The Times #DieselsRPaedos team are active again
2 articles in 2 days fueled by the Chinese report about Air Pollution affecting IQ
Air pollution linked to mental decline by Rhys Blakely, Science Correspondent
top comment "The air in Islington must be very polluted."
"Does that mean that all those people outside London and other metropolises, who voted for brexit, are actually MORE intelligent than those who voted Remain?"

Wednesday's : Air pollution may reduce intelligence by Rhys Blakely, Science Correspondent

and lo we have a reappearance of Dr Grigg and Doctors Against Diesel PR campaign
\\ Jonathan Grigg, a professor of paediatric respiratory and environmental medicine at Queen Mary University of London, who is part of the Doctors Against Diesel campaign, said: ...
... Air pollution in the UK is a public health disaster. Our air is illegally polluted and the government must take urgent steps to reduce the levels of pollution as soon as possible.//

commenters hardly even bother with this second article.

Sept 11
\\ Ralf Speth told a conference in Birmingham, central England, that JLR had lost a thousand jobs as a result of diesel policy “and those numbers will be counted in the tens of thousands if we do not get the right Brexit deal”. //

airqualitynews.com Sept 12th
\\ Dr Ralf Speth issued an impassioned defence of diesel cars:
“The diesel vehicles we produce to EU 6 standards are some of the cleanest cars ever made”.
Regardless of #airpollution he likes them, he really, really, really likes them.//

He said: “Public policy sometimes seems to know what it is against, not what it is for.
The restrictions on diesel make the point.
“The diesel vehicles we produce to EU 6 standards are some of the cleanest cars ever made.
They are as clean as petrol and produce 25-30% less CO2.
Yet, they are demonised."
“No incentive has been put in place to change from older polluting cars,
but the disincentive has been placed on the newer, cleaner models through tougher regulations and higher taxation. The resulting impacts are as significant as forecast.”

Toxic air makes school day a threat to pupils’ health
Ben Webster, Environment Editor

Going to school can be worse for children’s health than staying at home because of the amount of toxic air that they breathe during school runs and in playgrounds and classrooms, a study has found.

"About 60 per cent of the daily air pollution to which children are exposed in cities occurs at school or on the way to or from it,"

Is that possible ?
There are 12-13 weeks school holidays/year
so you at school 40 weeks/year minus Bank holidays
so less than 200 days
so you are off 165 days
And even on an average school day you are at home 6 hours awake and 10 hours asleep
It seems to me the report assumes your school is in a chemical factory and your home is on the beach.

ah hang on they just consider ONE 24 period not the whole day

In a 24 hour school day the article says
"Children spend about 30 per cent of their time at school"
where "44% children’s daily exposure to black carbon occurred"

and Get 15% during school runs

Err It's NOT staggering that you
#1 Get less pollution at home cos most of it you are asleep in the bedroom
#2 Get 15% during school runs. ...cos then you are NOT inside building

Think about it, you are spending about 60% of your WAKING hours at school or on school run
so getting 60% of the black carbon then does seem proportionate

BTW this article implies that black carbon is deadly
er, no
They seem to be using black carbon to mean PM2.5
those larger pieces of black carbon are less dangerous
..so what are they measuring ? Just small PM2.5 of black carbon or all black carbon including large ?

Seems like alarmist PR to me.

from :the correlation is not causation dept

Times : front page : Dementia threat soars in areas hit by pollution
- 40% increased risk on most polluted roads, says UK study
publisher : BMJ
quotes : Frank Kelly,Marie van Tongeren
Caution from : James Pickett of the Alheimer Society , David Reynolds of Alheimer research "other diseases could be skewing the results"

\\ Would not there have been lead in petrol during the childhood of over 50’s?
If so, given that organic lead is a known contributor to brain underperformance, has that been taken into account in the studies? //

BBC Tweets : a Porsche exec quote "We would like our future to be diesel-free." 🚗

Does anyone here own a DIESEL Porsche ?
..Maybe a 911 Diesel .. or a 928 Diesel
They do exist, but the vast majority of Porsche sports cars will be petrol
... they might produce diesel SUVS , but I guess Porsche can ditch diesel cos it hardly makes any.

