CAN we do it?
Yes we can...
… with enough personal and political will!
We are just over a month away from Clean Air Night, which raises awareness of the impact of wood-burning. This study argues that wood burning leads to more pollution than traffic. So we thought we’d look at the effects of smoke on our health.
Most people are aware of the effects of smoking but passively inhaling smoke can also be very damaging. Here are some of the recent studies since we last updated you on the health impacts:
this recent report illustrates the increased risk of dementia from wildfire smoke inhalation - it shows the effects of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure over a three year period of a 1.2 million over 60s
this study, also from the US, was able to separate out the effect of PM2.5 on men and women’s ability to conceive (and the effect was even seen of the impact of air quality inside fertility clinics)
this academic research looks at the link between PM2.5 and eczema and found that individuals with eczema lived in areas with significantly higher concentrations than did individuals without eczema.
Burning ambition
Clean Air Night also raises the impact on the environment, as well as our pockets. These are counter-intuitive: people often think they are taking the green/natural option, and that it’s cheaper than paying for other forms of heating. But Global Action Plan, who run Clean Air Night, debunk both of these. We’ve also shown before how PM2.5 has impacts beyond direct health risks. During the build up to Clean Air Night in January, we will share resources for campaigning.
Meanwhile, a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown improvements in PM2.5 levels over the past 20 years. However, inequalities persist. We did a double take on the Air Quality News article on this study this week - and were mildly proud that they used one of our pictures. Loyal readers may remember the picture from our second ever blog post!
Poor air quality or data quality?
One thing we would usually recommend is to check the PM2.5 levels in your local Breathe London node if you live locally. It is usually pretty obvious - a weekend when the weather turns colder will often see a sharp increase in particulate matter in residential areas. However, we are not sure whether something might have gone wrong with our node, with some readings over 220 micrograms per cubic metre last weekend. The Breathe London team is still investigating!
We tested it against AirTrack, although we realised too late to check it on the days of the spike. AirTrack showed fairly consistent PM2.5 levels with the node over the last few days. So perhaps the spike was real - potentially even caused by some nearby woodburning or bonfires.
Feedback loop
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PM2.5 concentration has green comparison and red St Matthew’s squares but only red in the graph.