Pollution Charge

[Milky]

How long before WArrington starts charging a pollution tax for vehicles?

[Davy51]

Mayor Khan has started charging his London motorists already ,£12.50/car ,£100 hgv/coaches & that is on top of his congestion charge. Probably won't do much to alleviate pollution levels but will rake in loadsamoney.

[asperity]

The man is a politician and therefore lying through his teeth. Pollution levels, even in that there London, are lower than they have ever been and still falling.

[P J]

On 4/8/2019 at 8:42 PM, asperity said:

The man is a politician and therefore lying through his teeth. Pollution levels, even in that there London, are lower than they have ever been and still falling.

this statement is false but what's new?

[Evil Sid]

Well only partly false, the politician and lying bit is true.🤔🤭

[Confused52]

9 hours ago, P J said:

this statement is false but what's new?

I show below annualised London Mean Background scores, so not roadside. Hence this is what the real exposure is most of the time. I have annualised the data because it varies month by month as it is weather dependent. It would suggest that Asp is closer to reality than you are PJ.

See https://data.london.gov.uk/download/london-average-air-quality-levels/acce7f88-70f0-4fd0-9160-f02a9d96b2c3/air-quality-london.xls

	Nitric Oxide (ug/m3)	Nitrogen Dioxide (ug/m3)	Oxides of Nitrogen (ug/m3)	Ozone (ug/m3)	PM10 Particulate (ug/m3)	PM2.5 Particulate (ug/m3)	Sulphur Dioxide (ug/m3)
2008		80.39		73.09	41.00	23.71	6.32
2009		39.08		35.35	20.55	14.52	3.05
2010	28.64	39.58	68.24	34.15	20.05	14.70	3.17
2011	22.66	35.16	57.49	36.00	21.72	16.15	3.61
2012	24.39	35.91	60.29	35.98	19.90	13.88	4.02
2013	20.92	31.39	52.70	33.87	19.15	13.17	3.29
2014	26.33	34.67	59.29	36.77	19.25	14.17	3.66
2015	19.77	30.90	48.42	40.00	17.40	11.33	4.04
2016	27.70	32.34	59.71	34.74	17.71	10.96	3.52
2017	14.60	30.95	52.09	36.50	16.90	11.57	2.85
2018	10.58	28.91	42.45	42.25	17.31	11.09	2.12

[Milky]

19 hours ago, P J said:

this statement is false but what's new?

If it is then one needs to wonder why, as motorized traffic levels are down and vehicles we are told are far more efficient and economical producing far less pollution.

Also one wonder if a 20 year old VW Polo for example that is subject to the new pollution charge is really more polluting then a new Range Rover or Porsche for example that I guess is not subject to the new tax.

Still you never know what is around the corner, 10 years ago science did not understand diesel vehicles were so polluting and politicians were urging everyone to buy one. Now we should get electric ones! 

[grey_man]

7 hours ago, Milky said:

If it is then one needs to wonder why, as motorized traffic levels are down and vehicles we are told are far more efficient and economical producing far less pollution.

Also one wonder if a 20 year old VW Polo for example that is subject to the new pollution charge is really more polluting then a new Range Rover or Porsche for example that I guess is not subject to the new tax.

Still you never know what is around the corner, 10 years ago science did not understand diesel vehicles were so polluting and politicians were urging everyone to buy one. Now we should get electric ones! 

These things are often more complex than assumed. So digital downloads of music and film are worse for the environment than the production of physical formats because they consume so much energy through data centres. Similarly, the amount of traffic on the road might increase with the use of shared autonomous vehicles because so many more people will be able to use cars who currently cannot for one reason or another. 

[P J]

On 4/10/2019 at 3:38 PM, Confused52 said:

I show below annualised London Mean Background scores, so not roadside. Hence this is what the real exposure is most of the time. I have annualised the data because it varies month by month as it is weather dependent. It would suggest that Asp is closer to reality than you are PJ.

