Shifting patterns of temperature volatility in the climate system

In recent decades there has been increased variability in yearly temperature records for large parts of Europe and North America, according to a study published online on 24 July 2013 in Nature.

Climate PatternThe study was carried out by scientists from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, the University of East Anglia and the University of Exeter.

Lead author Dr Chris Huntingford from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology said, “Fluctuations in annual average temperatures have shown very substantial geographical alteration in recent decades. However, to our surprise, when considered across the globe, total variability has been relatively stable.”

Co-author Professor Phil Jones, from the University of East Anglia said, “We used globally-complete surface temperature data that has been constructed by merging observations and weather forecasts, and verified our findings against station temperature records”.

The study concluded that regions of high variability have moved markedly over the last five decades, including to areas of high population in Europe and North America. Dr Huntingford added, “The movement of raised temperature variability to regions of high population may have contributed to the general perception that climate is becoming more volatile.”

The study also examined future projections by 17 climate model simulations. Almost all predict that overall temperature fluctuations will actually decrease towards the end of this century, as greenhouse gas concentrations increase.

Co-author Professor Peter Cox, from the University of Exeter said, “We provide evidence that decreasing global temperature variability will be a consequence of major sea-ice loss in a warmer world.”

Dr Huntingford added, “Our findings contradict the sometimes stated view that a warming world will automatically be one of more overall climatic variation.”

Technical note – The analysis looked at year-to-year variability in temperature at different geographical locations. This variability is occurring around general global warming trends. These trends were subtracted from the actual temperature measurements, and the remaining “anomalies” analyzed for changes over time and space.

This research was supported by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, the Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences programme “Mathematical and Statistical Approaches to Climate Modelling and Prediction”, USDoE (Grant DE-SC0005689) and NERC (Grant NE/F005474/1).

Reference: Chris Huntingford, Philip D Jones, Valerie Livina, Timothy M Lentonand Peter M Cox 'No increase in global temperature variability despitechanging regional patterns' will be published in Nature on 24 July 2013. www.nature.com. The DOI for this paper will be 10.1038/nature12310

The Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) is the UK's Centre of Excellence for integrated research in the land and freshwater ecosystems and their interaction with the atmosphere. CEH is part of the Natural Environment Research Council, employs more than 450 people at four major sites in England, Scotland and Wales, hosts over 150 PhD students, and has an overall budget of about £35m. CEH tackles complex environmental challenges to deliver practicable solutions so that future generations can benefit from a rich and healthy environment.

www.ceh.ac.uk

Press release issued by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, UK

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Sun shines on Sainsbury’s as it cuts CO2 and energy bills

100000-solar-panels-paul-crewe-and-greg-barkerSainsbury’s recently reached a significant milestone in its investment in renewable energy as it strives to cut CO2 emissions and reduce energy bills. The retailer has installed 100,000 photovoltaic solar panels (22 mWp) across 210 stores - enough to cover 35 football pitches.

These will help reduce Sainsbury’s total CO2 emissions by an estimated 9,785 tonnes per year as it retains its status as the largest multi-roof solar panel operator in Europe.

Energy and Climate Change Minister, Greg Barker, welcomed the news during a visit to Sainsbury’s store at London Colney in St. Albans today where he officially launched the retailer’s 12th Ground Source Heat Pump – another innovative technology that taps renewable energy from deep underground to provide energy efficient heating, hot water and cooling for the store.

Greg Barker said: “I’m delighted to be here at Sainsbury’s London Colney store to officially launch its new ground source heat pump and to hear more about how the company is using energy more wisely, cutting emissions and powering its stores with clean green energy.

"Not only is Sainsbury’s increasing the amount of stores heated by renewable sources, it’s using solar panels on its roofs to generate energy too, with over 100,000 panels now up and running on over 200 stores.

"The Coalition is committed to helping businesses across the UK cut energy waste and become more energy efficient."

Paul Crewe, Sainsbury’s Head of Engineering, Sustainability, Energy and Environment said: "We’ve achieved a 9.1% absolute reduction in electricity use over the past four years in our supermarkets, despite a 25% increase in space, and we’re really seeing the benefits from using our underutilised space for solar panels, and from the other renewable technologies we’ve installed.

"We believe they are fundamental to the sustainability of our business and there is a strong commercial case for using each technology. They are helping us cut carbon emissions and energy bills and achieve the environmental targets we set ourselves in our stretching 20x20 Plan. It’s good news for the environment and is supporting job creation in the UK’s renewable energy sector."

