Tuesday's PR They have a Letter in the Times
and PR firms know the Times throw in a free article for that. ..Tax diesel cars more, doctors say

I can't access the letter online ..and there is no other copy.
Title : New Diesel Tax Call
Signatories :
- Sir Andrew Haines, Professor of Public Health
- Professor John Middleton, President of the UK Faculty of Public Health
- Professor Stephen Holgate, Clinical Professor of Immunopharmacology at the University of Southampton
RCP and RCPCH working party on pollution
- Edwin Chilvers President in 2017 | British Thoracic Society

It complains the new VED takes account of CO2 but not pollution
(that's maybe cos its not proven
and that test conditions are MASSIVELY different from actual road
"The effect of the steep increase in diesel car sales has been unprecedented on health and air quality in Urban areas"
(...That is mere assertion, there is no robust data AFAIK)
- Think of children
- Urgent
- Revenue could contribute to diesel scrappage
- Though greatest effect in health will come from public transport, walking, and cycling infrastructure"
(..that's just assertion again)

Discussion from David Holland's Post
#1 @David Holland said
"In Britain alone, known NO2 emissions have been *estimated* to kill 23,500 people every year, according to aerosol science professor Ian Colbeck of the University of Essex, southeastern England."
David be careful of reading "could" in the newspapers and letting your brain register "DOES"
You see your quote contains the word estimated ..You can check towards the back of the studies you'll find a caveats page

The studies are correlation studies rather than causation studies, it's not like you take 200 doses of NOx and get a respiratory infection and your friend takes 10 units and doesn't.
In the original US studies the correlation was so strong with so many more people getting respiratory infections in a very polluted city than people in another less polluted city 1,000 miles away ..it's thought there surely must be some connection but the actual mechanism isn't understood.
AFAIK for particulates the argument is that particles scar your respiratory system and provide a better host for the bacteria which do bring the infection.
However for NOx it seems impossible to separate out the effect of particulates.

NOx certainly doesn't appear on the death certificates of any people, never mind 23,500
You could ask Professor Colbeck if he'll take any bets with his pension fund.
In the real world it' not as if you banned diesel cars in London now , then by 2040 that alone would be saving 23,550 lives/year
All other things are not equal ie the detection and antibiotic treatment of respiratory infections gets better year by year
And BTW London pollution is not as high as it was 20 years ago (according to Matt Ridley's latest blog)
We have a discussion thread about this.

#2 DH replied (I reply in brackets)
Re diesels, I have not seen tobacco *, radon, dust or for that matter poverty on any death certificate but there is little doubt that they cause, contribute to, or exacerbate medical conditions that lead to premature deaths.
(Agree but still you need proper maths not dramaqueening for cost benefit analysis)
* (Actually does appear on some US ones,
..and lung cancer/heart disease is a fair enough proxy for it in heavy smokers)
("Deaths" is just a PR thing, QALDs life days lost is what counts)

Until 2005 I would not touch diesels, but gave in when it became a no brainier if you have a caravan, and can pay just £30 a year car tax for diesel Fiesta runabout that has go cart performance for the wife.

However, no matter how well maintained an older turbo diesel is, each time you start them they chuck out a load of PM10. NO2 is a by product high cylinder temperature and the EGR system used to minimise it, at least on the older cars, reduces performance and soon clogs resulting a dirty exhaust.

I agree that hard proof of deaths may be as scarce as it is for CAGW, but after two car trips to central London last year I believe its air quality is worse than when I regularly did similar trips a couple of decades ago.

However, WHO is convinced: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs313/en/
(well it's a WHO PR sheet, doesn't mean that it's all a lie, but just assertions, cos it gives no references to check)

"In 1956 the Clean Air Act was passed as a direct consequence of the dense and polluted fog of early December 1952, which, it is estimated, caused 1,597 more deaths in the Administrative County of London than would have been expected (Figure 1, Table 1). The Act of 1956 has led to a reduction of air pollution, especially in London."
That 1970's report has a lot of basic principles

" A significant correlation has been shown between the death rates from pneumonia and the levels of particulate air pollution in 30 county boroughs in England and Wales. During very cold weather in London the death rate from pneumonia doubled when the duration of fog increased from 10 hours to more than 20 hours in the week preceding death.
..this pattern was not repeated in East Anglia, where the temperature was similar but air pollution much less."

