Comments on: PM10 is nasty stuff

By: Philip M Ward

Philip M Ward — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 06:05:28 +0000

To Peter McLean,

Your statistics are appreciated, However, you do not identify what these these deaths are attributed to, Old Age, Bird Flu, Anti Government protesting, or milk contamination.

Philip M Ward
PS Have you noticed the silence by BayBuzz on my accusation of them being the Publicity Arm of the Green Party.

I do hope they have either presented themselves to the Electoral Commission and sought permission to spend up to $100,000 on behalf of the Greens. Somehow, why am I reminded of the Exclusive Bretheren.

Philip

By: peter maclean

peter maclean — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:11:22 +0000

A quick google tells me Beijing pop 13,800,000
Death rate 5.1/1000
Thats 192.8 deaths a day
There you go
Useless question,useless answer

By: Philip M Ward

Philip M Ward — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:00:11 +0000

I have long had a suspicion that BayBuzz was the PR Arm of the Green Party, this article confirms it for me. Pure, unadulterated old fashioned political scare tactics. Sorry BayBuzz, but I think that most Kiwis have a maturity which shows it for what it is.

I have made personal examples that ridicule the hypothesis, and will happily provide to anyone interested. However, I would warn you that these have been dismissed as anecdotal evidence, and therefore carry no weight.

My reply to that is I am talking about real people known to me, living their long lives in an environment many, many times worse than experienced anywhere in NZ.

To Bay Buzz, a question, can you tell me why, in Beijing, with a population of 10 million plus, and a constant pollution level, day and night, day in and day out, month in and month out, with pollution levels measured in the hundreds, why there are not thousands dying daily ?

Or do you also want to classify the example of those people as anecdotal evidence.
Sincerely,
Philip M Ward
Greenmeadows

By: Maxine Boag

Maxine Boag — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 20:14:36 +0000

I’m with you Liz, particularly on the big question of how low-income residents will manage to stay warm in winter without being allowed to use their fireplaces or wood burners.

Let’s see some comparitive statistics on the costs to the taxpayer of having a significant proportion of the population (who can’t afford increased power costs) being forced to live in cold, damp, uninsulated houses; versus the cost of pollution caused by using fireplaces or wood burners.

And if we’re trying to restrict the discharge of pollutants into the environment by banning the source of such pollution, then why not ban motor vehicles! Why hasn’t that idea been mooted??

No, seriously, we need to work collectively with the community, central government, all local territorial authorities, the DHB AND the Power Trust, Tom, look at how we can keep people warm in winter without further polluting the air and driving low-income people further into debt.

By: Quentin Duthie

Quentin Duthie — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 05:34:07 +0000

Touche, Liz. About a year ago. I meant romantic in the way that movies often portray smoking. I dislike smoking immensely, for the record! You raise good points Liz. I think we all agree there is need to engage the community on the solutions.

By: liz remmerswaal

liz remmerswaal — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 04:00:54 +0000

First of all Tom. Let’s come clean.
I don’ know what kind of heating you have, or if you are sipping a chardonnay in front of your fire as you read this, but I do know that you won’t be affected by our HBRC rules for dealing with the air pollution problem because you live in the country.
Unlike me.
My family and I will be possible forced to get rid of our open fire in two years time, which will result in a change in lifestyle which disturbs us greatly.
In our home we all love sitting round the fire on the cold winter nights eating, talking, viewing, relaxing, enjoying each other’s company-Tom tell me what else compares with that exquisite pleasure.
Much of the wood is harvested from our own trees, or those of friends, and is a seasonal task we share and a chance for our children to directly participate in a chore than enhances their wellbeing.
It is something we have been doing for countless generations, in fact it is a primal desire and poems have been written about it….
‘When you are old and grey , and nodding by the fire, take down this book and slowly read and dream of the soft look your eyes had once…..( WB Yeats)
Yes I do want to be an old lady sitting round the fire- is that selfish?
Is it really essential to give up that pleasure when it is causing other people- and maybe ourselves- health hazards?
Or is it that the PM 10 emitting from our fire is minimal, if we use dry wood and don’t leave it going all night.
(It’s wet wood- recently cut and full of sap- which causes the most problem.)
Life is not that simple any more- when these government regulations were brought in circa 2004 we were mainly unaware of some of the big problems that are facing us now, like climate change, and the shortage of electricity. Alternative energies weren’t discussed readily as they are today.
Converting to so called ‘clean heat’ for many means installing a heat pump- if you can afford it.
One of the big effects of installing a heat pump is that your power bill goes up, another is that we will require more electricity, and not only in winter, but also in summer, as folks use their appliances as an air conditioner to cool air.
So there’s another problem. And I thought we needed to reduce emissions, not increase them!
Already we are using more electricity than we are producing, and to make more energy companies are talking about damming pristine rivers in the south island and drowning virgin rain forest- that’s what they mean when they talk about ‘renewable energy’, except that you can’t recreate West Coast’s Mohikinui Valley once its gone.
( Meridian energy wants to put an 85 metre dam there)
Power bills- yes we have noticed how it is getting harder to pay the bills. and one third of our residents are earning under $30,000 a year- so how fair is it to burden these people further? Many of them do save money on heating by gathering their own wood.
Insulating homes is another important facet of staying healthy- how many people die from the health effects of being cold compared with those that die from dirty air?
And how much money is going in to enacting this new legislation- say $40 million locally, which could be used to improve health standards in other ways, such as insulating homes, as the Greens have recommended. In Canterbury the regional council spent $10 million on administration costs alone when they dealt with this problem!
As a regional councillor, the HBRC is tasked with making all this happen.
My hope is we can all work together as a community in coming up with creative and proactive solutions including installing solar panels for electricity.
It has got to be better to avoid such nasties as the ‘smoke police’ which smacks of Berlin before the wall came down.
But how do you think we should handle this problem?
Watch this space…..
PS Quentin if you think smoking is romantic, when is the last time you kissed a smoker?

By: Quentin Duthie

Quentin Duthie — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:38:14 +0000

While there are significant costs to changing our heating sources in order to reduce PM10, but there are significant benefits to reducing the pollution. The difficulty for the community and Council is that the financial and logistical costs to residents are very tangible, while the health and environmental benefits of the change are intangible.

However, there is one intangible cost that is very real to many people – the primal romance of the open fire. This cannot be mitigated or replaced easily, but in my mind it is a sacrifice we must make for the health of our society. Smoking cigarettes has a traditional romance too, but at a large cost.

In moving to improve public health by reducing PM10, we must be careful not create new health and environmental costs, such as people being left with no heating option or new clean heating but no insulation and therefore high fuel/power bills.

Fortunately, the Green Party has established a $1billion “Green homes” fund for insulation and clean heating, which will go a long way to helping the community and councils to transition to clean heating and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality. See my statement of 2 weeks ago on this matter:
http://greenhawkesbay.wordpress.com/2008/09/16/greens-a-step-ahead-with-fire-funds/
Also see http://eeca.govt.nz/index.html