Submitted by 
Anthony Davis
The UK government has been warned to drastically reduce air pollution or face renewed legal action. “In April the Supreme Court ruled an immediate plan was needed after the UK breached EU limits for nitrogen dioxide (NO2)…Around 40,000 people are estimated to die prematurely every year in the UK because of bad air quality. “Nitrogen pollution from diesel vehicles is creating much of the problem – and this has been exacerbated by the scandal over testing which has made cars appear cleaner than they really are. – BBC Online
I’m fed up to the teeth with all of the advice about eating healthy, and exercising. What’s the use of all that if we’re being killed by air and noise pollution?
When will the ministers of health and the environment tell the populace of this country the full truth about NCDs?
If we don’t clean up the air and reduce the noise emanating from vehicles and elsewhere we can eat as healthy as we want – if we can afford it – and exercise as much as we want, the number of NCDs will continue to rise.
The anti-environment minister promised anti-pollution laws this year, but it seems that we’ll have to wait until the end of the year for them. Stop lying to the people of this country about eating healthy and exercising being the panacea for the reduction of the number of NCDs.
It’s a load of codswallop!
More people die annually from polluted air than being overweight or obese.
Noise is said to drive people to kill.
This Government, through the ministers of health, and the environment, is instituting a dangerous precedent by claiming that the panacea for the reduction in the number of NCDs is eating healthy and exercising.
On the one hand you are stipulating that people eat healthy to and exercise in order to ward off NCDs, on the other you are advertising the benefits of eating Burger King meals, because one gets more and they are much cheaper than at the other fast food restaurants. So, if eating healthy is the panacea for reducing the number of NCDs, why are you allowing such ads?
You talk about eating healthy, yet you are doing nothing to lower the exorbitant health food prices.
You talk about eating healthy, yet you remove sardines and tuna from the basket of goods which is exempt VAT.
Maybe you can’t implement air and noise pollution laws because the planned Cahill Energy waste-to-energy plant will be spewing more toxins into the environment than the diesel vehicles on the roads.
While the EU is drafting even tougher laws on air pollution, because it is so destructive, this Government is playing it down – as with many other things of importance.
They even have laws on the quality of the water in which people are allowed to swim in coastal waters, i.e. one cannot go to the beach unless that water has been tested and the all-clear has been given for swimming in it.
We need such people like Client Earth in Barbados.
Another thing is the indiscriminate burning of stuff all over the island, which Donville Inniss promised to rectify when he was minister of health many moons ago. When this happens, not only the neighbours suffer but any person travelling through that area. Such people who engage in indiscriminate burning have their own interest at heart – not caring who has to be taken to the hospital/clinic because he/she has some respiratory illness, or must reach for an inhaler.
Air pollution is the most deadly kind of pollution, because no one knows in which direction the wind will shift. That’s why the waste-to-energy plant is really nothing but a waste as it will only pollute the country more through the toxins which will be spewed out of its stack. We need anti-air pollution laws which include making the indiscriminate burning of stuff illegal, and anti-noise pollution laws – like yesterday.
The fines for noncompliance must be hefty!
It’s very strange that the tax collector can dream up a new tax, and have it put into law within months, whereas everyone else must wait years for the same procedure.
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