It would be good to see the source for that Matt Ridley claim that pollution is way lower than 20 years ago.

There is a discussion over at Tallbloke's which shines some light

The big deal is the official gov historical trends PDF ..shows that pollutants are down massively over 30 years

"A C Osborn says: February 18, 2017 at 12:26 pm
I suggest that someone should look at the ACTUAL OFFICIAL values for the whole of the UK and not localised hotspots and EU rubbish.
Despite a massive increase in Diesel Engined vehicle take a look at the drop in overall values of not just NOX but sulphur and Particulates as well."
"From that graph shows a reduction of
- NOX of approximately 60% since 1970.
- 80% in Particulates and 90% in Sulphur.
Why weren’t we all dropping like insecticide sprayed flies back in the 70s??"

Alarm Misdirection also seems to come from the way the EU kept reducing the safe limits.
And shock PR comes from localised hotspots ..What's there real harm ? Surely most people are not spending hours standing in them."

Info about EV pollution
"Therefore electric vehicle PM emissions - overall - are comparable to those of conventional vehicles.

The study found that these non-exhaust sources account for around 90% of PM10 and 85% of PM2.5 from traffic"
more

DavidHolland said
\\I am no expert on diesels, but one of my family was a Ford engineer doing engine mapping. My understanding on which I am happy to be corrected is that low revving normally aspirated diesels produced less NOX. With turbo charged direct injection engine mapping can improve combustion and thereby lower some unwanted pollution but NOX ends up higher.
The problem is one of traffic density. Diesels are no problem in my village nor apparently in well ventilated tunnels. However in the last three decades nearly all commercial vehicles and company cars have gone to diesel and the air in the afternoon traffic on the Marylebone Road on a hot muggy summers day is awful.
As to WHO it's a UN body and, like the IPCC, I assume it has some appearance of rigor. But if you talk to an asthmatics, and we have one or two in our family, they will swear diesels make their condition worse.
Mar 3, 2017 at 11:0//

Assumptions are dangerous things

Today's PR in my face
Front page of Times 'Diesel creates Superbugs' paraphrase

Quotes University of Leicester Press Office on 2 March 2017

Dr Julie Morrissey, Associate Professor in Microbial Genetics in the University of Leicester’s Department of Genetics and lead author on the paper, said: “This work increases our understanding of how air pollution affects human health. It shows that the bacteria which cause respiratory infections are affected by air pollution, possibly increasing the risk of infection and the effectiveness of antibiotic treatment of these illnesses.

The research focused on two human pathogens, Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pneumoniae, which are both major causes of respiratory diseases and exhibit high levels of resistance to antibiotics.

My caveats
- Study was en extremis "thousands of times higher than real world"
- was a mouse study (and they don't always transfer to humans)
- The PR seems to have quote fished from alarmist scientists not involved in the study.

Pg 33 Times
Centre of Stuttgart to ban diesels older than 3 years

BTW I exist on my savings
Picking apart PR is a hobby
And I hope a public service.

I've mentioned AdBlue before, turns out Peugeot have produced 1.5million cars with this pollution filtration tech already built in
@NeilC said "David, this might show you the technological advances in diesel engines. 90% less NOx and 99.9% less particulates.

http://www.peugeot.co.uk/bluehdi/ ..."
- equations

First, an oxidation catalytic converter eliminates hydrocarbons and carbon dioxide from the exhaust gases.

Then, a selective catalytic converter eliminates up to 90 per cent of the nitrous oxide through the use of AdBlue – a solution of high purity urea.

Finally, a particle filter eliminates 99.9 per cent of the diesel particulates by number.

Everyday the Times has "Stop diesel" PR
It's too overwhelming to document all.

Today most of pg4 - "VW scam means early death for thousands in Europe"
- "Eating oily fish could combat air pollution" quotes Harvard mouse study .. Comments from British Lung Association's Richard Russell.
Fails to mention that if you increase fish you increase mercury intake!

