Discussion > Drs against Diesel : A subsidy mafia Front
michael hart
MPs actually have quite limited power - their main tool is the ability to hold the state's bureaucracy to some sort of account and actually that depends if the bureaucrats are feeling amenable....
I actually had a local MP who was stonewalled by The Environment Agency and resorted to a question from the floor of the HoC which sparked threats from officials at the EA...
When those in government are challenged through the normal channels it is all too easy for the perps to evade responding or to provide responses that are actually evasive wrt actual evidence that their actions are of little or no benefit to those who experience the consequences of their actions.
When imperious and hubris addled public servants and politicians look to rinse the wallets of the population (for assorted nefarious purpose) revolts happen.
I will be a surprise to me if there's an MP who's made critical remarks about Sadiq's banditry - TfL goons have made a concession to those deemed likely to physically resist the ULEV / wider ransom zones by giving access to diesel black cabs up to 15 years old (and over 40 years of age.... )
When push comes to shove yellow jackets and pots 'n pans are more effective I'm afraid....
tomo
A further thought on diesel cars - I have seen loonier air activists going off on "treat it like tobacco" - in which case that means take a product that is in demand and tax it 20 fold.
The thieving weasels are trying it on.
tomo
@Tomo activists like racists fall for simple black/white folktales
Diesels are evilis their level
On Monday the normally intelligent R4 Winifred Robinson got angry with the enviro minister when she told the truth that for particulates it's wood burning that is a large cause
... It's diesel Winfred wrongly screeched not realising the complexity of different types of air pollution and different toxicity' within them
The big government plan was that woodburners will be targeted, cos "its the only metric the UK is in breach of law on"
stewgreen
That Kissi case ..the asthmatic child died and she lived on the north circular road
.. the mother feels the death was due to traffic air pollution
the inquest said no.
There is no reason for a new inquest to find otherwise ..though everything is a stitch up these days.
Doctors always say that traffic pollution might agrivate asthma, but that the real increase in hospital admissions correlates very well to grass pollen release.
stewgreen
Friday's Times had an interesting letter again moving the argument away from the simplistic blackNwhite dieselsRpaedos narrative
'Yes you do spend time in traffic pollution, but you spend far more hours indoors
so it is indoor pollution like dust mites, that should concern us more not road pollution'
INDOOR POLLUTION
Sir, Most people tend to spend one to two hours a day walking in the urban environment, but most of the time they are in buildings that are becoming less well ventilated. They are therefore exposed to a variety of airborne pollutants, from furnishings, plastics and cooking to household dust and (in some of the poorer houses) fungi. If the respiratory conditions of the population are really on the increase,
then the medical profession should be looking carefully at these other more likely causes and not taking the easy target and blaming diesel emissions (reports, Jan 14 & 15, and letters, Jan 16).
The automotive industry continues to make huge strides in reducing emissions, and its next big challenges are particulates from the wear of tyres, brakes and road surfaces — all of which will be a problem whatever type of engine is adopted.
Peter Dobson , Emeritus professor of engineering science, The Queen’s College, Oxford
stewgreen
Jan 16th @EnvDefenseEuro and Google Earth Outreach will fix mobile sensors to its Street View cars
. Air quality information will be collected and published on an online map.
BBC
The Times article seems wacky,
#1 It's got a daft low ligh smog sky photo
#2 "If CO2 is high, the source is likely to be traffic" or you could around another high CO2 source like mammals or trees, etc
source " Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), a US charity overseeing the London monitoring"
..hmm a US body with some motivation ..(Green Hedgefund ?)
#3 "Two cars equipped with pollution sensors will spend nine months driving repeatedly on more than 1,000 miles of London’s roads"
There is a reason why air ;pollution monitors are NOT normally mounted in cars,
... stationary monitors are much better.
