Live data from Hacker News

The first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death

bbc.com

1–10 of 165 posts

Re: The first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death

#3
Millions a year (every year) die from air pollution globally. In a sense it is also contagious - your habits and consumption can impact those near you.

Air pollution kills slowly so it isn't visible enough to trigger a culture war, so CNN doesn't care.

Re: The first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death

#6
I hope this will lead to changes in roads in London and other places.

The closest school to me in London is next to a busy road with twice the legal level of no2, you can see all the buildings along that road are noticeably blacker from exhaust smoke.

While electric cars may help a bit, rubber from breaking and tyres is an issue, and cares have been getting much bigger over the last 5 years.

Re: The first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death

#8
There's a neat feature in the BMW X5 xDrive45e (a petrol plug-in hybrid SUV) - when you enter a low emissions zone, it automatically switches to battery power.

Moving emissions away from the tailpipe in heavily populated areas seems like a great idea.

There's no free lunch though. The emissions are still happening, just in different places where they're, ideally, less likely to affect people.

It's a better situation but it's not yet perfect.

Re: The first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death

#9
It is indeed sad that a 9 year old died from purely preventable air pollution.

However, through her death and the resulting judgement, we (royal) can start holding polluters and companies liable. And through that, we can start to effect strong climate based change, through a series of steep punishments of wrongful death and the like.

I sincerely hope her death is not in vain, but as a loud bell to start a wave of changes.

Re: The first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death

#10

There's a neat feature in the BMW X5 xDrive45e (a petrol plug-in hybrid SUV) - when you enter a low emissions zone, it automatically switches to battery power. Moving emissions away from the tailpipe in heavily populated areas seems like a great idea. There's no free lunch though. The emissions are still happening, just in different places where they're, ideally, less likely to affect people. It's a better situation…

Even neater feature in electric vehicles!
Post reply on HN