See https://data.london.gov.uk/download/london-average-air-quality-levels/acce7f88-70f0-4fd0-9160-f02a9d96b2c3/air-quality-london.xls

	Nitric Oxide (ug/m3)	Nitrogen Dioxide (ug/m3)	Oxides of Nitrogen (ug/m3)	Ozone (ug/m3)	PM10 Particulate (ug/m3)	PM2.5 Particulate (ug/m3)	Sulphur Dioxide (ug/m3)
2008		80.39		73.09	41.00	23.71	6.32
2009		39.08		35.35	20.55	14.52	3.05
2010	28.64	39.58	68.24	34.15	20.05	14.70	3.17
2011	22.66	35.16	57.49	36.00	21.72	16.15	3.61
2012	24.39	35.91	60.29	35.98	19.90	13.88	4.02
2013	20.92	31.39	52.70	33.87	19.15	13.17	3.29
2014	26.33	34.67	59.29	36.77	19.25	14.17	3.66
2015	19.77	30.90	48.42	40.00	17.40	11.33	4.04
2016	27.70	32.34	59.71	34.74	17.71	10.96	3.52
2017	14.60	30.95	52.09	36.50	16.90	11.57	2.85
2018	10.58	28.91	42.45	42.25	17.31	11.09	2.12

So , by your figures, the world began in 2008.  Marvellous.  Tell me ,  what do you reckon the pollution levels were in around 10 bc?

[grey_man]

7 hours ago, P J said:

So , by your figures, the world began in 2008.  Marvellous.  Tell me ,  what do you reckon the pollution levels were in around 10 bc?

Oh no, somebody's proved me wrong with facts. Time to shift the goalposts.  

[Evil Sid]

Well given that there were more wood burning fires, transport was by horse or ox or foot and there were more wild cattle about then in 10BC  it would probably be similar to now just different pollutants.

We could always ask Dr Emmet Brown.🤔

[grey_man]

3 hours ago, Evil Sid said:

Well given that there were more wood burning fires, transport was by horse or ox or foot and there were more wild cattle about then in 10BC  it would probably be similar to now just different pollutants.

We could always ask Dr Emmet Brown.🤔

Yes, but what about the Pre-Cambrian era? Eh? Eh?

[P J]

12 hours ago, grey_man said:

Oh no, somebody's proved me wrong with facts. Time to shift the goalposts.  

Asperity set the goal posts with his use of the phrase " lower than they have ever been and still falling."  It is a pretty straight forward claim yet a very erroneous one.  Pre-industrialised London would have been far less polluted,  but you know that don't you?  You are still smarting from previous slap downs which is why you posted lol. Slow hand clap.

 

[P J]

11 hours ago, Evil Sid said:

Well given that there were more wood burning fires, transport was by horse or ox or foot and there were more wild cattle about then in 10BC  it would probably be similar to now just different pollutants.

We could always ask Dr Emmet Brown.🤔

Hilarious, are you here all week ?

[P J]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/12/london-housing-approved-in-area-with-illegal-pollution-levels-lewisham

 

[Evil Sid]

12 hours ago, P J said:

Hilarious, are you here all week ? 

Seeing that wherever i am i am here then the answer is yes.🤡

20 hours ago, grey_man said:

Yes, but what about the Pre-Cambrian era? Eh? Eh?

Probably more polluted than now as there was no life and the earth was adjusting itself as it finished coalescing prior to the building b;locks of life forming,depending on your definition of pollution of course.😯

[Bill]

An article about the proposed new fleet of electric busses due to hit Warrington’s roads seemed to have sparked a lot of negative comments on Facebook and that’s why I’ve dug this out of its dusty vault because I think it’s worth another look.

Maybe I don’t know how to use Facebook properly, but I can engage in a conversation then a few minutes later I can’t find it again.

Leaving aside the moaning Minnis who complain about everything, much of the conversation was about particulates from tyres and brake dust. Now I don’t deny such things exist but rather than drilling down into the minutest statistical facts, we need to look at the much wider picture and try to keep things in perspective.

It's my view that the younger generation are being hit with statistics that they don't fully understand but through the magic of social media they end up becomming world ending facts. I’m not sure if there is any accurate information regarding particulate levels back in the fifties but I suspect that if there was, it would be absolutely huge in comparison to what we find today.

 

Bill 😊

[Evil Sid]

remember the smogs that were around in the sixties.

they were so bad  you could barely see the footpath you were walking on.

now that was heavy with particulates.

cannot say i am a fan of electric vehicles but like any 'new' technology there will be teething problems which are few but because of social media are highlighted as the 'standard' by people who are at best misguided and at worst attention seekers.

there have been two reported braking problems both on the jaguar electric car and suddenly its "all electric vehicles are unsafe as the brakes will fail and you can't stop them".

petrol/diesel cars have the same problem but for different reasons. a broken brake pipe will empty the hydraulics and thus render the brakes inoperative nearly everybody who has watched any program were the killer tampers with the brakes knows this, but because it is not an electric vehicle then they are deemed 'safe'.

