OK Dr Jonathan Grigg was just on R5 Live about Sadiq's pollution alert
Two things struck me.
- He ended by saying "Diesel is the low hanging fruit we have to get rid of it its fumes are toxic
Toxic ..That seems hyberbolic, cos diesel is ubiquitous and the vast majority of people lve long lives with no obvious notice of "diesel fume" damage.
- Secondly he did not use the Doctors against Diesel moniker.

Just slightly before him they had proof in terms of a victim a 34 year old regular cyclist
"I wen to see a special and he said 'You've got asthma welcome to London' matter of factly"

The thing is if diesel is the magic harm ...wouldn't you first be seeing HITS at a much higher rates in the specific groups most exposed to it . say Garage mechanics and taxi drivers ?
and then get those guys wearing masks etc.
In towns which are small enough to have most particulates blown away you'd still expect taxi drivers to have a higher exposure than someone walking to school in London

But instead we seem to see diagnosis across random people in London.
But you have to filter rises in diagnoses for other factors
If you see 80 asthma diagnoses per 1000 popn where it used to be 30 40 years ago, you can't assume those surplus 50 wouldn't have got it 40 years ago
In the old days 20 of the 50 would have been smokers and so assumed they had a smokers cough
and maybe another 10 wouldn't have been diagnosed cos the tests were not as sensitive as they are today.

@NBY The prog presenter specifically asked Grigg what the cause was ..and Griig only mentioned diesel not wood.
I wrote this before I saw your post :
London Pollution Alert : Paul Homewood draws our attention to a quote buried in the BBC report
\\However, a spike in pollution levels on Sunday "when there wasn't much traffic on the road, was significant" Dr Fuller said.
In recent weeks several "high" alerts have been issued.
The current weather conditions, coupled with an "unusually high amount of domestic wood burning", has led to the highest pollution alert being issued.//

Dr Grigg forgot to mention that bit in his radio seg last night

Indeed the Evening Standard just ran a headline London pollution levels sent soaring by wood fires during cold snap

BTW another point "All other things being equal"..., but they are not cos other factors have changed"
Is a common dilemma in attribution.

I guess that these days there are a lot more INDOOR domestic pets than 30 years ago, cos vacuuming seems to be all about sucking up pet hair. And that might cause more respiratory problems.

link autostarts at =53m40s

Quick reminder to lurkers
Who are we laymen to question some hallowed scientists ?

#1 Everyone has the right to ask questions, cos we all suffer the consequences of new law and all pay tax for them.
#2 Errors do sometimes creep into published science and are overlooked by fellow scientists ..maybe due to groupthink (examples do often crop up here on the blog)
#3 Indeed sometimes the people posting here are scientists who post under pseudonyms, cos they are not otherwise to speak their opinions freely.

@SandyS Jan 24, 2017 at 5:20 PM posted this
"I've have been saying that wood burning is a problem for several years now (and in comments here), good see Dr Fuller is catching up.. 175,000+ wood burning stoves are sold annually in the UK at the moment.
Most will be in urban areas.
The two days of the week when most people will be at home are Saturday and Sunday replacing diesel produced particulates with wood produced ones."

Yesterdays Times carried this Schools warned over toxic air threat
scary scary...
The air is not toxic ..it just occasionally is not 100% clean in some locations.
It quotes Penny Woods "most councils are not monitoring air quality near schools"
well you would if the school was in a bad area , but most of the time like in the countryside it's unnecessary.

I see all papers carried a similar story ..like the Sun etc.

@Micky H Corbett
Paris is not France .. and it's all cars not just diesel and it was from July 2016
(Monday to Friday between 8am and 8pm and ban doesn't apply on the outer ringroad A86 motorway)
(London is not England never mind the UK. The sooner we build a 40ft wall around it the better)

"By 2020, the only private cars allowed to drive on Paris streets will have to be ones registered after 2011, and motorcycles registered after 2015."
There has just been a touch of tightening on diesel
"Any diesel-run vehicle showing a 'Level 5' sticker on their windscreen, which indicates they were produced from 1997 to 2000, is not allowed on the road" (6% of cars)

The indy reports The measures have been met with anger by some French motorists, who claim it is unfair because it ultimately targets the “poorest citizens”, who “cannot buy a new vehicle”.

\\If reducing car numbers by half "was deemed ineffective", doesn't that suggest that the problem lies elsewhere?//

I'm aware that just as anti-diesel stories maybe rooted in pro Electric Car PR, then anti-wood maybe rooted in Pro-diesel PR.

pg 7 Times today Half page against wood quoting Gary Fuller of Kings College
The facing page has item about BP research story that it expects EV growth to be 100m by 2035 (6% of all cars) , but that is still a drop in the ocean. As that would replace about 1% of global oil demand.

I see the Indy is not censoring comments as strictly as the Guardian does. They allowed this :
"a tiny minority of UK households using wood stoves emit over twice as much PM2.5 as all the UK’s cars, trucks and buses" BMJ ...Guardian

That 2015 BMJ article author Dr Dorothy L Robinson Snr Statistician Australia
argues that PM2.5's are played down in favour of worrying about other factors
"Yet in a study with much lower levels (median PM2.5 of 7.3 ug/m3) an increase of just 3 µg/m3 in annual PM2.5 exposure was associated with a 9% increase in deaths from ischemic heart disease and 3-4.5% increases in all deaths" (yeh how robust is that ?)

"The disproportionate amount of PM2.5 pollution from domestic wood burning continues to escape attention."

"Revised figures show domestic wood burning to be the UK’s largest single source of PM2.5 emissions"

"a single log-burning stove permitted in smokeless zones emits more PM2.5 per year than 1,000 petrol cars "
"Wood stoves last much longer than cars."

"current levels of emissions are predicted to cause 1.5 degrees of warming within 15 years and 2 degrees within 35 years"
Ha ha ha ! (gives clownlike reference ...for it "Howarth, R.W., Methane emissions and climatic warming risk from hydraulic fracturing and shale gas development: implications for policy. Energy and Emissions Control Technologies, 2015: p. 45-53."

Re:wood stoves
Times letters page has a protest from Master Thatchers Society complaining due to the fashion for wood stoves 1 thatched house is suffering serious fire every week. not on website yet