Today Team Sadiq and BBC Breakfast did a low down PR stunt to involve children in political campaigning.
About 50 of them brainwashed to make placards and stand in the "polluted street" haraning drivers for the cameras.
See the photos on B-BBC
Metropolitan elite False-Narrative “Air pollution is about diesel fumes on children” African/Indian housewives don't matter.

The PR people have declared diesel to be the new paedophile
And by shouting "think of the children"
They direct the baying mob.

Yet as we saw with today's BBC breakfast stunt
it is they who are grooming the children to lobby govt to persecute, diesel engine drivers.

Keep kids, out of your agenda-setting!"

BBC joined the anti-diesel campaigning big time

Can anyone mention a live BBC prog today which DIDN'T mention it ?
Each regional edition of Inside Out ran its own anti diesel propaganda
As part of BBC's #SoICanBreatheCampaign
How can the BBC justify such undemocratic POLITICAL campaigning ?

South- actually something practical
“how high levels of pollution from the large ships using Southampton could be reduced to almost nothing"

East Mids - stuck for while cos couldn't unplug electric car but was like advert

Shurely NOT @GC ..we know for shure that they have NONE of their pension fund invested in oil corps
..and just accidentally have priortised share in Tesla and green corps
#NoConflictOfInterest

PR experts are clearly backing off the Global Warming narrative
And regrouping around air pollution narrative as a strategy.

Now I bet The BBC has been some secret #SoICanBreathe meeting with the NGO PR guys again like 28gate ?

I have no objection to the Green Party participating in political campaigns, but the BBC is unelected and undemocratic it should not be driving politics.
Anyways of course UK air is a tiny compared to world #airpollution problems which do really kill 35 year old women cooking over open kitchen fires.
Borneo smogs and haze and a 100 times worse than UK traffic.
Here is a graph showing the official UK trend

Dr John Rieuwerts @AnAirThatKills
Associate Professor in Environmental Science. Author, "An Air that Kills: Our Invisible Air Pollution Crisis"

His twitterfeed carries most alarmist PR

His explanation of the death ESTIMATE is quite good
except journos should always say that they are S and give an idea of error bars

BBC official PR for stop diesel project

I see that the BBC's campaign #SoICanBreathe is organized by Emily Kasriel "Head of Editorial Partnerships and Special Projects"
Her first blogpost
"Head of Editorial Partnerships and Special Projects"
Q1 What the heck is that if it's not about facilitating NGOs and vested interests with a FREE BBC platform to push their dogma ?

"ah but everybody agrees"
No, I am a true Green, believe in proper maths and critical thinking.
The problem with GreenBlob Movement/industry is that it is infected with PR professionals and subsidy grabbers..So it gets the maths/policies wrong & is not green.

eg Sadiq has an interest in bashing diesel cars, like other mayors bash accused paedophiles guilty or not.

PR experts are clearly backing off the Global Warming narrative
And regrouping around air pollution narrative as a strategy.

Q2 Will the ever so transparent BBC please tell us which outside orgs attended the #SoICanBreathe Meetings ?
It looks like another 28gate event where first the BBC denied FOIA requests & then had to spent £50K of licence money in court trying to deny admitting that the meeting was full of NGO and vested interest activists.

Strangely BBC pension fund has a lot of Green shares especially Tesla
BUT BBC also has a lot of diesel vehicles ..and diesel generators !

Today the BBC doesn't look close to impartial.
And so risks further decline in public confidence and further declines in people paying into the TV licence fund.

Someone on that blog asked a question about home pollution monitors.
Important point is when I checked I found such monitors often don't measure everything they claim.
Some just measure Carbon Monoxide and software infers the amount of particulates and NOx from that.

Full Question
"49. Posted by Miss Deecie on 19 minutes ago
I think where I live (next to a very very busy road) is probably highly polluted due to both cars and lorries. Where can I buy or borrow a pollution testing kit? After all, there is no point complaining if the levels are deemed ok. Incidentally I don't trust the authorities as they would likely take tests in the middle of the night, if at all !!!"