Health hazards from the air that we breathe

THE World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared that over four million people a year die as a result of air pollution. We are in a public health crisis worldwide. Since the start of the industrial revolution in 1752 until now, all governments have assumed that the very air that we breathe is a receptacle for waste disposal.

In the last three centuries, coal-burning to generate energy to turn machines and provide electricity has created this crisis. With the gradual demise of coal-fired electricity generating stations, there is now a profusion of gas and oil fired electricity plants which, too, emit hydrocarbons and toxic gases into the atmosphere. Fortunately, however, new forms of generating electrical power have emerged, from water (hydro), tidal, solar, wind, geothermal, and nuclear fission.

As the world’s population has expanded and accordingly the growth of industry and commerce, in ever-growing urban hubs, so pollution levels have rapidly risen. To this must be added the ever-increasing number of trains, cars, motorbikes, and ever heavier lorries and vans, that, even with catalytic convertors fitted, shunt out from their exhausts thousands of particulates of sulphur and nitrous dioxides in their daily journeys.

With mounting traffic congestion in urban areas and forever waiting at traffic lights, it is not surprising that local residents complain of the damage to their properties let alone their health. Rechargeable battery powered vehicles seem all the rage in some countries today, together with electric trains, but I seriously ask those countries to consider how their electricity power is actually generated.

In remote rural areas, it is still by diesel generators for a few hours each day. Sarawak does have the capacity to generate huge amounts of green hydroelectricity with, in time, a surplus for export, via underwater cables, to Peninsular Malaysia and even Singapore. It does require the displacement of people when highland valleys are flooded but if the price is right and housing is freely provided of a good standard with new government land attached to each household, it can work.

Which cities in the world have been the most polluted ones in the last seven decades?

If this question was even raised in the 1950s, any train traveller in the UK from the provinces would reply, “Up the Smoke!” London (the Smoke) was then the most air polluted capital city in the world and notorious for its ‘pea souper’ smogs. These smogs were caused by radiation fogs along the River Thames valley mixing with pollutants emitted from coal-fired power stations, as witnessed then at Battersea Power station. Now, long since closed, this former power station with its very tall emission chimneys has been converted into upmarket apartments overlooking the River Thames.

Smog is caused through the emission of thousands of microscopic particles emitted into the air. These provide hydroscopic nuclei on which millions of water droplets, suspended in foggy air, condense. In the infamous smog of 1952 thousands of Londoners died directly or indirectly from respiratory conditions. Thus the Clean Air Act of 1956 and a subsequent act were passed by the UK government, banning the burning of coal in domestic fires and industries in large cities.

As in Singapore, London has imposed ‘congestion charges’ for commuters’ vehicles to enter through various zones, with diesel-powered vehicles altogether banned from certain areas. All this has put increasing pressure on public transport, leading to ever-increasing annual rail fares for commuters and the need for more buses and taxis on the inner city roads.

Los Angeles and San Francisco (USA) topped the most polluted city lists in the 1970s because of advection fog, caused by warm, moist westerly Pacific winds, cooling over the cold offshore Californian ocean current, meeting with the emissions from petrochemical plants and oil refineries. As the sun burnt down on the smog banks, so the emitted gases changed their form and thus created photochemical pollution. In both cities low-rise housing exists in the outlying suburbs and commuters use the urban freeways to get to work. Vehicle traffic exhausts thus led to a concoction of obnoxious gases absorbed in city dwellers’ lungs.

Only seven years ago, Beijing (China) was declared top of the world’s list with, consequently, thousands of deaths from respiratory diseases. Subsequently, the Chinese government has taken ‘the bull by its horns’, in closing down all coal-fired power stations in the capital as elsewhere in other cities.

Worst air pollution

Delhi is really no different from most mega-world cities, for it has coal-fired power stations and home heating and cooking smoke, industrial outputs, incineration of industrial rubbish, and ever-increasing urban motor traffic, all of which have added to the atmospheric concoctions that its inhabitants daily breathe.

For many a year, Delhi has been smothered in a smoke-filled haze from October to November, during the so-called dry monsoon season. But with climate change, former monsoonal patterns are being disrupted and could lead to more frequent episodes of air pollution. In the past, some observers have pointed their fingers at Diwali Festival firework displays. Certainly these have been a contributory factor to an almost 40 per cent increase in breathing pollution problems in this subcontinent.

As in Britain in the mid-20th century, when wheat and barley growing became a more mechanised and less labour intensive form of farming, so in India rice farming has followed suit. In both countries rooted stubble is left in the fields once the crop is harvested by combines. At one time in the UK, this was burnt off by the practice of swaling or firing the stubble. This is now banned and farmers deep plough the stubble to rot underground, thus adding compost to their soils. However, in India, both wheat and rice stubble are still burnt, usually in October and November, at a time when the relative humidity of the air is very low. This polluted air floats over Delhi and adds to the toxic gases already in the air.

Agricultural fires in a neighbouring country, in severe El Nino events have (as we well know) created dense haze, with its acrid taste, in both Malaysia and Singapore. Whilst we can do little about controlling wind directions or the formation of fog or haze, we can control and prevent the open firing of agricultural areas.

Countryside air pollution

The intensive usage of fertilisers and manure spread on farmers’ fields in spring time by liquid sprays and slurry releases vast quantities of ammonia into the air. This forgotten form of air particle pollution mixed with fog or haze can linger in the air for seven to 10 days, depending much upon the air pressure. Defra, the UK government’s agricultural and environment agency, has declared that such practices are a major threat to people’s health and also poison the countryside’s wildlife. Such airborne ammonia particles can drift on the wind into towns, adding to already urban lung-damaging pollution.

There is a remedy. Farmers need to cut down the numbers of intensive livestock they keep, often in pens, and to use modern technology to provide a more efficient way of injecting slurry and fertilisers into their fields rather than spraying and splattering on the ground surface. Sadly, ammonia reacts with soil in producing nitrogen which, in turn, stimulates the growth of such invasive plants as nettles and brambles.

UK’s new clean air strategy

This plan, set out in January, pledges to reduce human exposure to particulate matter. It will inevitably cost taxpayers if the scheme is to succeed in updating small farmers’ equipment and householders with wood burning and multi-fuel stoves. There are 2.5 million wood burning fires in the UK, of which the vast majority are located in rural areas. Without urban gas supplies, their owners are doomed to face a hefty fine in 2022.

How else can winter heat and cooking be achieved in rural areas? I always try to buy dry seasoned wood for my wood burning stove in Somerset and store it in sheds in the summer months to be burnt in winter. I cannot afford for my very old house to be ripped apart to install central heating via bottled gas or oil. As for millions of people worldwide, cooking and heating depend upon wood as a necessary fuel as well as a source of heat for kiln brick production. Policymakers sometimes need to wake up to the genuine needs of countryside dwellers. As both an environmentalist and conservationist, perhaps my inner conscience should overrule my heart.

Undoubtedly, all nations’ financial, industrial, and commercial companies, together with farmers and householders, will have to adjust their short- and long-term business plans to reduce atmospheric pollution rates. ‘Climanomics’ is the newest buzz word! The variability of our air pollution, in both space and time, while owing much to man, is also highly dependent upon climate and local meteorological conditions. There are so very many local parameters to consider but, without doubt, our present weather patterns are caused by climate change and mankind’s lack of self-control.