Porsche stops making diesel cars after VW emissions scandal

from Cycling UK pdf
\\ He scrolls through pages
of graphs – the readings from my black carbon
detector. ‘From what I see, your commute
constitutes almost all of your exposure on
a normal day,’ he says. ‘In your home and in
your office, there are barely any black carbon
particles; the concentration is very low – less
than two micrograms per cubic metre of air.’
From the flat line of my indoor exposure
protrude, at regular intervals, multiple peaks –
my morning and evening commute. ‘This
is 17 micrograms, here you have 22. This
one is actually quite big – 36 micrograms
of black carbon PM2.5 per cubic metre of air,’
says Grieve. He pauses at two surprisingly
high peaks.
‘Do you remember what you did on
Saturday afternoon?’ he asks.
‘I went to see a friend in south London but
I took the Tube,’ I recall.
‘That makes sense.’ Grieve seems unfazed.
‘There is much more black carbon on the
Tube, especially on the deep lines. There
is not much ventilation so it’s actually quite
dusty.’ On the Tube, my peak exposure is
80 micrograms per cubic metre – more than
twice as high as the highest exposure during
my cycling commute.
IS IT BETTER TO CYCLE?
The question of exposure to air pollution is complex //

He points out that damage is not proportionate to raw PM2.5 monitor count
- In a tube carriage you breathe shallow
- On a bike you are breathing deep and fast however you are breathing a lot more clean allir than someone inside a car.
... He fails to mention that it depends what coomponents the PM2.5 , cos some are more l toxic than others He scrolls through pages
of graphs – the readings from my black carbon
detector. ‘From what I see, your commute
constitutes almost all of your exposure on
a normal day,’ he says. ‘In your home and in
your office, there are barely any black carbon
particles; the concentration is very low – less
than two micrograms per cubic metre of air.’
From the flat line of my indoor exposure
protrude, at regular intervals, multiple peaks –
my morning and evening commute. ‘This
is 17 micrograms, here you have 22. This
one is actually quite big – 36 micrograms
of black carbon PM2.5 per cubic metre of air,’
says Grieve. He pauses at two surprisingly
high peaks.
‘Do you remember what you did on
Saturday afternoon?’ he asks.
‘I went to see a friend in south London but
I took the Tube,’ I recall.
‘That makes sense.’ Grieve seems unfazed.
‘There is much more black carbon on the
Tube, especially on the deep lines. There
is not much ventilation so it’s actually quite
dusty.’ On the Tube, my peak exposure is
80 micrograms per cubic metre – more than
twice as high as the highest exposure during
my cycling commute.
IS IT BETTER TO CYCLE?
The question of exposure to air pollution is complex //

He then points out that damage is not proportionate to raw PM2.5 monitor reading.
- In a tube carriage you are breathing shallow
- On a bike you are breathing fast and deep
But1 you are breathing great swarthes of clean air, whereas someone in a car is breathing just dirty air.
But2 there is a heart benefit from cycling

... I'd add that he forgot to say it depends what components make up your PM2.5 cos some are more toxic than others.

https://www.cyclinguk.org/sites/default/files/document/migrated/publication/cuk201709042.pdf

Today Harry Wallop has a very amateur article in the Times about Indoor Air Pollution
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/95b81c6a-cb25-11e8-bde6-fae32479843d

Michael Gordon

So you are frying bacon without using your extractor fan and using your wood-burning stove with the door open and you are surprised the room gets polluted?
Did you get paid to write this twaddle?

StewGreen
Yep twaddle, HW could get a job at the BBC or Guardian.
The article is unscientific rubbish isn't it ? HW hasn't got a clue about the full complexity.
eg its not pure particulate count, but what the particles are as well.

He says "National Air Quality Testing Services (NAQTS). .. installed a machine"
Doh Do NAQTS have a vested interest in hyperbole ?
They are not a government body, but rather a body which sells pollution monitoring kit. As are Airtopia.
Gary Fuller is different.

"I might as well have locked my children inside a lead battery plant in Ghana (racist ?) and told them to lick their way out. "
Then
he makes the staggering claim 'outside reads less than a non ventilated room'
doh the outside air is constantly refreshed by clean air.

Paragraph 11 the jumbled stats including the bunk 40K UK deaths stat
- Dodgy dementia correlation

'The deadly ... invisible pollution is PM2.5 and VOCs .... possibly doing as much damage as diesel 4x4s"
Pure bunk cos it depends what anti-pollution tech that that diesel has fitted.

Overall gas is a way better fuel and its the women in Africa/Asia who are cooking INDOORS over OPEN fires that really need it.

More Notes
The article is unscientific rubbish isn't it.
Para 1 'scary scary I've got a monitor and it reads 1.2million'
...em He's not told us what he is measuring just a vague "pollution levels" at end of Para2
He's just implying that the higher the number the bigger the danger, but it's not that simple

\\ National Air Quality Testing Services (NAQTS). He installed a machine, //
Doh Do NAQTS have a vested interest in hyperbole ?
They are not a government body, but rather a body which sells pollution monitoring kit.