The roll out of Ground Source Heat Pumps at 12 stores follows Sainsbury’s successful world-first use of the geo-thermal technology at its Crayford store, enabling it to supply 30 per cent of its energy from on-site renewable sources. It has also installed 74 biomass boilers since 2008, which use wood pellets - a renewable resource - to heat stores rather than using fossil fuel-based gas.

Sainsbury’s investment in onsite renewable energy technologies is part of its ambitious sustainability target to reduce its operational carbon emissions by 30% absolute (and 65% relative) by 2020 compared with 2005. This is part of a broader target of an absolute carbon reduction of 50% by 2030.

Sainsbury’s 20x20 Sustainability Plan acts as the cornerstone to Sainsbury's business strategy and sets out 20 sustainability targets to be achieved by 2020. This plan aims to ensure the company remains at the forefront of sustainability to 2020 and beyond.

Full Disclosure Statement: The GREEN (LIVING) REVIEW received no compensation for any component of this article.

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Where do your recyclables (really) go?

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Have you ever asked yourself as to where your recyclables that you put out for collection or that you take to the recycling bank actually end up. The answers would surprise you in may, if not indeed all, cases.

recyclablesGLASS

“Oh, they make it back into bottles and such” is what most people believe and say and maybe even you. But that is, in most cases, plain wrong.

A major percentage of all glass collected is crushed and made – wait for it – building sand. Yes, sand, the very thing that glass is made of in the first place; silicate. Only a tiny percentage of bottles and jars from recycling banks and kerbside recycling goes back to become new bottles and jars or any other glass products for that matter.

PLASTIC/PLASTIC CONTAINERS/-BOTTLES

The recycling of plastic is also very much an issue. The problem is that much of your recyclables in the form of plastic bottles and other plastic containers are while they are collected “at home”, and this is also the case with many other recyclables, they are not recycled “at home” but are shipped to places such as China and India, etc. where the recycling “industry” is not subject to the same stringent regulations as would be the case “at home”.

Many of the recyclables that you, and others, so diligently put out for kerbside recycling never actually make it to any recycling plants, whether “at home” or “abroad”. If there is no market for them – that is to say if there is an 'oversupply' – they simply get landfilled the way it used to be and the same goes for anything that may be “contaminated”.

This is why waste reduction and especially reduction of packaging, and reuse and upcycling in DIY fashion is so very important.

The majority of people, conditioned nowadays by the powers-that-be to recycle, obediently toss their cans, plastic, glass, paper, etc. into the appropriate receptacles believing they do a good thing and the Planet a good turn. Reusing like our grandparents did rarely ever enters their minds.

Are we being lied to by our governments as to what happens to most of the recyclables collected? One could say “yes” to this question to a very large degree.

It makes for an educated consumer to change the behavior of industry to reduce packaging and not just in weight as some have done with glass bottles the glass of which has become a great deal thinner. This is only done to benefit the corporations and their bottom line as it reduces weight and they can put more onto a truck. And this is the same reason why some companies have replaced tin cans for, say, chopped tomatoes with Tetrapak like cardboard packs lines with foil. The latter, unlike the tin cans used before, cannot be reused and also not be recycled in most places.

As long as the consumer, however, is left in the belief that the packaging is recyclable and recycled such change is not about to happen soon.

We must understand how things actually work and function in recycling and waste management field to understand as to how the proverbial cookie crumbles.

Paper recycling and that of cardboard is another issue also that is far from as cut and dry as it is more often than not being presented.

A great amount of paper and card collected goes straight to landfill and that more often than not not only because of market saturation but also and especially because of what is referred to as contamination.

Contamination, as far as paper and card is concerned are the wrong kind of printed matter, such as glossies, for instance, or ink jet printed pages. This ink of the latter which is, more often than not, not waterproof but actually water soluble, and certain colors of this can make the entire batch unusable and in cardboard items such as Pizza boxes and other card with grease or “paper” cups which are lined with either a plastic or a wax liner. Here often people are fault rather than the municipalities, etc., and that through ignorance.

But, again, when the market is saturated with recyclable paper waste the rest gets landfilled and often even at other times.

All of this makes a mockery of kerbside recycling (and other methods) that we are presented with. The only way to go is that of waste reduction and as most of this waste is packaging it is reduction of this, of packaging. Furthermore we have to think REUSE rather than recycling and reuse and upcycle as much as we possibly can. Our ancestors did and we must do so (again) as well.

