So it’s not snowing, raining, or blowing a gales so the media now need something else to panic over.
Still it is annoying that my car has half of the Sahara on it.

WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!!!!!!!

Do you want filtered good news only?

I’m sick of constant moaning about what’s in the news. FFS have you not figured out how the media works yet?

Does good news exist?

Its quite telling when Sky have had sandy air as ‘Breaking News’ for the last couple of days, but a massive earthquake in Chile is way down the list. Similar to the MH370 news, which has the same text in a different order each day.

the health people are telling people not to take vigorous exercise.

They should be telling people not to drive.

classic victim behaviour focus rather than perpetrator behaviour focus

I am more sick of my sore eyes in the past 48 hours. I was running this morning at 06:45 and my eyes hurt again or should I say hurtmore?

I dunno my mum had breathing difficulties yesterday, which may now have been a small heart attack, doc said theyve been inundated in the last couple of days

seems like big news from my perspective

Suffolk calling…

Im sick of the sore throat and cough and wondering why its not more in the news.

Can I take legal action against all the lazy **** in cars who dont know there killing me because they never actually go outside?

A good point about stopping using cars Vs stopping going outside

The thing that I am suprised about is the lack of coverage air quality gets. People are on the whole blissfully unaware of the consequences of the high levels of pollution on city streets. The costs are huge.
I guess people are so protective of their ‘rights’ to drive that it is not a popular topic.

Contrast this with the potential pollution from fracking which might not even happen. How many news stories?, protests?, bla bla. think of the children etc.

Journalists and meedja meeting in lunnun….

“….and the final item on the agenda is our weather wankfest for the next month, who is going to do the 1hr tv special this time?”

Similar to the MH370 news, which has the same text in a different order each day.

You’re surprised at this? Nobody knows anything, or has found anything, so there’s nothing to say.
Other than they’re still looking. We now have a sub down there, that might be able to hear the transponder pings, but I’m not holding my breath.

we are being fined for the EU for breaching air quality standards and Borris has repeatedly ignored calls to improve air quality in london and has managed to shutdown some of the more troublesome pollution monitoring stations

Id say that the media are just following the governments lead

I suspect pollution is only going to get worse each year. There is not a government on the planet doing anything constructive to stop it.

We will look back at these threads in a decade and think how lucky we were.

Look at China now – how long till we have to live in that soup ?

funnily enough just wrote about this very thing in the good news thread

i don’t live in london so no worries about Armageddon/invasive killer beetles/plague/sand from Tutankhamen/godzilla e.t.c e.t.c 😛

it’s all that’s on bbc news atm 🙄

edit apologies to anyone not feeling well btw.

we did 18 miles on the bike last night and wasn’t aware of anything other than a nice warm evening. (in Surrey)

There is not a government on the planet doing anything constructive to stop it.

Yes there is. Western countries have tons of air quality laws.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/european-commission-to-take-legal-action-against-britain-over-high-levels-of-dangerous-gas-9142478.html

Does anyone expect our government to actually reduce pollution ?

Sure, they will get fined by the European commission – but thats all that will happen.

Haveing a law that results in a fine will not stop it, just increase the cost. A bit like paying money to offset your carbon emissions before catching your sleazyjet flight.

Why does the government have to do everything? True they could help, but the majority of people do not need to do the majority of their trips by car. It is about priorities. At the moment people would rather take their chances with the increased risk of heart and lung disease than take the time to walk/cycle to the shops or their kids school. Its just easier to make an excuse.

The news barely covers it all. Read an IPCC report on climate change and that might start you thinking, rather than sticking your head in the sand and moaning about the crap coverage out there.
Mankind is it seems hell bent on destruction, and a look into history will show you societal collapse in every corner of the world. Now we have the means to achieve it globally – what a result.
Options are out there, such as carbon emission reduction (use you car less and your bike more), source local foods, not Tesco sprouts from Easter island and buy singletrack mag as an E-edition and not the paper kind. There you go! climate change sorted.

Does anyone expect our government to actually reduce pollution ?

Sure, they will get fined by the European commission – but thats all that will happen.

Haveing a law that results in a fine will not stop it, just increase the cost. A bit like paying money to offset your carbon emissions before catching your sleazyjet flight.

I’m wondering how far a fine will go in controlling the amount of industrial pollution arriving here from the continent at the moment, or the huge amount of Saharan dust also being blown here. Who do we send the writs to?
As it happens, I’ve been really struggling to breathe today, not something I have a problem with normally. I’ve felt breathless and wheezy, and it had to get a paramedic out to my dad yesterday, he was in a real state. Diagnosed as chest infection, but not helped by current weather conditions, I feel.

Look at China now – how long till we have to live in that soup ?

