LET鈥檚 clear the air. Air pollution isn鈥檛 getting worse, at least not in most of the developed world. But our knowledge of its long-term harms is motoring forward.
Air pollution is the new smoking, but is more difficult to tackle because it is insidious and implicates us all. Anyone who runs their children to school in the car, jumps on a plane to seek the sun or even just shops in their lorry-supplied local supermarket is contributing to the problem.
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The good news is that air pollution鈥檚 effects are largely local, and with exceptions 鈥� notably aviation and shipping 鈥� can be tackled locally or nationally. Initiatives like London鈥檚 pioneering Ultra Low Emission Zone should be closely monitored to see if they work (see 鈥�London is cleaning up its dirty air, but will other cities follow?鈥�).
But such mechanisms are crude, and risk penalising the poorest people. True change requires individuals, companies and governments all to adjust their behaviour and put clean air at the heart of what they do.
Faced with incontrovertible evidence of risk, we have long adopted a zero-tolerance approach to unclean water. Just because air is invisible, doesn鈥檛 mean it should be any different.