© 2013

Neighborhood policing not sustainable with imposed budget cuts

Local police patrols in danger of being 'eroded' by budget cuts, despite drop in crime

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

While overall crime in England and Wales down 9 per cent on last year, reported rapes are up 2 per cent. Budget cuts, however, could seriously undermine the safety and protection of the public, regardless of the complacency of government.

pcso1The police services across the UK face fundamental changes to the way they operate after a report that come out on July 18, 2013 revealing that five forces will struggle with further budget cuts after the anticipated loss of nearly 32,000 jobs across England and Wales by 2015.

A report by the police inspectorate said that forces had generally coped well with 20 per cent cuts over five years but warned that local patrolling was in danger of being “eroded” and could have an impact on crime prevention programs. The report also raised concerns that the response times to 999 calls were rising in some areas.

The study was released after the Office for National Statistics reported a 9% fall in recorded crime for the last year, despite a rise in rape offenses and a 27% increase in fraud. The Government said the figures were vindication of radical reforms that had seen budget cuts and the introduction of elected police and crime commissioners.

Recorded crime, though, is a very questionable figure for some crimes are not, in fact, being recorded. All too often controllers refuse to log something as a crime, such as vandalism or break-ins into empty properties, for example.

Despite the fall in some recorded crimes five of the 43 police forces in England and Wales will struggle to find further cuts after March 2015, according to the report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary. They include two of the smallest forces, Lincolnshire and Bedfordshire, which have fewer options to trim budgets and raises the prospect of police mergers in a radical change to the policing landscape. West and South Yorkshire and Northamptonshire also faces future problems.

The Government has opposed such changes and the election of 41 police and crime commissioners appeared to steer the debate away from senior police demands for fewer forces. But in a speech earlier this month, the policing minister Damian Green said he had nothing against mergers in principle where they are supported by PCCs and the local community.

The HMIC report said that the failure of forces to collaborate represented a major lost opportunity in cutting costs, but chief inspector Tom Winsor warned that mergers involved a “serious degree of disruption and expense”.

He highlighted some forces where there had been “mergers by osmosis” such as Kent and Essex which has a joint serious crime command. “Working smarter – doing things in different ways – will be necessary,” he said. “That will include greater measures of collaboration between forces and with the private sector and other parts of the public sector.”

And with private sector we can assume that the aim is to, more or less, privatize policing, and outsource it, including, despite that we are told otherwise, the patrolling of the streets, to companies such as G4S and security services that are operated by former military personnel, as are used for protection duties of many public officials on public events, including firearms carriers.

The report also raises concerns that in some areas, police community support officers and other community support officers (community wardens) – neither of who have the powers of arrest – have taken over the role of local patrolling. There is also evidence that volunteer specials are plugging gaps following the expected loss of 15,400 police officers by 2015.

In some areas, it would appear from the report, the neighborhood policing is all but done by PCSOs and community wardens already because of those cuts. It would appear that the British public are being conditioned to see fewer sworn officers on the streets and to accept policing by private companies. While, at the same time, being conditioned that they, the people, are not permitted to protect and defend themselves against crimes.

The Con-Dem coalition, led by the Conservatives, are hellbent on selling all of the family silver, so to speak, by privatizing all of the public services of the country wherever possible and even if it is not possible it is going to be done.

How did it go again on the ill-fated Apollo mission? Houston we have a problem. We indeed have a problem and it is the government.

© 2013

History is a lie and Religion a control system

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The FarfarersHistory is a lie; it is written by the victors, it was once said, but in fact it is also been written by the powers-that-be to oppress the people.

Religion is a control system; especially here organized religion and, as Marx so rightly said, it is the opium of the people. Organized religion, especially the three Abrahamaic ones, have been used from day one as a means to control the people and to make them subservient to authority. Religion destroys spirituality.

Money is one big fraud and gold and silver too. The only true measure is labor. Nothing else is of any value. Alternative currencies that work in hours of labor are the real true alternative to money that is issued by the world's banks.

Debt is a fiction. It is based on usury and the funny thing here, if it would not be so tragic, is that the system of interest on loans, thus usury, has been created by a group whose religion expressly forbids usury. One of the reason that Jesus overturned the tables of the moneychangers at the Temple.