Para 3 "Ultra-fine particles .. cause blah blah"
Nope it's nowhere near that simple.
"I might as well have locked my children inside a lead battery plant in Ghana (racist ?) and told them to lick their way out. "

Staggering claim 'outside reads less than a non ventilated room'
doh the outside air is constantly refreshed by clean air.

Para11 the jumbled stats including the bunk 40K UK deaths stat
- Dodgy dementia correlation.

Garry Fuller speaking truth mostly
and says "7.5%  of homes burn wood, but we think they are responsible for nearly 40% of UK particle pollution"
Well, lA particle's potency depends on what it is.

Stove man says  new stoves are way way better...not a surprise.

His house has a VOC reading of 2,200 vs normal 1000 (comes from aerosol propellants).

I tweeted the scare mongering chart from the article
"Formaldehyde carcinogenic" Irresponsible of TW to write that
That C-word should not be thrown about lightly
Sunlight appears on the same list, as do a lot of common things, cos "carcinogenic" just means it's a theoretical cause of cancer, not that normal exposure harms people.

There is an official US gov info page
https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/substances/formaldehyde/formaldehyde-fact-sheet

\\In the first study of its kind, air pollution has been linked to a higher risk of mouth cancer.
(one study rule : one study means nothing)
More pollution was linked to a 43% greater chance of having the cancer diagnosed
(note that cherry pick phrasing
.. diagnosis is not the same as proved
eg when something is wrongly diagnosed it counts as a hit)//

BTW Its previously been said that increases in mouth cancer are due to increases in oral sex partners.
How would you prove it's pollution instead ?

Jesus the article is dodgy the first half is about the UK
and then gets to the point that the actual study was in Taiwan.

And there is a weird spin they split the men into
: reside into #1 a high pollution area and #2 low pollution area
and say group #1 have more cancer diagnoses than presumably rural dwellers
#1Yeh cos nothing else like less doctors and money would cause less diagnoses !!
#2 Living area tells us nothing about individual cases
I might live in area 1, but actually have a life where my own pollution contact is minimal.

I think alcohol use is also a cause .

The story is also in the Guardian and Newsweek/Time so there 200 retweets
but zero critical thinking discussion.

A smaller green-hedgefund scam
Times : Schools ‘pestered’ into buying pollution shields
\\ Schools are being pressured into buying expensive “green screens” to shield children from air pollution despite concerns that they are not the best solution and may make little overall difference to health //

Even Doctor Grigg reckons the test results for these playground hedge screens don't stand scrutiny and firms are just trying to sell a quick fix to gullible head teachers
and gullible councils are offering grants
"30 schools applied to the Greater London Authority for grants of up to £35,000 to buy them after they were recommended by air quality audits."

Will the same schools discourage bonfires ?

\\ Call today from the UKHACC - which represents 600,000 doctors, nurses and scientists - for the ban on the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles to be brought forward to 2030.//
...is it a similar PR front ?
.. Twitter feed started March 2016

"We represent over 600,000 health professionals across the UK advocating for better responses to #airpollution and #climatechange. "
..do you ?
Well likewise I represent 6 billion human beings on the planet.

FFS but no you don't you just represent your own politics

They have only 1,500 followers.
Some of their tweets have been retweeted 7 , or 14 times this week
but 2 retweets is typical.

Their call ?
all they did was tweet the BEIS committee story last week
https://www.edie.net/news/11/BEIS--Ban-new-petrol-and-diesel-cars-in-2032--not-2040

Then Today they tweeted their own PDF
http://www.ukhealthalliance.org/moving-beyond-air-quality-crisis/

Times : 'Christmas will be cancelled next year, the WHO says'
Well actually Kay Lay reports
"Pollution in womb stunts development"
- A report says ' children are exposed to particle levels above guidelines'
... yes cos Who's guidelines are rubbish

They quote Dr Maria Neira "a generation of reduced IQ"
"children breath more rapidly than adults so absorb more pollution"
... that sounds like a made up generalisation

"pollution accounts for 1 in 10 deaths of the under 5's"
... spurious claims
... cos in the UK pollution kills zero people

That claim sounds distinctly dodgy
If an urban African mother has 10 children, and cooks inside
.. yes 1 or 2 might die
but if she simply moved to the countryside it seems unlikely to be different
and if she did also switch to cooking on gas there would be health improvements,
..but in this forum Dr Grigg has mentioned his study which found no correlation between child mortality and mothers cooking practices.