Officials 'drawing up plans' for diesel scrappage scheme to cut emissions Telegraph
across all media now

I suspect creating anti-diesel hysteria was a technique by subsidy getters to get a strong starting negotiating position.
9:36am Dr Grigg was on LBC making approval noises.

Leftmob use the going to extreme framing trick as a way of starting negotions
So Trump is not portrayed as merely a conservative, but the ultimate facist ..as they go hysterical.

9:36am Jon Grigg from Doctors Against Diesel is on LBC
didn't really say much, just happy with the negotiations for a new scrappage scheme

OK The intro LBC gave was the government is starting to negotiate a scrappage scheme.
Aha I think I see what is happening. You go to the ultimate extreme of creating hysteria against diesel then you have a strong negotiating basis to start from. So someone is going to end up quids in.

Hysterical claims +fuzzy maths
Then solutions which are not the best, but pay biz big subsidies.

Same as with climate
And Paris
And pushing wind/solar

Medically 2 claims made

#1 Due to pollution City people have shorter lives than country.
But that's based on extrapolations
So can't be sure a twin moved to countryside would live longer.

#2 Respiratory cases much higher in city.
Plausible but other factors might play a part.

You'd expect quick cheap targeted solutions like giving lollipop ladies and road workers And taxidrivers proper masks.
Where are the unions ?

Times pg 35 Lambeth "Face mask to protect pupils from fumes"
"Parents are so frustrated at the lack of action to address pollution from diesel cars"

Those words really seem like FakeNews
It ends by saying "Whitehall has played down prospects of a scrappage schemes"

It then quoted the RAC research from April
Dirty diesel scrappage scheme unlikely to do much for air quality - RAC Foundation. diesel fleet would be about 4,900 tonnes or 3.2% of the total emissions from diesel cars. And cost £800m

Last night 2 BBC news stories and 3 tweets from BBC official accounts about WhiteHouse female dress code
without a hint the base story is likely fake.

But they fact checked Labour MP Cadbury claims
here
"Some #pollution readings were higher in London, but this was unrepresentative and Beijing is generally far worse."

Story Reality Check: Was pollution worse in London than Beijing?

"They suggest that Beijing's levels are about five times worse than London's.
The cities with the dirtiest air are Zabol in Iran and Onitsha in Nigeria.
In the UK, overall emissions of all types of air pollution have fallen dramatically since 1970.
Pollution in Beijing is much worse than in London - or in Stockholm, where the same claim was made this week."

"I thought it was interesting that on last nights BBC news the story about traffic volumes on Britain’s roads reaching an all time high was given about 20 seconds towards the end of the programme."
more

London has huge cultural problems

#1 Foreign people don't realise what a dump it is, so keep moving there whereas sane people move out.

#2 So many people try to live in one area and travel to work/school in another 1hour away instead walking to nearby place.

One thing is the home market is not fluid enough.

If gov built blocks of lodging houses in city centers workers could move to the one nearest their job easily, but let London rot and do that in other towns first.

You could stack shipping container homes on unused sites and move them off quickly if the owner was ready to develop the land.

@sandyS Just throwing ideas up
Gentally gov interventions screw up the smooth running of markets.
But with housing it has already interfered, cos planning laws divide land into farm land and building land.
In Indonesia its very easy to find rooming houses (kosts) the day after you get a new job you can move in.
In other countries there's so much more highrise than UK and that adds fluidity to the housing market.

Narrative put out by Dr Grigg and Co
"Diesels kill", "diesels kill children"

I just scanned his report "Particulate Matter Exposure in Children Relevance to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
"In mice*, fossil fuel– derived PM increases mortality from aerosolized Group C Streptococcus (46), and increased numbers of S. pneumoniae are present in lung tissue 24 hours after exposure to concentrated ambient particles from fossil fuel combustion "
* Can't auto transpose from mouse to human models.
** It's the bacterial infections that harm people
... It's perhaps the case that abrasiveness of PMs increase bacteria hosting
...So you can decrease bacteria harm by reducing exposure, but also it can be treated with anti-bacteria measures.

He says it's difficult to separate NOx and PM effects
But quotes saying someone virtually saying NOx is not known to harm children.
\\A lack of biological plausibility for NO2 has led the American Academy of Pediatrics to conclude that the association between health effects and NO2 in children should be ‘‘treated with caution since an independent role cannot be clearly established’’ (6). //

Today's PR
"Sadiq Khan says Government must pay drivers £3,500 to ditch diesel cars"
They copied from Sunday's Observer
Claims - cost £515m
Cut London "NOx from road transport" by 40%

#1 In April the RAC report put the cost at £800m
- for 3.5% reduction in pollution
Up the thread I mentioned it
" the RAC research from April
Dirty diesel scrappage scheme unlikely to do much for air quality - RAC Foundation. diesel fleet would be about 4,900 tonnes or 3.2% of the total emissions from diesel cars. And cost £800m"
#2 See quote from Griggs report above doubting NOx can harm children.

Today's PR on Times front page
"Travelling by public transport exposes commuters to up to 8 times as much air pollution as those who drive to work"
Timeline of Times PR campaign

A Parallel via Judith Curry
Time is now showing second hand smoke claims were not robust.
And that drama queening and over claiming science were used to push laws thru.

From Slate Magazine

The BBC projected that “[banning] smoking in public places could prevent hundreds of deaths from heart disease.”

...now that the evidence has had time to accumulate, it’s also become clear that the extravagant promises made by anti-smoking groups—that implementing bans would bring about extraordinary improvements in cardiac health—never materialized. Newer, better studies with much larger sample sizes have found little to no correlation between smoking bans and short-term incidence of heart attacks, and certainly nothing remotely close to the 60 percent reduction that was claimed in Helena Study hyped and published in the BMJ
/Endquotes
Hmm... I don't support smoking anyway but expensive measures should not be forced thru if the results will be tiny.

A commenter says
https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/setting-record-straight-secondhand-smoke-preventable-health-risk
As the website notes, the lung cancer risk from secondhand smoke is relatively small compared to the risk from direct smoking. However, unlike a smoker who chooses to smoke, the nonsmoker's risk is often involuntary.
(I add : bottomline is you can't risk damaging life quality of employees)
#RoyCastle

The BBC does Eco-propaganda like an addict does heroin.
They've put this video about Barcelona anti-traffic in 4 places across website/FB. No text page so they have not bothered to mention the protests against the scheme. The Superblock scheme means pedestrianising each 9 block city area, forcing traffic onto the edges, thus discouraging vehicle use and in theory getting everyone to walk or bike. Except each actual vehicle movement is now longer and slower, cos of the diversions and less roadspace.

You expect the BBC to only be dreamy about eco stories. They seem to have spent good money on a PR advert for the scheme (& not mentioned the protests)
Never mind the shop keepers who might lose biz cos no passing trade.
- Culturally I wonder if locals might be accustomed to treating laws laxly.
Negative I can see : Ambulance times might increase a lot due to higher traffic density on the driveable routes and more obstructions in the pedestrian zones.