Transition Town Tooting

Tag: Pollution

  • Call for Climate Emergency Hustings in Tooting

    We are calling for Climate Emergency Hustings for Tooting on Tuesday 10 December in a joint effort between TTT & Extinction Rebellion Wandsworth, supported by our colleagues at the Wandsworth Cycling Campaign, and Wandsworth Living Streets. The date is not yet agreed with all candidates but we hope to host it at Mushkil Aasaan, just 2 days before the polls.

    On 1 May the UK Parliament declared a Climate Emergency. By the end of the next Parliament we will be halfway through the 12 year time period that the IPCC declared to be critical if we are serious about preventing the worst outcomes of climate change. 

    A recent Opinium poll showed that almost two thirds of the population say that the ecological and climate emergency is the biggest issue facing humankind, and 54% of all voters now say that climate change would affect how they would vote, rising to 74% for under-25s. Tooting voters need to know what our elected representatives would do in government to tackle the climate emergency which we believe to be by far the most important issue in next month’s election. Brexit will be long forgotten squabble in the future, the climate will not.

    Just for an interesting reality check, this map, taken from Climate Central’s report Flooded Future (October 2019) shows Wandsworth’s likely vulnerability to climate-related sea level rise by 2050. The red areas show the land projected to be below the annual flood level by that date.

  • My Fracking Opinion, What’s Yours?

    Quite amazing in the week where the IPCC tells us we have even less time than we thought to take action to avert the dangers posed by warming of 2°C, that fracking is underway today in Lancashire courtesy of the delightful Cuadrilla Resources.  What planet are these people on?  Thankfully there are some brave people from our own planet out there (including a Transition Network trustee!) taking direct action to try to stop them.

    IPCC Graph

    Fracking involves the high-pressure injection of ‘fracking fluid’ (water, sand and a cocktail of chemicals) into the ground to create cracks in deep rock formations with the goal of extracting fossil fuels that may lie there, in the Lancashire case natural gas. It’s bad enough that fossil fuels lead to climate change and the associated disasters for humanity and the planet, but this special type of extraction can also involve the risk of earthquakes, toxic chemicals, water pollution and poor air quality[3]. 

    Image result for fracking picture
    source: Friends of the Earth

    On the BBC’s Today programme the Chief Executive of this life affirming operation, Francis Egan, was asked whether he would be quite happy to have a house on the site with his children breathing the air there and he replies “yes of course” (podcast here about 5m 55s in). What a great idea!

    Surely this should be a mandatory condition of the granting of any fracking licence? Namely that the chief executive, indeed why not all senior executives of such a company, commit to raise their families beside fracking sites so that they too can benefit from the clean air abounding, discover new unusual chemicals and marvel at the array of visiting industrial vehicles, as well as anticipate the excitement of a potentially rumbling landscape plus aftershocks. I’m all for it but I wonder if Mr Egan and his ilk really would be?!  Methinks not, it is others who must take such risks for the sake of their profits.  But maybe I’m too cynical.  What’s your fracking opinion?

    Resources: 
    1. More on fracking from the Guardian
    2. Anti-fracking with Frack Off 
    3. Fracking facts from Friends of the Earth & Greenpeace. 
    4. In America meanwhile you can even light your own methane laced water

  • Air Quality Meeting Report 26/11

    The LSX data showing pollution In Tooting

    At the end of November we held a productive meeting about air quality in Tooting, organised in conjunction with Furzedown Low Carbon Zone, London Sustainability Exchange (LSX) and Battersea & Wandsworth TUC. 

    This meeting was organised on the back of the citizen science data collected in Tooting’s main roads earlier this year showing levels of NO2 three times the EU limits and PM10 levels twice the EU limit.  Many thanks to the speakers: LSX CEO Samantha Heath, Gavin Steadman, Area Manager for the Environment, Wandsworth Borough Council (WBC) and local Labour councillor Rex Osborn, as well as to all those attended. 

    There was a great deal of data to unpick.  We heard that an estimated 29,000 people die prematurely each year in the UK due to air pollution, double the combined effect of alcoholism, obesity and road traffic accidents.  We also found out more about NO2, PM10s and PM2s (PM refers to Particulate matter 10 or 2 microns in diameter) and the effect they have on our health.  For instance 80% of PM10s are caused by road traffic and have been proven to have a direct link to lung cancer. Meanwhile we hope to facilitate giving local residents an opportunity to contribute to WBC’s Air Quality Action Plan due to be put out for consultation in January 2015. We look forward to this and other developments to improve Tooting’s air quality in 2015.

    A detailed report on the meeting can be read here while Samantha Heath’s presentation can be accessed here.

  • Tooting Air Quality Project

    Earlier this month, Transition Town Tooting collaborated with the local trades unions to initiate an air monitoring exercise around Tooting Broadway, where several devices have been temporarily fixed to record what is in the air we breathe.  A similar exercise at Clapham Junction recently showed alarming pollution levels so the results for Tooting will be interesting to compare.  If this trial works well we hope to extend it to other nearby areas in the future.
    Air pollution
    Graham Petersen, who has been leading on the project, said: “Government and City Hall are staggeringly complacent on this issue and need to work a lot harder to combat pollution in London. Wandsworth residents are at significantly higher risk of death from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), (Wandsworth Guardian 10/4/14), and nitrogen dioxide levels in the city are apparently the worst in Europe.” See this Bloomberg report.

    We think this is a serious issue and want to work to make our neighbourhood a better one to breathe in.  Perhaps you’d like to get involved?  If so do mail us via transitiontowntooting@gmail.com.