Air pollution letter to Kent on Sunday

Letter to Kent on Sunday:

Dear Editor,

Terry Hudson's claim that the huge death toll from air pollution is a lie is frankly bizarre. He claims that the science is flawed while stating that he isn't a scientist. It is easy to shouts "lies" at things that you don't like to hear but the death toll from air pollution, a significant proportion of which comes from traffic, must not be allowed to continue.

He is right to claim that the figure of 29,000 deaths each year is wrong though. This is the number of deaths from just one of the pollutants: particulate matter, if you add in NOx then the figure is around 50,000. These figures are from  scientists who work for the government, a government that should have a desire to suppress the truth of the air pollution problem rather than exaggerate it.


While scientists can make mistakes, these are usually isolated examples rather than large bodies of evidence from multiple sources. The evidence on air pollution and its primary sources is well understood so let's not argue about facts, let's try to find solutions to reduce the number of people dying because of the pollution that our vehicles pump out.

We must stop using the air that we breathe as an invisible sewer. It is killing us.


Stuart Jeffery, Co-Chair of Kent Greens