Your say / Environment
‘Bristol must tackle air pollution’
During Green Capital year, events were held highlighting the large and very serious health effects of air pollution.
Each year the official figures show that 29,000 people die prematurely in our country because of air pollution, equating to hundreds of people in Bristol. It is second only to smoking as an environmental cause of death.
Yet Bristol’s Labour and Tory councillors still voted against the Green Party proposal on a Clean Air Zone at the recent budget meeting. They persist in not prioritising this matter.
is needed now More than ever
Up to one in five of all lung cancers are caused by air pollution. Children are particularly vulnerable as they get a bigger dose per unit of body mass. Children need clean air to develop and flourish.
Those already suffering ill-health ( asthma, bronchitis, heart problems or obesity, etc) are at particular risk – though air pollution can cause coughing, chest pains and lung irritation in everyone.
It’s a stark reminder that people are an integral part of the environment and that their health and well-being are dependent upon it.
Decision-makers like Bristol’s mayor, councillors, MPs, MEPs, ministers and secretaries of state need to make connections. They need to connect patterns and types of development, such as new roads, centrally located large car parks, large supermarkets, car dependency and congestion, poor public transport with walking and cycling options, air pollution, poor health, reduced wellbeing and quality of life, and earlier death.
They need to act in accordance with the seriousness, scale and persistence of the problems. Air pollution isn’t just an environmental issue – it’s also a development, transport, planning, economic, health and social issue.
It needs to be tackled by giving new transport powers to Greater Bristol, large scale investment in sustainable transport and joined-up thinking, which we so clearly have not done if we just look around our neighbourhoods, the city and the country.
Glenn Vowles is a long-time Green Party campaigner running for election in Bedminster ward. He also tutor of environmental management and science at the Open University.
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