Boris Johnson - WTF is he smoking?

[aka_kerrly]

Jaykaybi said:

the article said:

A London Assembly report last December found that 9% of deaths in the city were down to air pollution.

bks.

Most likely some form of creative interpretation of death via gas/glue/substance abuse.

As another poster wrote it is incredible how politicians who are directors of various companies can abuse their position to pass laws or get mates in office to pass rules/change guidelines for commercial benefit under the disguise of helping the environment.

[Blue62]

turbobloke said:

The reply I offered was to the post I replied to. Simple enough as a concept, but too tricky for some labouring and failing to score points.

Not point scoring at all, I leave that to people with far larger post counts and obviously little else to do with their time. Just noting yet another example of selective data and pointing it out to those who might be taken in by the bluff, that's all chap.

[turbobloke]

Blue62 said:

Not point scoring at all...

...I leave that to people with far larger post counts and obviously little else to do with their time.

Sure, that figures.

[iphonedyou]

turbobloke said:

While sustaining the economic well-being of those town centres, along with the economic well-being, quality of life and health of the car occupants.

People making journeys know better than minions in officialdumb what the best mode of transport for their journeys will be.

Smoking powerful dope isn't really a sifficient explanation for the daft ideas we get from the dopes in politics.

It's 'officialdom'. I'd let it go once, but that's twice now.

[Blue62]

turbobloke said:

Quite so, buses are the worst offenders, £1m trophy buses running on hydrogen not included.

The worst pollutant in cities arises from large diesel engines in stop-start buses namely 3-NBA. Nobody in officialdumb is interested in looking too deeply at the problem since it runs counter to the politically correct green myths about public transport and may even lead to class actions against bus operators for significant numbers of lung and liver carcinomas.

Absolutely the case, the only 'argument' being that if there were no (or fewer) cars the buses wouldn't sit in queues spewing even more filth.

[StoatInACoat]

Devil2575 said:

MarshPhantom said:

Re. car free towns being better, I couldn't disagree more. The grimmest places I can think of have pedestrianised town centres. Cars bring people and life to a city.

Cars create danger for pedestrians, pollute and jam the place up.

People bring life to a city, not cars.

So how do the people get to the city so they can toddle about unhindered by the automobile? Where do the cars they arrive in get parked? What happens to the pollution levels in the ring around the "ultra low emission zone"? Are you sure this isn't simply moving the problem a bit further from the middle?

Or do they all get the bus and the tube. Because there's surely plenty of extra capacity for the however many thousands people use a car to go in and out of London every day currently. Maybe they'll use cabs because you can bet all the hemp in your kitchen that they'll be exempt and will increase dramatically. Never mind, at least they don't belch out smoke or run on coal.

I live in central London and I have two cars. We use them to go to work, do our shopping and make our lives easier than hauling 300 bags of crap around on a bus or slinging them over my handlebars. It works, it's cheaper and if it didn't work there would be no cars in central London because nobody buys a car with the express intention of sitting in traffic or murdering pedestrians with it.
.

Edited by StoatInACoat on Thursday 14th February 11:02

[Trommel]

More ill-considered stupidity to chase headlines.

[turbobloke]

aka_kerrly said:

Jaykaybi said:

the article said:

A London Assembly report last December found that 9% of deaths in the city were down to air pollution.

bks.

Most likely some form of creative interpretation of death via gas/glue/substance abuse.

As another poster wrote it is incredible how politicians who are directors of various companies can abuse their position to pass laws or get mates in office to pass rules/change guidelines for commercial benefit under the disguise of helping the environment.

The numbers in these reports are guestimates, often traced back to a Prof Kelly of King's College. If not that, then it's guesswork from the EU. Also mentioned in the various documents with TfL and related imprimaturs is the extortionate level of fines that the EU will levy if arbitrary numbers are not achieved, which seems to be motivating people to conjure up numbers to justify something as 'something must be done'. There's also the usual green social agenda at work, with mentions all over the place of air quality and social inequality in the same sentence.

In terms of causality, there is none i.e. no causality between PM10 / NOx / SO2 / CO air pollution and respiratory conditions such as asthma. As air quality has improved, asthma incidence has risen...so if any causality is at work here it's cleaner air that's causing more asthma.


This from a report for the NHS executive entitled 'Transport and Health in London'.

For every Prof Kelly there's a Prof Feldman.

Professor Emeritus Stanley Feldman of Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School said:

Pollution does not cause bronchitis or asthma, nor does wearing a so-called anti-pollution mask do anything except identify the wearer as a sucker.

The worst pollutant in human health terms is 3-NBA (and not forgetting 1,8-DNP) and it isn't even mentioned. This is revealing.

[Devil2575]

MarshPhantom said:

Devil2575 said:

My Brother in law lives in a appartment in central London and he sold his car a long time ago.

Good for him. Is he a lentilist like yourself?

Why can you not see that this isn't just about the needs of people who live in Central London?

A lentalist?

Nice to see the 'amoral neocons' resort to abuse at the earliest opportunity

I'm not sure whether he like lentils or not, but he's a very successful professional who runs his own PR company.

People outside of London? What's wrong with public transport?

[Devil2575]

Fittster said:

And if they can't take their cars into the city center they don't go their.

There is a balance to be made. Many town/cities are not so big that parking on the outskirts is not within easy walking distance of the centre.

Plenty of people would still go into London city centre if they banned cars altogether. You only have to see how crowded the public transport is to realise that. As I said, i've never driven into the centre of London. I'd happily jump in a car and drive the 300 miles from where I live to london but I wouldn't drive into the centre, and neither would the majority of visitors.

[Devil2575]

Blue62 said:

turbobloke said:

If you haven't heard of the Conservative policy of fining the poor to motivate them to be less poor, presumably you haven't heard of the PH payments system you must have missed out.