#4 Same article mixed the report "said that the death of Ella Kissi-Debrah, nine, who had asthma attacks during increases in air pollution, should persuade the public to support plans for cleaner air. ... given permission to apply for a second inquest after their lawyers said that the first, held in 2014, did not investigate the potential impact of air pollution."
stewgreen
Also on Tuesday a few pages on , our friend Dr Griggs was on the letters page
Sir, The message from high-quality scientific studies is unambiguous: exposure to sooty particles and nitrogen dioxide has major adverse effects on people’s health, and there is no safe level.
(Ding -aling someone being simplistic and emphatic
I don't believe that : human evolution is complex and we have had fire for 100,000 years plus, so there may be some advantages like smoke exposure might kill some bacteria etc.
I'm not trying to be big tobacco ..but you can't write off things with simplistic nods)
The government’s air quality plan to halve the number of people exposed to air pollution above World Health Organisation guidelines by 2025 is therefore far too little too late (report and leading article, Jan 14, and letter, Jan 15).
(again "too little too late" are PR words not science )
("too little" : if you half the number of people exposed .. that is something
" too late" : you do something in 5.5 years, that is better than 50 years )
(air pollution is not the plague , it just cuts days off your life)
As a paediatrician the idea of protecting only half of this nation’s children from a clear toxic threat is iniquitous.
(Think of the Children fallacy)
Previous legislation protecting children from exposure to cigarette smoke had immediate effects on asthma exacerbation, respiratory infections, and rates of preterm birth. Given that the WHO’s director-general, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, recently warned that air pollution is the “new tobacco”,
we must enact legislation that produces an immediate and dramatic reduction in children’s exposure. The government’s proposals will not achieve this.
the “new tobacco”, Grigg is more interested in PR than science
.. air pollution life days lost stats are simply not comparable to tobacco life days lost stat
stewgreen
second letter "Ammonia has a devastating impact on health and the equivalent of 250,000 lives could be saved annually if global emissions could be halved."
that's a 20th of indoor cooking young mother deaths
Dr Elaine King Director, Wildlife & Countryside Link
(wonder if that is a farmer's body seeking subsidies)
Hmm nature makes a hell of a lot of ammonia .. so I not sure about her hyperbole
I haven't checked the science, but there is some weird stuff going on like if there are other pollutants in the air that helps bring the ammonia out.
\\ any chemist will tell you that , given the chance, ammonia is only too happy to team up with nitrogen oxides//
stewgreen
BTW the highest rated coment re air pollution below those letters says
\\ This air pollution scaremongering is nonsense on stilts. //
only 8 voted
stewgreen
@Tomo / @Michael Yes check that comments on that BBC Reality Check on diesels
..as ever people see through the article .. and comments have a lot of sense instead of green dreaming
eg \\ Hybrid technology needs to improve as I'm sure it will.
I traded in a Toyota diesel for a hybrid back in October.
The diesel did 65 mpg and the hybrid about 42! The hybrid cost me almost double per month in fuel!
I have now gone back to a diesel with zero road tax and lower co2 emissions than the hybrid.//
stewgreen
.stewgreen 12:14 AM | 21 Jan
One of the characterising things about the anti-tobacco brigade is the number of toxic mistakes they've made and been allowed to get away with.
In the bogey-fying of second (and even third hand) smoke ("smoking") the "alarming" percentage of organic chemicals with a theoretical carcinogenic potential (many with absolutely no epidemiological footprint = based on 'guessin) that were found in "homes surveyed by researchers" is often quoted - still. There was one study that declared that kitchens were the most dangerous room in the house for enduring the effects of tobacco - it was only after the work had been published that the provenance of those "carcinogenic chemicals" was subjected to common sense and the idea that maybe - that their presence was entirely consistent (obvious even...) with the routine activity of cooking food..... Southampton Uni iirc - well, duh....
Don't get me wrong - I'm not a defender of smoking or a denier of it's health effects - I am pointing out that blinkered zealots (especially those with direct funding of their zealotry) will find "evidence" everywhere.....
