The 31st issue of Air Quality News magazine is now available to read online.
The magazine is available to read here.
In this issue Victoria Hamilton from Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants and the University of Birmingham’s Suzanne Bartington tell us about a new tool which quantifies the health and economic impacts of PM2.5 and NO2 across Oxfordshire and the West Midlands – helping policy makers see the real cost of inaction and the value of cleaner air.
26 years after leaded petrol was banned in the UK, new research has found London’s air remains highly lead-enriched, with up to 40% of particles still traced to legacy petrol pollution, while wood burning, aviation fuel and recycled batteries continue to release the metal. Martin Gutteridge-Hewitt asks why the UK has no system to monitor lead poisoning in its general population?
Stefan Doerr is a Professor of wildland fire science and he talks to Features Editor Emily Whitehouse about the growing threat of wildfires to the UK. He explains why we need to learn from Australia and Africa about using controlled burns, or risk facing far more severe blazes, and worse air quality, in the future.
We are delighted to speak to Dr Laura Horsfall this issue. Laura’s research has revealed how wood burners are proliferating in affluent neighbourhoods, where their density in urban areas has created a hidden pollution crisis, with 18% of older UK households now using solid fuel.
Headline-grabbing schemes to feed cows seaweed or breed “low-methane” calves sound ingenious but are they missing the point? Simon Guerrier talks to Oxford professor Paul Behrens who argues that even if you magically eliminated all cow burps, you’d still be left with the same problems: land use, biodiversity loss and air pollution.
In the early 1990s, British power stations experimented with a controversial fuel made from Venezuelan bitumen sludge – until crops failed, paintwork peeled and communities fought back. Now, as US military action targets Venezuela again, Professor Aimee Ambrose argues that we still haven’t learned: that chasing cheap power to meet ever-growing demand, without questioning consumption itself, leads to pollution, environmental damage and a repeat of past mistakes.
Alice Handy, who has spoken at our Northern Air Quality Conference in the past, bring us an update on the SAMHE project, researching air quality in schools. She explains that outdoor pollution is responsible for 75% of classroom particles, yet CO2 builds up when cold weather keeps windows shut.
Leave a Reply