Boris goes to war on Diesel
Discussion
They've already lowered the vehicle exemption threshold from 100g to 75g/km of CO2 for the London congestion charge. I guess too many modern diesels were getting a free ride from the bean counter's perspective.
They've painted themselves into a corner now and can't very well admit that global warming is BS, so they've got to come up with a new excuse to apply the congestion charge to more vehicles.
They've painted themselves into a corner now and can't very well admit that global warming is BS, so they've got to come up with a new excuse to apply the congestion charge to more vehicles.
Article in the Independent on the Boris diesel war said:
campaigners claiming that some 51,000 Londoners have died prematurely of respiratory symptoms linked to air pollution
Reducing harmful pollution is a good thing, but the claim in that statement is nonsense. Similar armwaving think-of-a-number claims are repeated from article to article with not a shred of credible evidence to support any of it.Take an example of the so-called evidence, provided by a paper in The Lancet.
"Effects of long-term exposure to air pollution on natural-cause mortality: an analysis of 22 European cohorts within the multicentre ESCAPE project"
Comments below are snipped from an article reviewing the junkscience behind papers such as the above. The review is by W M Briggs, a statistician who has taken the trouble, as some do, to look behind the titles and headlines.
Briggs said:
The three or four dozen researchers listed as authors never measured, not even once, the amount of air “pollution” any person was exposed to. Further, every single author knew that the title was false. And so did every editor.
Not only wasn’t air “pollution” (dust, mostly) measured on individuals, but the proxies of air “pollution” weren’t even measured at the same time as mortality.
What happens with the X0,000 premature death claims is that the premature deaths are firstly believed to be premature essentially via mystical powers, given that no medic actually knows when a person is supposed to die. As the patients involved, who are already ill to degrees known and unknown, don't know either, they die at the 'right time' for them but sometimes sooner than doctors predicted. This may well be a prognosis error, or life exepctancy miscaculation, but prematurity is assumed. Not only wasn’t air “pollution” (dust, mostly) measured on individuals, but the proxies of air “pollution” weren’t even measured at the same time as mortality.
The attribution of cause is then made, in terms of outdoor air pollution, via proxies and as described by Briggs. Given that prematurity is taken for granted, and as there is no other easy answer - also it suits certain agendas - outdoor air quality is blamed. The people dying prematurely are almost always indoors at the time (in bed) and indoor air is on average ten times more polluted than city smog, another issue ignored in these Beano treatments.
Indoor air quality, or rather the lack of it, is known to politicians but they look the other way as there's no easy tax to be made, and a convenient scapegoat, which looks a lot like a milch cow, already exists outdoors.
Briggs calls it the epidemiologist fallacy and as an epidemic in itself it's certainly widespread.
As to Boris and London, any city than bans or restricts cars and relies on buses and diesel taxis will be catapulting itself to a position at or near the top of the urban air pollution league tables, just ask Oxford.
Gareth79 said:
One other thing not mentioned - cars manufactured pre-2006 will also have this surcharge.
This is what always annoys me.The drivers of pre 2006 runarounds are usually driving them simply because they cannot afford anything newer. It's always 'middleman' that gets stung in these schemes.
Personally, I choose to run older cars, as there are some real gems out there which need trying out. However, it's not necessarily a choice for many people.
Mr GrimNasty said:
Petrol cars are no better, just slightly different types of ****t. Even tyre dust is nasty.
Modern petrols are far better...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDxQIHoTmxs
I'm assuming this is a result of the WHO press release on Diesel fumes? Where they've catergorised them as a Cat 1 carcinogen along with substances like Mustard Gas & Plutomium.
http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2012/pdfs/pr...
Diesel used to be, as petrol still is, a Cat 2B along with pickled vedgetables & Coffee.
Also think the paper is unfair on Boris, this has come from Europe, Boris is just the person having to implement the plan.
http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2012/pdfs/pr...
Diesel used to be, as petrol still is, a Cat 2B along with pickled vedgetables & Coffee.
Also think the paper is unfair on Boris, this has come from Europe, Boris is just the person having to implement the plan.
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