[Bill]

!00% agree Sid.

The brake failure on that particular car sounds like a failed servo rather than anything to do with the electrics. An identical thing happened with me back in the seventies where a split diaphragm in the servo caused poor braking with the brake pedal being pushed back against my foot. This kind of mechanical failure has been happening since servo brakes were invented and in this instance it only became newsworthy because it happened to a celebrity in an electric car.

In the other case where a car couldn’t slow down or brake on the motorway, that's a bit more of a mystery, but at least modern cars have very advanced data logging that should enable the manufacturer to work out what the heck happened. Any new model car wether it’s petrol or electric can have issues that don’t come to light during test and development, that’s just a fact of life.

Neither of these issues have any bearing on particulates pollution or whether electrification is the right way forward, but we just have to hope our new busses don’t have too many of these teething problems.

 

Bill 😊

[ninearches]

I think there has also been a problem with some buses going up in flames. 

We were in St Helens one day last week & the fire brigade were just clearing up after a very new car looked like it had been on fire .I can't say though if it was electric & the battery had gone up in flames or if there was some other cause. There were no other cars on the scene so it didn't look like the result of a collision.

[Bill]

Reading up a bit more on this and it’s becoming increasingly clear that as usual, social media is largely to blame for spreading the myth and distorting the facts. Figures gathered by fire safety companies in multiple countries right across the world all show that petrol and diesel cars are far more likely to be involved in a fire, and this has nothing to do with the fact that there are more petrol and diesel cars about.

Quote

The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency this year found that there were 3.8 fires per 100,000 electric or hybrid cars in 2022, compared with 68 fires per 100,000 cars when taking all fuel types into account.

In simple terms that’s nearly 20 times more likely! The worst figure I could find was from car maker Tesla, who based their figures on milage driven but still demonstrated that petrol cars were over ten times more likely to be involved in a fire.

 

Bill 😊

[Bill]

I thought the story of the electric car doing 100mph that couldn’t stop and that also had no brakes sounded a bit hard to believe. Seems now that the driver has been arrested, not only for dangerous driving but also being a public nuisance and that sounds like he was trying to blame the car rather than accept the fact that he was speeding.

It was his first day in a new job with a brand-new car, and driving in excess of 100 would almost certainly result in him losing both, so maybe he thought he had nothing to lose by fibbing about it.

 

Bill 😊

[Evil Sid]

no doubt that the fact that it was electric and 'was unable to brake' will be the only things that matter to the anti electric car brigade.

That it was a total fabrication will not even be mentioned by them on social media.

I already know of at least one person who picked up on the original story and are citing it as an example of how unsafe electric cars are.

i do wonder in light of new evidence if he will withdraw the story.....

[Bill]

Back onto pollution, there was a report on telly this morning about the river Wye in Herefordshire becoming polluted due to the increasing levels of chicken farming in the area. We all understand that, but I didn’t quite get was the fact rather than the environmental authorities taking action, the public are being encouraged to seek compensation potentially running into hundreds of millions from the chicken company.

Surely it’s the national rivers authority’s duty to take such action and to use any fines from the process to better the environment rather than it just going into the pockets of the compensation generation.

I suppose we could argue the same for the diesel emissions scandal in that the billions paid out there could have been put to better use.

 

Bill 😊

[Evil Sid]

reading about it it seems the claim is being 'touted' by a legal firm who are encouraging people who live along the river and are affected by it to put a claim in.

maybe their asylum business is drying up so they are venturing into the speculative 'no win no fee' area.

found this on the law firms website.

Quote


People who can join the legal claim will have a claim alleging private and public nuisance. They will live in a 4,000 sq km area in Powys, Herefordshire and Monmouthshire. 
They will be:  
 

• People whose land and property surrounds the River Wye – potentially thousands of claimants
• People who belong to the community surrounding the Wye – potentially tens of thousands of claimants

The claimants will include people affected by the pollution such as swimmers, canoeists, walkers, clubs, organisations, anglers and businesses whose lives and trade has been hit by the worsening condition of the river, or the nuisance effects on those living near chicken farming, such as smells, insects and noise. The businesses affected will include those working in tourism, hospitality and leisure. 

little mention of the river authorities or the environmental agency apart from to quote that the river was in decline and that those authorities knew about it.