Media are manipulation and are destroying information and truth. Most of the world's media are owned by a little over a handful of large corporations who, predominately, peddle the lies given them too disseminate by the powers-that-be. The governments are doing their utmost to discredit alternative media outlets and the reason for the attempts of blocking Internet sites has very little to do with protecting the children from Internet porn but everything to do with stopping people from getting their news from other sources, real news and truth.

This is not new, admittedly, and was thus already during the Cold War when the way to go was to listen to both sides and then find the middle path and discern the truth.

Today, with the Internet, the dissemination of information is so much faster and the truth, as they say, will out. So, what are governments to do? They have but the choice of restricting people's access to the Internet and other sources bar their own propaganda.

Governments are corporations. Democracy is but an illusion, a conjuring trick, created by the powers-that-be, to lull the people to sleep, believing that they, the people, can chose who lords it over them. True democracy is not possible in any group larger than 150 people and definitely not in a nation state.

Doctors are destroying health. In fact, the entire so-called health care system is not about promoting health but about treating sickness, the symptoms of it and not the underlying causes. Treating the causes, the g-ds forbid, could actually make people well and thus reduce the profits for doctors, hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry.

Police do not protect the people. The ruling by the US Supreme Court of some years ago clearly states, and it would appear that the same attitude now prevails also in the EU, that the task of the police is not to protect (and serve) the people but to enforce the law(s).

In other words most of our countries have become a police state where the thin blue line has become the arm of oppression of the people by the government, in the same way as it was in Hitler's Germany of the first part of the twentieth century.

Lawyers (and judges) destroy the law. Instead of upholding the law lawyers and judges try to make the laws, as was seen not so long ago in Britain when judges demanded that the press needed to be totally regulated – including bloggers. And that is and was just one of those instances.

Judges and lawyers are not lawmakers and need to come to understand this. They are there to see to it that the justice is being done.

Schools and universities destroy knowledge. Schools have but one purpose in most countries and that appears to be to create, as the Prussian school system, for which it was invented with compulsory school attendance, to create slaves to the state, instead of instilling in children the wish to learn and to acquire real knowledge and universities, which ones were places where you went to read – please note the word – this or that subject are today used to brainwash people even further and to destroy real knowledge.

The system of the state school has but one aim and that is to destroy individuality and a questioning mind and to create robots who do as they are told when they are told without questioning.

Governments destroy freedom. Personal freedoms, even those granted by constitutions, are being trodden under foot by governments, with the sheeple standing idle by because they are told that they have to give up those freedoms if they want to have security and protection from terrorist attacks.

Government spy agencies, even those tasked with external intelligence gathering, are riding roughshod over the freedoms of the people at home and monitor their emails, their telephone calls, who they meet and when, etc. and all this in the name of security. Security for whom?

Science is deception. Just because a scientist is said to have discovered this or that does not mean that this is so. Science is not hard facts – mostly – but just theories of how things could be or might have been, the latter when it comes to history, for instance. Saying, for instance, that another European people “discovered” North America well before the arrival of the Vikings is regarded as tantamount to heresy and scientists who have claimed that have been stripped of their titles. The same goes for origin and make up of the Romani, the Gypsy, People.

Many times scientists – those that have kept their titles and risen in the ranks – have manipulated evidence so as to make the facts fit their theories and those of others rather than to come clean and say that things are different and that there are errors in the science. Time and again science is being presented to the people as had facts when it is not.

The system is a lie. The world has been turned upside down where truth is lies and lies are truth.

It is time for the sleeping sheep to wake up and put the wolf in its place.

© 2013

BlackBerry 9900 Bold battery problems

BlackBerry 9900 Bold battery problems hack

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

blackberry_bold_9900_whiteQuite a few users of this version of the BlackBerry are reporting problems with battery life and I experienced that, every now and then, the battery life falls from a about a day and a half to five hours, and that without actually making calls and such like.

While it is true that the battery drains anyway simply because the device is on and even more so if it has to look for a signal when you move from cell to cell there seems to be serious problem with the BlackBerry 9900 Bold in general when the default settings are in use and when certain apps are on.

If your battery is draining fast on this type of BlackBerry – and many experience that problem, as said – there are a few hacks that may extend the battery life.

  1. Shut down all unnecessary apps running

  2. Set to G3 (and manual)

  3. Remove automatic compression for media card

  4. Take out battery and clean the contacts (this, in conjunction with point 3 above, could be the most important thing to do).