Refuse collectors in Brum earn an average £32k and some a lot more.

http://www.birminghampost.net/news/west-midlands-n...

Contract cleaners and the least secure security guards may well be on NMW. Presumably they have no wish to upskill.

The original point was about low paid workers in London and how taxing travel disproportionately affects them, you cite an article about refuse collectors in Brum, to highlight what exactly? Possibly the worst example of selective data I have seen on here, bearing little or no relevance to the thread at all, excellent PHing.

TurboBloke has form for being selective with data to suit his arguement.

I'm sure according to him the average refuse collecter makes £50k a year...

[FourWheelDrift]

Jaykaybi said:

the article said:

A London Assembly report last December found that 9% of deaths in the city were down to air pollution.

bks.

I bet 9% of all deaths in the city were down to strangulation and natural causes when people stopping breathing when dying, that is form of air pollution in politicians eyes.

[turbobloke]

Devil2575 said:

Blue62 said:

turbobloke said:

If you haven't heard of the Conservative policy of fining the poor to motivate them to be less poor, presumably you haven't heard of the PH payments system you must have missed out.

Refuse collectors in Brum earn an average £32k and some a lot more.

http://www.birminghampost.net/news/west-midlands-n...

Contract cleaners and the least secure security guards may well be on NMW. Presumably they have no wish to upskill.

The original point was about low paid workers in London and how taxing travel disproportionately affects them, you cite an article about refuse collectors in Brum, to highlight what exactly? Possibly the worst example of selective data I have seen on here, bearing little or no relevance to the thread at all, excellent PHing.

TurboBloke has form for being selective with data to suit his arguement.

I'm sure according to him the average refuse collecter makes £50k a year...

You two get a room ffs. Hopefully with a dictionary.

[Devil2575]

turbobloke said:

The numbers in these reports are guestimates, often traced back to a Prof Kelly of King's College. If not that, then it's guesswork from the EU. Also mentioned in the various documents with TfL and related imprimaturs is the extortionate level of fines that the EU will levy if arbitrary numbers are not achieved, which seems to be motivating people to conjure up numbers to justify something as 'something must be done'. There's also the usual green social agenda at work, with mentions all over the place of air quality and social inequality in the same sentence.

In terms of causality, there is none i.e. no causality between PM10 / NOx / SO2 / CO air pollution and respiratory conditions such as asthma. As air quality has improved, asthma incidence has risen...so if any causality is at work here it's cleaner air that's causing more asthma.

Really?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/295067.stm

http://www.nrdc.org/health/effects/fasthma.asp

http://www.deq.state.la.us/portal/PROGRAMS/OzoneAc...

http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2010/10/05/asthma/

It would appear that quite a few people disagree with you.

[turbobloke]

Devil2575 said:

What's wrong with public transport?

In general or in one city full of people with the usually narrow metropolitan perspective who rarely need to travel more than a few miles other than in a chauffeured limo? In general then:

According to an Audit Commission report 'All Aboard' it's a costly, unreliable and inflexible shambles.

According to the former Warren Springs laboratory and research from Lancaster uni it's more polluting than private transport.

According to the Medical Research Council’s social and public health sciences unit in Glasgow, using public transport is worse for your health than driving.

And according to researchers such as Dr Hitomi Suzuki and Dr Mersch-Sundermann, looking at the health effects of 3-NBA and 1,8-DNP, it's a prolific source of these two chemicals, the most mutagenic carcinogens known to science.

Apart from that, it's rarely a pleasant experience.

Edited by turbobloke on Thursday 14th February 12:45

[youngsyr]

Don't blame Boris, blame the EU - London faces £300m of fines for poor air quality, this is one measure to try to avoid having to pay them:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/11/...

[turbobloke]

Devil2575 said:

turbobloke said:

The numbers in these reports are guestimates, often traced back to a Prof Kelly of King's College. If not that, then it's guesswork from the EU. Also mentioned in the various documents with TfL and related imprimaturs is the extortionate level of fines that the EU will levy if arbitrary numbers are not achieved, which seems to be motivating people to conjure up numbers to justify something as 'something must be done'. There's also the usual green social agenda at work, with mentions all over the place of air quality and social inequality in the same sentence.

In terms of causality, there is none i.e. no causality between PM10 / NOx / SO2 / CO air pollution and respiratory conditions such as asthma. As air quality has improved, asthma incidence has risen...so if any causality is at work here it's cleaner air that's causing more asthma.

Really?

It would appear that quite a few people disagree with you.

Really.

But they aren't disagreeing with me, they're disagreeing with the logical conclusions drawn by the authors I cited from the data which they cited.

Argumentum ad populum is a logical fallacy. It doesn't matter how many people are wrong.

Beyond that if you (or the authors of the material you cite) understood anything about data and causality, you would know that such opinion is nonsensical.

[turbobloke]

youngsyr said:

Don't blame Boris, blame the EU - London faces £300m of fines for poor air quality, this is one measure to try to avoid having to pay them:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/11/...

Indeed as per my post ar 1132 hrs this morning

[miniman]

turbobloke said:

youngsyr said:

Don't blame Boris, blame the EU - London faces £300m of fines for poor air quality, this is one measure to try to avoid having to pay them:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/11/...

Indeed as per my post ar 1132 hrs this morning

And when is someone going to man the fk up and say we're in a fking recession here, do one?

[turbobloke]

miniman said:

turbobloke said:

youngsyr said:

Don't blame Boris, blame the EU - London faces £300m of fines for poor air quality, this is one measure to try to avoid having to pay them:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/11/...

Indeed as per my post ar 1132 hrs this morning

And when is someone going to man the fk up and say we're in a fking recession here, do one?

Do one what?