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Running on a cold and frosty morning
It was a cold and frosty morning, so I went running, not for long, but just to get some exercise. I could see the signs of modern heating with flumes from gas condensing boilers, this early morning. Many years ago I would have seen chimneys smoking but I did not see any at all. The air was very still and the only smoke I saw came from car exhausts as I breathed in harder to get my breath as I ran. There were some other runners on the pavement. They nodded in acknowledgement, which is a rare gesture in a London where folk keep themselves to themselves. Well wrapped folk walked slowly to their cars and started scraping the ice from windshields. I breathed harder.
A cheery cyclist said “hallo” as I ran, slowly up a small hill. I breathed on to get oxygen to my muscles but the still air was not pure because the traffic from newly started cars pushed their fumes into the air. I run slowly and with effort. I breathe harder.
We have no choice but to breathe when we live. We cannot stop breathing when smoke or fumes are in the air, just temporarily hold our breath until the worst that we can see or smell has passed. London is the biggest city in Europe and is full of cars. It was once full of smokestack industries and sixty years ago in these cold still conditions was smothered with smog, a chemical mixture of smoke from coal and fumes, which killed many people. You could see the smog, which not only entered your lungs, because you have no choice but to breathe it, but made your skin and clothes dirty.
Today we do not see the pollution that we humans push into the air. We can measure it and the United Kingdom has entered into so called binding obligations to improve air quality, but recent studies attribute 8.3% of all London deaths as due to air pollution attributable to man-made particles. That is more than four thousand lost souls each year.
London has the unhealthiest air of any European capital city and the bad air affects hearts and lungs and I am running to improve the health of my hearts and lungs. It is an odd life.
Filed under: climate change Tagged: air pollution, cars, climate, particulates, running, smog, traffic, transportation 
2012-12-13 05:40:20
Source: http://robertkyriakides.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/running-on-a-cold-and-frosty-morning/
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