  5. Turn your device off at night when you don't have need of it.

Those few things have, as far as my BlackBerry 9900 is concerned, solved the problem in that now, instead of running down in less than five to six hours, holds a charge for more than a day, given no lengthy calls are made.

I have to add that I only use my BlackBerry for telephone calls and the sending of text messages, plus the camera. Those using data operations, such as email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. may have less battery life as I experience.

A good advice is also to top up the battery whenever possible by sticking the device on charge. The battery does not mind being topped up and does not every now and then have to be drained all the way as used to be the case with the old style cell phone batteries, so you cannot do it any harm.

© 2013

War on Nature

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

In a few centuries since the industrial revolution, modern humans have waged war on nature, destroying ecosystems and collapsing our one shared biosphere.

War on NatureIn a false belief, brought about also as a result of a deliberate misinterpretation of the Bible man has decided that he is the master of the universe and that G-d gave him the right to do battle with Nature.

More often than not reference is being made to “overcoming Nature”, to “fight Nature”, and such like. The issue is, however, that if man ever wins that war, he, and that is all of us, is doomed.

While the Bible says that “G-d gave man dominion over the Earth” it also says that He placed man as a husbandman onto the Earth, that means as a caretaker and a caretaker does not fight his charge. Man is a shepherd of Creation and it is his task to look after it, care for it, and help it. Not make war on it.

Now more than ever modern man has the notion that he is the master, that he can alter Nature to do his bidding and with the knowledge of the sequence of DNA he has decided that he can create and this goes as far as to creating designer babies.

Frankenstein was not intended as a manual. It was, much like 1984, a warning. Not something to be emulated but something to be avoided. However, modern man in his megalomaniac state has decided that he can control science and Nature and has to battle Nature every step of the way.

In farming we see the same applied and rather than working with Nature and in harmony with Her everything is geared to destroying everything bar the crop grown or animals raised.

This can be seen equally with the Bovine TB issue where the badger is going to be hunted and culled in the UK rather than looking at the issue of animal husbandry and the failings of it.

The way it is understood by the Badger Trust and others is that the badger gets infested by cows that carry TB and the badger than becomes a carrier spreading the disease to other herds and amongst the badger population as a whole.

In our attempt to create ever higher yielding dairy and beef cattle we have bred disease resistance out of the animals and pump them full of antibiotics and other medicines in order keep them functioning, until they keel over from overproduction, in the case of dairy cattle.

When it comes to arable farming the same attitude prevails, that is to say to get more and more yield from the same piece of land without giving it a moment to rest. So, instead of old-fashioned ways of rotation cropping and leaving the land fallow science has stepped in claiming that chemical fertilizers are the be all and end all and the majority of farmers bought into this lock, stock and barrel.

The fact is, however, that the continuous application of chemical plant food does deplete the soil rather than feed the soil and green manure (part of leaving a field fallow) and application of other manure has gone out of the window and the dust-bowl effect ensues.

Only when we learn that we cannot win the war on Nature and that it will destroy ourselves will balance come back into the system and we need to work on that as well. It will not happen on its own.

Farming practices, gardening practices, and many more practices have to change and they have to change now if we want to survive and give our children and their children an chance to also live on this Planet.

Let's get back to basics and live with Nature and let's learn to respect Her once again.

© 2013

Air fresheners do not freshen the air...

...and the “infusing” of essential oils is also not, necessarily, a good and healthy idea, despite what some may believe and say.

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

toxic_air_freshenerAir “fresheners” mask odors, either with synthetic fragrances or by interfering with the body's ability to smell by coating the nasal passages with an oil film or by releasing a nerve-deadening agent.

The chemicals in so-called air fresheners include camphor, phenol, ethanol, formaldehyde, and artificial fragrances and many of the components are, in fact, toxic in large amounts.

They can cause headaches, dizziness, migraines, asthma attacks, coughing, rashes, mental confusion and much more. Some of the substances are also linked to cancers and hormone disruption.

If you want fresh air forgo the so-called air fresheners and open the windows instead. That is also a good air-conditioning system and saves mucho dinero.

Let's get back to some natural ways...

© 2013

Warming seas alter fish neurology: Biodiversity to disappear over the next century

Climate change will see biodiversity in our seas decline massively over the next 100 years, according to scientists due to present their work to the IUPS 2013 Congress in July.

oily_fish_boxIt is expected that global warming will see sea temperatures rise by 2-4 degrees. This, along with rising levels of carbon dioxide, is already causing dramatic changes to the central nervous system of fish in our seas with consequences for their future survival.