As far as diesels is concerned the harassment of a combination of "evil fossil fuels", soot and NOx by the regulators/bureaucrats has driven (no pun) the engine producers to adopt increasingly arcane and costly methods to reduce the emissions. (AdBlue and DPFs) - when more fossil fuel (gas / LPG) added to the combustion process has a magic effect of reducing the soot dramatically (up to 95%) and reducing other pollutants too when the combustion chemistry is closely controlled - more efficient combustion results too (i.e. higher mpg). That control of combustion chemistry could be further advanced by delivering the lowest emissions in certain geographical zones (GPS receivers system cost is less than £5) by limiting performance ....
The piles of deluded shit that we have to endure is exceeding tiresome - and talking about tires ("pun" intended) - the polymer formulation changes required to reduce particulates will likely make tyres last a lot longer (saving resources) - and will be resisted tooth and nail by the tyre sellers....
tomo
@Tomo you are up early reading
"when more fossil fuel (gas / LPG) added to the combustion process has a magic effect of reducing the soot"
Which begs the question ...what about enforced biofuel component ?
when more fossil fuel (gas / LPG) added to the combustion process has a magic effect of reducing the sootwhen more fossil fuel (gas / LPG) added to the combustion process has a magic effect of reducing the soot
stewgreen
stewgreen
you got quite a stutter going on there :-)
The biofuel thing is utter bullshit - contrived in large part by unscrupulous dishonest arseholes (or saintly eco aware public servants....) notice how McDonalds biodiesel from waste oil) and The John Lewis partnership (biogas) are not falling over themselves to elaborate the economics of their virtue signalling. Meanwhile the worthless prats at DeFRA have slapped a £1500 per annun permit on burning waste oil for heating (cleanly).
Our absent host has scoped out the biofuel scam several times but the MSM in general just churn the BS PR.
It's a shambles.
ps the hybrid combustion is really rather neat - I am a little surprised that more hauliers haven't gone to it - but it is expensive to fit compared to the cost of the componentry used - the "virtue premium" effect that pollutes renewables and biofuels at play I suspect.
tomo
@Tomo yeh the second para should have been different
"when more fossil fuel (gas / LPG) added to the combustion process has a magic effect of reducing the soot"
Which begs the question ...what about enforced biofuel component ?
when more biofuel is added to the combustion process, it has a magic effect of INCREASING the soot
stewgreen
My UV theory
Why would lung harm be different from 40 years ago ?
I think UV is important for dealing with moulds, bacteria, dust mites etc.
We are now essentially living in basements cos UV can't get thru double glazing
so those moulds, bacteria, dust mites etc are less neutralised than before.
stewgreen
@Tomo seems that people first signal that they are on the "correct" side ...and are then free to spout any old garbage.
Rather than it being tbe other way
.. shouldn't matter who the messenger is
...what matters is the argument
stewgreen
Monday's Times explains more on why gov is targeting woodburners over diesels
Diesel models get ever cleaner but woodburners account for 38% of particulates
BTW a kind of bogus stat cos what counts is the particulates that enter human lungs , not all emissions from remote places.
#2 Woodburners are not getting cleaner cos only 30% if sales are for eco burn type
#3 The stoves will all run for decades
#4 a law comes in in2022 saying all new stoves must be eco-burn.
Guess cos EU dragging their feet.
stewgreen
Many top charities have failed to pay their levy to the Fundraising Regulator
stewgreen
I wonder if Mrs Kinnock's charity has paid up?
a bit OT but the nauseating self promoting Twitter ads from Edelman are getting on my wick.
tomo
Yes @Tomo we are going off topic
Save the Children having problem with building trust after it aid worker prostitution thing
and recently its head of reform left cos she thought they were failing to make progress
And now Mrs Kinnock is lecturing corps on "building trust"
Also Her reeling off a list of buzzwords .. doesn't do a lot for building trust either
stewgreen
There is a good disccion over at Tallbloke's
Nitrogen oxide: Is it really that dangerous, lung doctors ask?
ie the science of harm of Nox might not be as robust as made out
.. that doesn't surprise me.
