Green thoughts of today
Over the past few days, a thick and dangerous smog , consisting of Sahara dust and other greenhouse gas emissions, has spread over much of England, especially London and the surrounding counties-although for some reason I barely noticed it even though I was in London on 2nd April for a few hours.
This is a reminder of the Great Smog of 1952, whereupon the resulting pollution directly contributed to the deaths of 12,000 people and cancers of a further 100,000. London pollution was so high at the time that a Clean Air Act was passed just four years later, which banned smoky coal fires responsible for much of the pollution, amongst other things.
A smog potentially just as dangerous has now come back, but this time the ConDems, and London Mayor Boris Johnson, are not only ignoring the problem but on the contrary are continuing to bow to the greed of the fossil fuel industry-to the extent they are even threatening to change trespass laws to allow fracking companies to frack under or near our homes even if we object to it. London's pollution has been well in excess of acceptable EU levels for decades and the EU is threatening to fine the British government millions if the problem is not solved in the long term. Whereas in Paris, the extensive pollution that occurred there almost as recently meant that many cars were barred from Paris' roads for a day and free public transport was offered to Parisians on another day-the heavy pollution in Paris is largely down to the numbers of diesel cars in Paris; diesel (aka cetane) produces less CO2 emissions per kilometre than petrol and is less heavily taxed but over time the fine particles from diesel emissions cause even worse pollution-as has already been confirmed in crowded Indian cities like Kolkata and Mumbai.
Also, in the wake of UKIP upping the ante on its right-wing populist, racist rhetoric, London Young Greens are hosting an event on Sunday 6 April to help us all combat UKIP's dangerous and fundamentally immoral message, and help instead fight for diversity and a greener future in Britain and elsewhere for the European elections. This will occur in Development House, London, from 11 am to 5 pm on 6 April.
Incidentally on that same day, Hungary will be having a general election, and I am pleased to say that our counterparts in Hungary, LMP (Politics Can Be Different) have now been recovering in the polls well enough (they had been languishing on 2-3% since 8 of their MPs elected in 2010 separated to form their own group, Dialogue for Hungary, now fighting alongside the Hungarian Socialist Party and another new group called Together 2014) to have a good chance of passing the 5% threshold and retain their presence in the Hungarian Legislative Assembly. Sadly, the right-wing Fidesz party of Viktor Orban will still likely retain its strangehold on the Hungarian legislature, particularly with election laws now stacked in their favour (e.g. with fewer list seats than constituency seats; Hungary,like Germany, uses Mixed Member Proportional representation).
Alan.
This is a reminder of the Great Smog of 1952, whereupon the resulting pollution directly contributed to the deaths of 12,000 people and cancers of a further 100,000. London pollution was so high at the time that a Clean Air Act was passed just four years later, which banned smoky coal fires responsible for much of the pollution, amongst other things.
A smog potentially just as dangerous has now come back, but this time the ConDems, and London Mayor Boris Johnson, are not only ignoring the problem but on the contrary are continuing to bow to the greed of the fossil fuel industry-to the extent they are even threatening to change trespass laws to allow fracking companies to frack under or near our homes even if we object to it. London's pollution has been well in excess of acceptable EU levels for decades and the EU is threatening to fine the British government millions if the problem is not solved in the long term. Whereas in Paris, the extensive pollution that occurred there almost as recently meant that many cars were barred from Paris' roads for a day and free public transport was offered to Parisians on another day-the heavy pollution in Paris is largely down to the numbers of diesel cars in Paris; diesel (aka cetane) produces less CO2 emissions per kilometre than petrol and is less heavily taxed but over time the fine particles from diesel emissions cause even worse pollution-as has already been confirmed in crowded Indian cities like Kolkata and Mumbai.
Also, in the wake of UKIP upping the ante on its right-wing populist, racist rhetoric, London Young Greens are hosting an event on Sunday 6 April to help us all combat UKIP's dangerous and fundamentally immoral message, and help instead fight for diversity and a greener future in Britain and elsewhere for the European elections. This will occur in Development House, London, from 11 am to 5 pm on 6 April.
Incidentally on that same day, Hungary will be having a general election, and I am pleased to say that our counterparts in Hungary, LMP (Politics Can Be Different) have now been recovering in the polls well enough (they had been languishing on 2-3% since 8 of their MPs elected in 2010 separated to form their own group, Dialogue for Hungary, now fighting alongside the Hungarian Socialist Party and another new group called Together 2014) to have a good chance of passing the 5% threshold and retain their presence in the Hungarian Legislative Assembly. Sadly, the right-wing Fidesz party of Viktor Orban will still likely retain its strangehold on the Hungarian legislature, particularly with election laws now stacked in their favour (e.g. with fewer list seats than constituency seats; Hungary,like Germany, uses Mixed Member Proportional representation).
Alan.
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