We did when we used Coal as our main source of domestic fuel in Victorian times. We’ve moved on a long way since then, China will catch up with us not the other way round.

I’m sure that Cameron would love to be seen facing-down the EU and refusing to pay their fine, especially as he would claim that much of the pollution is of european origin; though no doubt Brussels will simply deduct the amount from the UK rebate.

The air was quite fresh on Black Rock sands when I was there earlier.
I was in a wedding in Athens last August. The pollution there was unreal.
A bit of smog that lasts a couple of days is hardly news is it?

I’m still trying to work out Cameron’s logic in saying that its really polluted so don’t walk or cycle.

Yay, let’s all drive and make it worse!

******* BREAKING NEWS ******* News!

I’m just about to cycle home. It looks about 9ish out there. Wish me luck.

Trimix – Member
I suspect pollution is only going to get worse each year. There is not a government on the planet doing anything constructive to stop it.

We will look back at these threads in a decade and think how lucky we were.

Look at China now – how long till we have to live in that soup ?

It was much much worse in the 50s and 60s when I was a kid. I can remember the frequent pea-soupers when you could barely see your outstretched hand, and the eery muffling of the noise of heavy traffic – yup, they kept on driving and crashing into each other. Riding a bike was scary.

Then it all went away with the Clean Air Acts and most of the particulates suspended in the air disappeared too. And for some reason the weather improved and it got warmer.

Maybe we need more Saharan pollution to control global warming… 🙂

nedrapier : Are you mad?…by all accounts (very dirty air just reported on C4 news) you will die a suffocating death as your lungs fill up with pollutants and strangle your airways.

Breaking news……..a woman on C4 news just mentioned she had to turn back from a walk with her dog earlier today due to a sore throat….

For gawds sake when will this government send in the army leaf blower corps to provide a layer of clean, filtered air to give a modicum of relief for us normal tax paying citizens.

It’s even affecting us up here in Dumfries & Galloway, earlier today i was watching the birds out of the kitchen window at the feeders below and as i watched a rather fat pigeon waddle up to the pheasant feeder it just suddenly exploded in a shower of feathers and guts, obviously due to the amount of pollutants it has absorbed over the past few days and nothing at all to do with the minuscule possibility that it was mugged by the feline dark destroyer otherwise known as sooty.

I thought about leaving the house to carry out an autopsy but i believe sooty may have beaten me to it, and anyway….with those sort of airborne super weapon pollutants out there i’m not partial to taking any chances.

Lalalalalalallalalalal not true not happening lalalalalalalalala.

I saw on the news the fattest woman you can imagine sucking on asthma pumps.
It wasn’t the pollution causing her stress to walk to the chippy. It was the fact she was 30 stone!!!

For the last 5 years I have been commuting in and out of London on bike and scooter and this last week is the worst I have experienced. Been having trouble breathing since Monday evening and so much crap in my eyes I have just managed to open them. Still look quite like the elephant man though!

It’s easy to dismiss it as hysterical soft southerners but it’s pretty horrendous.

It’s a bit rainy here.

Read an IPCC report on climate change and that might start you thinking, rather than sticking your head in the sand and moaning about the crap coverage out there.

The current pollution problems are mainly centred around particulates and NOx. Particulates and NOx come from diesel cars in much bigger volumes than they do from petrol cars. But diesels have been promoted through company car tax for the last god knows how many years, as an anti carbon emissions programme.

I find it amazing that we’ve prioritised something that will happen in the distant future, and that we can’t particularly affect over something that causes a genuine health threat in the present.

You joke about this, but I moved into my new place when all this started a few days ago, so I’m not sure whether waking up to blanket fog every morning is a result of the immigrant dust, or whether I’ve moved to the W.Yorks equivalent of Mordor.

It’s not *cough* a *splutter flegm* laughing *vomits* matter.

“Next, the stalled cars had their windows opaqued with a cheap commercial compound used for etching glass, and slogans were painted on their doors. Some were long: THIS VEHICLE IS A DANGER TO LIFE AND LIMB. Many were short: IT STINKS! But the commonest of all was the universally known catchphrase: STOP, YOU’RE KILLING ME!”

? John Brunner, The Sheep Look Up

******* Breaking News! ******** NEWS!

I’m back. Sore throat, was trying hard not to breathe too deeply. Not pleasant. Like being stuck behind a bus going up a hill, for the whole ride.

Not really breaking news, I was back a while ago. Sorry, carry on.

Off to ride Golspie tomoro- just going to pretend the world is a great place to live and no problems. 2.4 up front and the fattest tyre I can get in the rear of me hardtail. The only thing I’m worried about is not pinch flatting.
Global warming – pah, I’m gonna add to it by puffing my way to the top like a 40 a day man.