LONDON’S TOXIC MAYOR?

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(TfL’s own publication on the air in outer London. The leftmost

green patch Is for the Heathrow Airport area)

THE MAYOR MUST COME CLEAN WITH LONDONERS …

The video commentator Brown Car Guy claims that on 1 July 2021, the newly re-elected Mayor Khan answered a GLA Mayor’s Question from the previous month. He replied that he had no plans to expand the ULEZ zone past the North/South Circular Roads.

Two things happened since. In late 2021, the Mayor became Chair of the C40 group of mayors that sought a drastic reduction (around 30%) of the number of cars. It is also well-known that the Mayor sought new sources of income. Since deciding to expand ULEZ in November 2022, the Mayor has rigidly parroted that it’s all about air quality and ‘London’s toxic air’. He is far from convincing.

· In 2016, speculation from the Royal College of Physicians concluded that there could be an average three days of life lost per person in the whole of the UK due to air pollution. After some number-crunching, they constructed a statistic of ‘40,000 equivalent lives lost’ per year.

· The Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication is hosted within a mathematics and statistics department at the University of Cambridge. It provides a critical review of the ’40,000’ in detail

· The GLA also admitted that the contrived ‘deaths’ figure was not real people’, just ‘a statistical construct’ in its ‘Better Environment, Better Health’ publications.

· Professor Tony Frew pf the University of Brighton coincidentally served on the pollution committee (COMEAP) that was previously concerned with the figure. He described the 40,000 deaths as a ‘Zombie’ statistic that refuses to die. He gave an interview to TalkRadio.

· Professor Frew is also on the YouTube feature - “Mayor Khan manipulating the air pollution figures!!”. He made several relevant points, describing air pollution as having “a very small impact on everyone, maybe 3 days off everyone’s life.

If all transport (trains as well as cars) were banned, it would remove only 1/7 of the pollution. If all transport except bicycles were banned, about a month (20-40 days) could be gained for those living to 80+. At best, if you removed all pollution from all sources, it could add maybe 6-9 months. However this would mean no building sites, no power stations, etc – and it would be too cold to live in the UK.

EXPERIENCE ABROAD AND INDOOR COMPARISONS

· Particulates are microscopically small particles of such things as dust, pollen, mould and even sea spray. A large analysis of the daily air quality and daily death data from California reports that there is not any association between particulates and death. (See ‘Air quality and acute deaths in California, 2000-2012, Lopiano KK et al., arXiv.org, arX-iv:1502.03062 ).

· The concerns over particulate matter (PM’s) as a “significant concern for health”, and Nitrogen Dioxide (NO₂), have been comprehensively challenged in law in the USA. There is no evidence that anyone has ever died from an overdose of PM’s and legal challenges against the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) position on the medical effects of PM’s has been successful.

In the US, the EPA even undertook human experiments in sealed chambers with concentrations 17 times greater than the level “presumed to be dangerous to health” and even went as high as 21 times greater than the EPA’s own 24-hour maximum concentration levels. No-one died or even became ill. (as reported extensively in “Scare Pollution” by Steve Milloy ISBN 978-0-9982597-1-0).

· Ironically, extensive research in the USA shows that indoor air can be up to 100 times more ‘toxic’ than outdoors. (See https://www3.epa.gov/air/basic.html, https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/indoor-air-more-polluted-outdoor-air)

This is mirrored by a survey of four households in different parts of the UK, illustrating that outdoor air quality is over three times better than indoors.

· Some critics are all too keen to attribute asthma to vehicles. In fact, mechanisms are not fully understood, but there seems to be genetic factors and, according to Asthma & Lung UK, several ‘triggers’ of the symptoms of asthma:

hot and cold weather, sudden changes in temperature, thunderstorms; colds, flu and viruses; pollution such as cigarette smoke; dust mites, pet hair, exercise*, female hormones, sexual activity, emotions, stress, alcohol, Valium, recreational drugs; scented products like perfume, aftershave, scented candles or oils; latex; food sensitivities (e.g. sulphites, histamines) and (for a small minority) food allergens are gluten (from wheat and cereal products), shellfish, eggs, milk, tree nuts, peanuts, sesame seeds, and soya.

However an established article is worth a read as it explores the actual causes:

“There is no correlation between levels of vehicle emissions and asthma incidence.”

Taken from the 1995 Department of Health Study on the Causes of Asthma, by Dr Kenneth Calman, Government Chief Medical Officer

…

In 1999, a report for the NHS executive entitled Transport and Health in London concluded (section C5 p44):

“…the available evidence does not support a causative role for outdoor air pollution”

and

“Factors other than air pollution are influential with regard to the initiation and provocation of asthma"...

*Ironically TfL are always recommending exercise, such as cycling and walking! It’s funny that if London’s air is so filthy/toxic (as the Mayor claims), why is he always urging people to walk and cycle in it?

‘LONDON’S TOXIC MAYOR’ IS ALL HOT AIR

‘’Clean Air Khan’ has also – repeatedly - let off lavish fireworks displays when it suited him, including 12,000 fireworks on New Year’s Eve 2022:

2017	2021 welcomed	(uncancelled for 2021)
2016-17	Freedom of Information (2020)	For more information
Quote: “The display - which cost over £2.3m when it last went ahead in 2019”

For more on

Khan’s’ wider

war on drivers

More info on

air quailty

For someone posturing holy-holy over air quality and health, Khan’s push to look at the potential for legalising cannabis looks hypocritical.

US researchers found ‘safer’ bong smoking increased air particulates (PM2.5) by at least 100-fold, and at least four times greater than concentrations from secondhand tobacco smoke from cigarettes. Dabbing and vaporising cannabis could create levels of indoor air pollution similar to those seen in extreme air pollution events like wildfires and severe industrial pollution.

Its smoke has several hundred toxic chemicals and over fifty known carcinogens. Researchers Hammond and Nguyen concluded that ‘no level of toxins and air pollutants in cannabis smoke is safe’. Hammond added “It can actually affect the health of children who are nearby or other people in pretty serious ways”. Just growing the plants naturally releases polluting chemicals and this creates smog when they accumulate in the air,

While telling everyone else to reduce their emissions, Khan and his team are quite happy to take international flights when it suits them. The Mayor has also been encouraging people out of their cars and onto “cleaner public transport” and to use the tube more - despite researchers’ recent report noting that particulate (PM) levels on the Underground are not just higher than London background levels, they are above World Health Organization (WHO) defined limits.