Newsflash: we are usually very polite and gentle, and wait till the end of our blog to do the promo stuff. But this time, there are around 18 hours and £15,000 resting on us getting votes in this competition. Please vote for Air Aware Labs!
Back to reality
Readers of this blog will know we’ve covered air inequality regularly (can we coin that phrase?) a number of times. Well, there is a new campaign promoting racial justice and air quality. Please sign to get your voice heard!
Just as a reminder, there is considerable evidence that areas of greater deprivation also have higher air pollution. This means that the impact of air pollution on ill health is hitting those who already might be susceptible for other reasons.
We were delighted to see some of our favourite campaigners be honoured in an exhibition at the Houses of Parliament this week. This drew on the Asthma + Lung UK photo gallery. Friend of this blog, Agnes Agyepong, was honoured for her work with black communities. Love Ssega, who is connected to the Clean Air for the Ends campaign, was also highlighted. And Anjali Raman-Middleton, founder of Choked Up, who Louise met recently, took centre stage.
Foreign air
David Lammy, our new Foreign Secretary, has also been getting in on the action, referring to the impact of air pollution right at the start of his first major foreign policy speech. He made the link between the communities in the UK who are most vulnerable to environmental degradation and the global picture, with countries for which this is an immediate existential crisis.
This is a far cry from some of the conversations Louise finds herself in these days. Trying to convince even ‘impact investors’ to fund work on the greatest environmental threat to health can be tough. Just this week a response came through “but people can just move away if they don’t like air pollution”. Sigh…
The global picture is challenging. We regularly see the statistic that 99% of the world’s population lives in areas above the World Health Organisation limits. For incremental improvements in the UK, the status elsewhere can be dire. We love the work of Rest of World to bring the struggles of ordinary people against air pollution to a global audience.
We are regularly reminded of the extreme poor air quality in India, notably Delhi. The air pollution there can be easily ten times what we see in the UK. And coming into winter months, combined with Diwali, we feel for its 33 million residents. A deep dive into India may be coming up, though we won’t be doing field research.