The alarmist foundation for ULEZ expansion has disintegrated
Read the new Together Declaration & Climate Debate UK report by Ben Pile demonstrating that neither the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) nor the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP) find evidence of a causal link between air pollution and mortality.
Despite Khan claiming that 4,000 Londoners die each year, both UKHSA and COMEAP explicitly advise against framing the potential mortality risk associated with air pollution exposure in terms of deaths because it is untrue and unscientific.
This sends a lightning bolt through Sadiq Khan’s irresponsible and dishonest claims that ULEZ expansion would ‘save lives’ – seemingly the only argument ‘left in the locker’ given the public, London boroughs, and even London Labour MPs, are against this scheme. When the science and economics of anti-car policies are fully considered, the evidence suggests they are very likely to do far more harm than good.
Read also this first supplement to the report, which shows that Khan and his cabinet appear not to understand what the scientific reports they have commissioned tell them. London Deputy Mayor for Transport and Energy Shirley Rodrigues’s replies to critics of ULEZ falsely states the ‘science’ is unequivocal and that criticisms are ‘pure science denial’, whereas there is intense scientific debate about the risks of air pollution exposure in the very literature that she cites as an authority.
The second supplement shows that data that the Mayor and TfL use to evaluate the success of the ULEZ and its expansion is based on unreliable data. For much of the pre-ULEZ period, roadside air quality in Central London was being measured by just one or two monitoring stations giving a false impression of extremely high levels of air pollution. Yet this dodgy data is used to represent the entire area, and to produce a favourable analysis of ULEZ policies.
(Source: Together)
A reader writes:
Hi everyone. In case you don’t know (not many people do yet) but Sheffield Council is to make it a 15-minute city.
Along with Oxford and Canterbury, evidence now shows that we are heading to city prison camps, where under the threat of fines you can only leave your area 100 times a year. You will not even be allowed to visit sick relatives in hospital if they are out of your zone and you have overplayed your 100-trip allowance.
People have been warned about this, and when I tried to tell people it was coming I was ridiculed, but now it’s here and I ask why are people letting this happen. This must be a case for human rights as no one should be restricted to where and when they can travel in their own country.
Best Wishes,
J M
Photo credit: Roy R M Mcintosh