Londoners told to reduce physical activity on Friday due to pollution.

I live in SW London and assumed it was fairly clean air here. But the last few mornings the scent of aviation fuel has been incredibly strong. We're not (currently) even under the take-off flight path. I usually quite like the smell, but not this strong! I'll do my civic duty and refrain from exertion.

They mostly have massive 4 wheel drives here. Not that many go off road, mostly they are used just to pick up kids from school and shop round town.I was impressed by the tiny little cars in Rome, half the size of our smallest ones and they could be parked longways, crossways or whatever.

Nicky7of7

What I don’t understand is why new cars seem to get bigger every year? Surely they use more raw materials to build them and require more energy to propel them . How is that saving our planet? Thinking back to when the Mini was first introduced it was quite adequate and by today’s standards it now looks tiny!

Absolutely! We were changing our monster for a hybrid last September and I honestly thought a Micra I saw was a quashquai, never having seen one up close I was gobsmacked how huge it was, I had one in 90s for a few months and it was nippy cheap and cheerful I could park it on a sixpence!

Cannot understand why never had efficient park and ride for cars in capital? Are there any? And why does anyone need to actually drive around city centre anyway?! My BiL used to park near Sadler wells theatre but tbh it took longer to get in and out of u/g carpark than it would to hop an electric buzz-if they had any. Bring back the milkfloat! Always wanted to ride on one as a kid you could comfortably seat 8-10 office workers on each hop on hop off!

And no river swimming either! Or sea either.

What I don’t understand is why new cars seem to get bigger every year? Surely they use more raw materials to build them and require more energy to propel them . How is that saving our planet? Thinking back to when the Mini was first introduced it was quite adequate and by today’s standards it now looks tiny!

Calistemon

M0nica

London smogs killed my grandmother.

I do remember the smogs of my childhood, they were thick, often yellowy fogs.
Everything got so dirty.

We do have more cars and pollution now and I hope that will improve but it's not going to happen overnight.

As a young child in 1955 my parents were advised by the medical profession to move out of London as I suffered from continual coughs. I remember going to physio in Sussex for my chest. I was one of the lucky ones that my parents could afford to do this. 12,000 people died from the smog in 1952. They were called pea soupers.

It’s shocking that after all this time air quality is still appalling.

With climate change and the health issues caused by pollution, it's time for radical action and, for a start, restricting the use of private cars in cities. The number of cars on our London streets (and the huge size of many of them) has grown enormously over the last three decades. I know that, of course, some people have very good reasons to need to drive (and delivery vans must deliver, hopefully most changing to electric vehicles asap) but I very much doubt that all those monster cars, often with only one occupant, need to be clogging up our streets. Somehow it's become a 'right' to drive (witness all the opposition to efforts to promote active travel like cycle lanes and low traffic neighbourhoods) so we need better and cheaper public transport (it's actually good in London) and a carrot and stick approach to get people out of their cars.

MayBeMaw

Don’t need to be asked twice!

Would love to see a photo of your dog awake Maw !!

Rosie51

Are we not allowed to post links any more? That was all that was in my deleted post, a link to an air quality site that showed most of China had much, much higher levels of air pollution than London.

Strange, Rosie51 as other charts and links remain.

grandtanteJE65

And when does the British government intend to do something sensible to reduce pollutiom?

This year, next year, sometime, never?

They are.
The Clean Air Strategy

Other countries need to get on board

vegansrock

Why is it important that China has higher pollution than London? I don’t live in China - I do care about pollution levels where I live - some on here obviously think it’s a huge joke and as long as somewhere else is worse it doesn’t matter and we don’t need to do anything about it. It might inconvenience those with polluting vehicles and we can’t possibly do that can we?

You don't seem to understand.

We are trying here but it feels like banging our heads when other, larger nations with huge populations continue with coal fired power stations.

Showing the comparison/similarity between a new, showcase green city in China and London is disingenuous to say the least.

And when does the British government intend to do something sensible to reduce pollutiom?

This year, next year, sometime, never?

We're a lot smaller in every way to China lemongrove.

And selling tat to the greedy, consumerist West, often while exploiting minorities/the poor to produce them. Oh and infiltrating our institutions/businesses/politics in ways they hope we won’t notice….!

I agree Josieann. I used to walk a mile to school every day and back again, 20 to 25 mins each way. Nowadays kids don't seem to be able to walk 10 mins.

I taught in a London school and it is a well known fact that toxic air reduces children's ability to learn. There were traffic schemes put in place to stop the heavy amount of vehicles passing the school, but the worst offenders are parents in their big cars who want to drop off their children right at the school gate.

Last time we were in Beijing, a couple of years ago, you were only allowed to use a car on certain days and preference was given to locals to combat pollution. It was far,far better than it had been on a previous visit we made. At least they are doing something and not just telling people not to exercise. Cars are the worst things.

Why is it important that China has higher pollution than London? I don’t live in China - I do care about pollution levels where I live - some on here obviously think it’s a huge joke and as long as somewhere else is worse it doesn’t matter and we don’t need to do anything about it. It might inconvenience those with polluting vehicles and we can’t possibly do that can we?

Are we not allowed to post links any more? That was all that was in my deleted post, a link to an air quality site that showed most of China had much, much higher levels of air pollution than London.

M0nica

London smogs killed my grandmother.

I do remember the smogs of my childhood, they were thick, often yellowy fogs.
Everything got so dirty.

We do have more cars and pollution now and I hope that will improve but it's not going to happen overnight.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

One of the problems in Beijing is that they burn coal for their energy.

I think Maw I may be part greyhound not the fast part

London smogs killed my grandmother.