Air pollution is a dead end strategy for LTN criticism.
Air pollution fear mongering is used to reduce the mobility of people under the guise of 'protecting' them.
The evidence for those claims is extremely weak, and is produced by the nexus of academia and activism.
Air pollution fear mongering is used to reduce the mobility of people under the guise of 'protecting' them.
The evidence for those claims is extremely weak, and is produced by the nexus of academia and activism.
https://twitter.com/LittleNinjaUK/status/1327296545830678529
This doesn't help anyone navigate the issues.
https://twitter.com/LittleNinjaUK/status/1372576691613237260
All it says is ban all cars everywhere.
It takes no look at the historical air quality or mortality/disease data.
And it makes no defence of affordable mobility.
It takes no look at the historical air quality or mortality/disease data.
And it makes no defence of affordable mobility.
Scaremongering is scaremongering.
Scepticism and perspective is needed to digest these seemingly shocking figures.
Often seemingly worrying rises in problems attributed to things like air pollution are caused by improved conditions.
Scepticism and perspective is needed to digest these seemingly shocking figures.
Often seemingly worrying rises in problems attributed to things like air pollution are caused by improved conditions.
https://twitter.com/LittleNinjaUK/status/1372516715528126474
For e.g., increased exposure to fossil-fuel air pollution is coincident in some places with radical declines in infant mortality -- thanks to increased incomes & better living standards. Academics play fast-and-loose with the facts for political ends, too.
A look at historical mortality stats reveals an extremely stark contrast with today. There is zero evidence of what is presented by activists and politicians as a growing 'crisis'. It's exactly the opposite. Dead children were not news in the first half of the C20th.
What remains by far the biggest determinant of health outcomes in the UK is wealth. Wealth does not correlate to exposure to air pollution, unless you squint hard when you look at the data. It does correlate to quality of housing.
You can see how rare what we're talking about is. 
In full context of mortality stats...
Today's children compared to the boomers' exposure to risks...
Compare those figures to the number of deaths attributed to respiratory diseases registered in 1911!
(Forgot to mention there was also the data from 1901 in the last tweet).
Death was the norm. The point being that you wouldn't just have heard of someone who didn't make it to adulthood -- it was normal to have a family member who did not survive.
Death was the norm. The point being that you wouldn't just have heard of someone who didn't make it to adulthood -- it was normal to have a family member who did not survive.
Yet campaigners pretend that things have got worse in the 'modern' era -- since mass private transport and flight and so on.
The opposite is true.
Things are far, far, far better today. The 'progress' advocated by activists and academics is in fact regression.
The opposite is true.
Things are far, far, far better today. The 'progress' advocated by activists and academics is in fact regression.
The best thing that a young working class family living in London can have is a car.
It lets them get around quickly, to get good food, to see family and friends, to sport clubs and exercise, and for days out in the country/seaside -- all at low cost.
It lets them get around quickly, to get good food, to see family and friends, to sport clubs and exercise, and for days out in the country/seaside -- all at low cost.
Air pollution scare mongering will constrain working class people to their homes/boroughs and cities. It raises barriers and horizons.
That is though the point of environmentalism: to sustain the natural order, in which plebs know their place.
That is though the point of environmentalism: to sustain the natural order, in which plebs know their place.
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