‘Red alert’ issued and millions warned to stay at home as London is hit by toxic air from Germany (2017)

Will refrain from any political commentary on this one! If you planned a jog in London, might be worth postponing for a few days…

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This raises an interesting question. Given that South East England is blighted by German industrial pollution, would the EU sanction us based on our domestic car usage? Surely they’d need to consider all pollution sources - some of them continental.

Hopefully after 2021 we’ll be able and willing to seek a remedy from Germany for the problems caused by their pollution, based on international law (the current bloc-level law seems inadequate).

It’s those pesky VW’s again

Slightly alarmed until I realised the original alert was a year ago.

Is that true or just one alert in a year? Prevailing winds tends to mean that our air comes from the atlantic most of the time.

Pollution travels both ways:

‘Currently, 570 premature deaths each year in the UK are estimated to be caused by air pollution from countries in mainland Europe, with Germany (230), Poland (110) and France (80) the worst offenders.

However, British coal plants are estimated to be responsible for 2,870 premature deaths, of which 1,350 occur in other EU countries, with France (350), Germany (320) and the Netherlands (160) the worst affected. UK coal burning is also estimated to add about 1,400 new cases of chronic bronchitis every year.’

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/uk-air-pollution-eu-coal-power-station-kill-hundreds-britain-a7706411.html

I noticed that article and was wondering what year the report’s data was from. When I clicked on it, I got a 404 error. That’s not to cast aspersions on the findings, or necessarily to suggest they’re out of date. However, UK coal power production has fallen significantly in the last few years, with all coal power generation scheduled to end in 2025 - possibly sooner.

Still, it makes the point that pollution can go both ways.

Which reminds me, did we ever get any compensation from the then USSR for all the slaughtered livestock in the UK as a result of Chernobyl?

That is why Ukranian men can’t wear shorts - Chernobyl Fallout.

Nor did the UK compensate anyone for the Windscale fire and fallout and allegedly both had similar impacts on farmland across the UK.

Two wrongs don’t make a right.

The prevailing wind in the SE is a southwesterly which is why smelly/polluting industries traditionally were in the east end of cities.

This means that when we’re stuck under a high pressure weather system (when the wind becomes southeasterly), we get more Continental pollution. Air under a high tends to move less so pollution isn’t dispersed as much by wind.

Absolutely - but absolutely every child in south west Scotland had a healthy glow for a few weeks.

All down to prevailing winds.