Professor Goran Nilsson from the University of Oslo says: “Some fish species will do well and some will do very poorly, so we will have much less biodiversity. A few species will take over at the cost of a lot of species that will disappear.

“At just a few degrees increase in temperature you see a big increase in the resting metabolic rate. Some species are using all their capacities just to pick up oxygen and have no energy left to feed, grow or reproduce. They are at an evolutionary dead end.

“In addition, we have seen that increases in carbon dioxide levels have big impact on fish behaviour, affecting their ability to avoid predators. Instead of shying away from the smell of a predator, the fish are attracted to it. They are also attracted to new plant smells, unusual environments, and they lose their lateralization which means it takes longer to make decisions when escaping a predator.”

Nilsson’s team identified the neurological mechanism underlying these changes in behaviour and survival. Elevated CO2 levels in sea water disrupt the function of a key brain molecule, called the GABA-A receptor.

Nilsson says: “We can cure the fish by blocking this receptor with a moderate dose of a drug called Gabazine. This can reverse the behavioral changes and the fish behave normally again. While we cannot fill the seas with Gabazine, this finding does give us some predictive power. We can now identify the animals most at risk of being affected, guiding us where to do future experiments.”

IUPS 2013 is the 37th Congress of the International Union of Physiological Sciences and took place at the ICC, Birmingham from 21 – 26 July. The congress will bring together over 4,000 physiologists from all corners of the globe to attend over 100 symposia and 30 keynote lectures. The congress has been running since 1889 and was started in an effort to promote physiology, encourage the interchange of ideas, and afford physiologists the opportunity to know one another personally.www.iups2013.org

Full Disclosure Statement: The GREEN (LIVING) REVIEW received no compensation for any component of this article.

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GOVERNMENT MUST HELP CLEAR THE AIR

Anthropogenic particulate matter in the air contributes to the death of nearly 29,000 people every year, and harms the environment. In its latest report, CIWEM says it is time to overcome the political barriers and commit to a healthier future.

clean-air-actEach year, around 29,000 deaths are attributable to anthropogenic particulate matter in the UK, at a cost to the economy of up to £15 billion a year.Other air pollutants cause illness, premature mortality and harm the natural environment; and the UK’s National Air Quality Strategy, which should provide a clear framework for improving air quality, is years out of date, according to the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM).

In a new report, Clearing the Air, published on July 22. 2013 during the 2013 EU ‘Year of Air,’ CIWEMprovides the latest information on the air pollution challenges facing the UK and gives an independent assessment on the level of policy importance for each pollutant. The report asserts that whilst some scientific challenges remain in understanding the impacts of air pollution, there is still considerable progress that can be made by addressing political barriers.

Road transport is the main cause of poor air quality in the UK, and very significant reductions in traffic emissions are required to meet current standards. CIWEM says that the Highways Agency, which controls many of the busiest roads, should be given stronger direction and responsibility to ensure air quality objectives are achieved alongside both existing roads and new infrastructure.

A full revision of the National Air Quality Strategy is required to reflect the current evidence of the harm being done to human health and ecological systems, and the policies and priorities of the Government over the medium term, to 2030.

Chair of CIWEM’s Air Quality panel, Dr. Claire Holman, says, “Now, during the European Year of Air, is a critical time for air quality as EU air policy is under review. Government should use the National Air Quality Strategy to lay the policy framework for achieving healthy air.”

“Part of the battle will be achieving greater public awareness of the true health implications of air quality, and in turn, acceptance of the measures required, such as reduced car use. The updated strategy must take full account of the harm done to human health and the environment, and take true strides towards a cleaner, healthier future.”

The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, CIWEM, is an independent professional body and a registered charity, advancing the science and practice of water and environmental management for a clean, green and sustainable world.www.ciwem.org

Clearing the Airis exclusively available online at:www.ciwem.org/clearingtheair

CIWEM is a partner in the Healthy Air Campaign. Find out more athttp://www.healthyair.org.uk/

More on CIWEM’s Air Panel can be found online at:http://www.ciwem.org/knowledge-networks/panels/air.aspx

Full Disclosure Statement: The GREEN (LIVING) REVIEW received no compensation for any component of this article.