good enough for the USA is claimed to be good enough with knobs on for the vastly dirtier air of China and India. (A suggestion of up to 7m associated deaths in 2015 alone between these two countries puts Covid 19 in some relative perspective.)
I imagine it’s unlikely our own position will differ all that much to that of the USA. One in every twenty deaths in our own borough is said to be related to adverse air quality, so that means if not you then almost certainly someone you know, or knew. It’s a key driver behind the pressure to get active through less-vehicle centric streets. It now looks like it can and should be a whole lot more.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/8/12/21361498/climate-change-air-pollution-us-india-china-deaths
Ever more problems are being identified as being associated with adverse air: premature deaths, illness and lost productivity. Bigger data pools, China being particularly mentioned, are now revealing that what has already been a rapid growth in known problems was not awful enough.
“The scientific evidence is unequivocal: air pollution can harm health across the entire lifespan. It causes disease, disability and death, and impairs everyone’s quality of life. It damages lungs, hearts, brains, skin and other organs; it increases the risk of disease and disability, affecting virtually all systems in the human body.”
Focusing on USA metrics it concludes the financial benefits of good air alone are enough to pay for the transition to clean energy. Fossil fuels disappear, with huge benefit to climate gases in the atmosphere. The near term benefits are from air quality; longer term the climate benefits.
The author tackles the free-rider argument, ie why bother since China and India are such huge polluters. The modelling suggests that the health benefits would still be of sufficient scale to financially cover the costs of transition to clean energy, whatever any other country decided not to do. What is good enough for the USA is claimed to be good enough with knobs on for the vastly dirtier air of China and India. (A suggestion of up to 7m associated deaths in 2015 alone between these two countries puts Covid 19 in some relative perspective.)
I imagine it’s unlikely our own position will differ all that much to that of the USA. One in every twenty deaths in our own borough is said to be related to adverse air quality, so that means if not you then almost certainly someone you know, or knew. It’s a key driver behind the pressure to get active through less-vehicle centric streets. It now looks like it can and should be a whole lot more.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/8/12/21361498/climate-change-air-pollution-us-india-china-deaths
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