[quote=“headhonchoII”]Some more thoughts and updates on the situation-
On a positive note, Kaoshiung (Gaoxiong)'s government is forging ahead against the negative forces of the ignorant and outdated ‘GDP raised or else’ focus that the central government works on.
taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/ … 2003558778
[quote]According to environmental groups, as early as 1999, measures regulating pollutant emission levels were proposed for inclusion in the Air Pollution Control Act (空氣污染防制法). However, the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ fear of the measures’ potential negative impacts on economic growth and industrial development has been blocking the act from being amended in that regard, the groups said.
The Greater Kaohsiung Government’s Environmental Protection Bureau announced earlier this week that in two years, it will complete a project to monitor and record pollutant emission levels at the city’s 420 factories.
Bureau director Chen Chin-de (陳金淂), who assumed the post in February, said that improving the city’s air quality is one of his major policy goals.
“The central government kept on delaying amendments to the Air Pollution Control Act, so we are unable to enforce air emission standards,” Chen said. “Despite this, we local governments should not shirk our responsibilities. We must have the preparatory work done beforehand, ahead of any amendment, so we can exert pressure on the central government.”[/quote]
In more disturbing news, it seems growing up in areas of high air pollution causes permanent lung damage. This news from London below. What’s interesting about this is that the damage caused by the switch to diesel engines from petrol engines (due to cost and carbon taxes) was flagged and predicted beforehand. While newer diesel engines are cleaner and more efficient than yesteryear, they produce far higher numbers of fine particles per mile driven.
guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jan/2 … rse-petrol
This was all perfectly predictable and is a failure of narrow minded government policy (focus on carbon reduction), just as much as the failure of Taiwan’s central government GDP growth policy.
guardian.co.uk/environment/2 … lth-crisis
[quote]Dr Ian Mudway, a lecturer in respiratory toxicology with the environmental research group at King’s College London university, has spent several years walking the routes that children take to school in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, measuring the pollutants in the air they breathe and determining their impacts on their respiratory health. He is shocked at the levels of pollutants these children are exposed to on a daily basis and fears for the permanent damage being done by to their lungs by the ultra-fine particles and gases emitted by diesel engines.
East London has long been heavily polluted by industry but Tower Hamlets has some of the busiest roads in Britain passing close to large high-density housing estates. Nowhere in the borough is further than 500 metres from a busy road and new housing developments targeted at young families are popping up right by main roads.
Air pollution, especially from diesel engines, is a “neglected, hidden killer” and children and old people are especially at risk, says Mudway. “There’s strong evidence that if you live near main roads you will have smaller lungs,” he says. “They will not reach capacity and will be stunted. When, or if, people move to a cleaner environment they still do not recover the function they lost. We have good evidence that every child born in Tower Hamlets will have a reduction in the volume of their lungs by the age of eight. The point is, people die of lung disease later on. You store up a problem that will affect you later,” he says.
He lists some of the effects of polluted air. In the short term, it leads to irritation to the eyes, nose and throat, headaches, nausea, bronchitis and pneumonia. Over a longer period it can result in heart attacks and lung diseases, cancers, even damage to the brain, nerves, liver, and kidneys.
“The [people who die] are only the very end of a spectrum of health effects,” he told a group of Tower Hamlet residents at a public meeting organised last month by Friends of the Earth on the extra air pollution which would be caused by a proposed new four-lane road tunnel below the Thames.[/quote]
Air pollution is slowly getting the attention it deserves as the biggest health threat of any pollution source worldwide.
It also suggests to me that, between all the cars, buses and trucks on the two North-South highways , they could be major contributors to pollution on the island overall. I’m very curious as to how they stack up compared to factory and coal fired power plant air pollution. Just yesterday 530,000 cars set off on the highway system!
chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/nati … eeping.htm[/quote]
HH,completely correct. Governments seem to be going through the motions,to show voters they are trying. In fact they have made some huge blunders for the people and the Planet,like Methanol,Diesel,as you point out…etc,.Will they ever change ?. Not unless it wins votes,I fear.