Köhler and his colleagues are no seeing the number of patients coming into their lung clinics that you'd expect if the Nox harm modelling were correct.
stewgreen
Stewgreen, I've just posted this comment on that thread at Tallbloke's:
Part of the problem with nitrogen oxides is their chemical instability in the presence of oxygen, sunlight, water, and..just about any other biologically significant molecule in humans, and many others commonly encountered in the environment. (Confusingly, only nitrous oxide, N2O, the one used in dentistry, is almost chemically inert in a chemical and biochemical sense.)This reactivity makes it difficult to examine the effects of nitrogen oxides even under carefully controlled laboratory conditions. They were certainly always regarded as highly toxic before the mid 1980s when Ignarro et al recognised that nitric oxide (NO) was actually a very import molecule in the human body in a wide array of biochemical processes. Depending on context, the high reactivity and normally short-lifetime of this molecule was what made it such a surprising candidate for the roles it is now known to fulfill. This led to perhaps one of the most surprising yet important Nobel Prizes awarded in the medical field for many years.
I'll add the extra comment that much interesting chemistry of nitrogen oxides is second order in [nitrogen oxides]. Which is a fancy way of saying that they are auto-reactive. Which is fancy way of saying that the chemistry and effects do not necessarily scale linearly with concentration. For a hypothetical example, if you reduced the concentration by a factor of 10 in a certain situation then it is possible the reaction (effects) might decrease by 100, not by 10. I wouldn't trust many models of this type of chemistry.
michael hart
Also, re: Ammonia
"second letter "Ammonia has a devastating impact on health and the equivalent of 250,000 lives could be saved annually if global emissions could be halved."
that's a 20th of indoor cooking young mother deaths
Dr Elaine King Director, Wildlife & Countryside Link
(wonder if that is a farmer's body seeking subsidies)Hmm nature makes a hell of a lot of ammonia .. so I not sure about her hyperbole
I haven't checked the science, but there is some weird stuff going on like if there are other pollutants in the air that helps bring the ammonia out.
Jan 21, 2019 at 1:11 AM | Registered Commenterstewgreen"
Yes, she is exaggerating wildly. Ammonia is still commonplace not just in nature and fertilizers , uncleaned toilets, and laboratories, but also in domestic cleaning products. It's persistence in the environment is very low not least because of its extremely high solubility in water.
I am personally quite fond of the smell of ammonia, in appropriately low concentrations, other wise a large breathful will paralyze your breathing for a second or two. When I used to work with it regularly I quite enjoyed sniffing the bottle every now and again.
And lastly, don't forget ammonia is the essential ingredient in smelling salts, which have long been used to safely revive young Victorian ladies who may have fainted or swooned as they were probably wont to do in Jane Austen or Georgette Heyer novels.
michael hart
Thanks Michael
stewgreen
My advice to them on that forum was to write to their local MP and start getting angry because only a few years ago the government was actively encouraging diesel use. The reason, of course, was that it was another ill-thought out policy put in place to satisfy the ever increasing demands of the global warming envirotards. They did the same thing for bio diesel grown by clear-cutting equatorial rain-forest to grow palm-oil mono-cultures. Only later did any of them put their brain into gear and realise that maybe this was actually a pretty dumb thing to do.
The current anti-plastic drinking straw thing is not new either. Some years ago I recall McDonald's being given much grief for using expanded polystyrene foam in your Big mac instead of paper and cardboard wrapping. McDonald's dutifully changed the wrapping to silence the screeching, but only just before someone else published a more detailed environmental audit which actually settled in favour of the plastic variety having the smaller 'footprint'.
Whatever the truth of the matter turns out to be in all these cases, the one thing we can be sure about is that the 'green' demands will almost always be initially made by people who actually know extremely little about anything of any value. They are only ever interested in making more and louder demands to satisfy their emotional need to be "doing something to save the planet", not in searching for truth, value, and merit.