Nitrogen oxides kill people. The revelation that a massive company would install software in its products to avoid being caught by regulations designed to reduce the products’ harmful impacts on human health is still a shocking one. It is deeply shocking.
But given big industry’s record in knuckling down to regulation (tobacco and cancer, pesticides and environmental impacts) maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised. The difference of course in this case is that instead of fighting against regulation this case is trying to cheat that regulation once it is in place. But then maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised at that either.
A spokesperson for the Health and Oxygen Trust (H&OT) said ‘There’s no one who loves clean air more than we do – no-one. Can’t get enough of it. But you have to realise that landowners, sorry, industry, is very important and it knows best. We can’t let the clean-air, high-health zealots actually implement the law. What we have to do is remove the reason for the crime and we suggest a scheme, just a trial scheme, where NOx emissions are allowed to let rip, giving industry what it wants, and we’re sure that will persuade them to stick to the law everywhere else. You see, it won’t be a crime if we legalise the bad thing – it’s very simple. Industry knows best and it must be helped to respect the laws by breaking them – there’s nothing so respectful of the law as finding a way round it you know! That shows you really know the law is there. I regret that so many people take such an adversarial approach to this NOx issue, why can’t we all kow-tow to a company that breaks the law – surely we can all see that it knows best. This thing called progress, where bad things stop happening and good things happen more often, is all very well but industry is in charge and we’ve got to get along with it. And pay for it. Anyway, that’s what my mates say and they’ve all joined the Health and Oxygen Trust.’
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“It is deeply shocking.”
Not really. It’s commonplace and the inevitable result of the target’n’tickbox mentality in governments driven by populism using no or incomplete or corrupt evidence .
“in 2001 … Shadow Minister for the Environment, Barry Gardiner MP, … ‘Hands up, can I say there’s absolutely no question that the decision we took was the wrong decision … we didn’t have the evidence that subsequently we did have … we thought meant that any potential problem was a lower grade problem than the problem we were trying to solve of CO2.”
The Great Car Con: Channel 4 Dispatches 26 Jan 2015
Rumours the Health and Oxygen Trust are advocating the translocation of troublesome human groups away from areas needed by diesel vehicles, especially during the rush hour. Humans, they say, are known to roost in clusters referred to technically as towns or villages, and can in these scenarios represent a serious threat to diesel traffic flow.
They also point out there have been very few convictions of diesel cars and suggest that increasing nitrogen oxide emissions are likely due to just a few rogue exhausts. The Green Wash Car Trust (GWCT) welcomed their position.
Hugh – brilliant! thank you.
Meanwhile a new pressure group has appeared on the scene called You Forgot to Breathe (YFTB). Apparently financed by the motor industry, YFTB seeks to discredit anti-pollution campaigners. Amongst its claims is the assertion that asthma-related deaths are actually the fault of the asthmatics themselves who have neglected to breathe. YFTB is believed to be the source of a report in the Daily Telegraph that incorrectly asserted that air quality campaigners were about to be slammed in a government report for failing to prevent air pollution. The DT article argued that the fact that FoE and Greenpeace both have their main offices in London where air pollution is high and no offices in Caithness where pollution is low is damning proof of this allegation.
Jonathan – brilliant! thnaks
Finally some sense on this blog.
For 61 years these upper clash twits and their henchmen have been breaking the law and they aren’t going to stop so we law just have to give up and give them what they want (and change the name a bit).
Oh god, we just gave Philip Mericks the analogy he wants. Not the IRA but the fossil fuel industry.
I take it that Henry will be wearing a gas mask at Sculthorpe Moor for the AGM then?
You are sending him I trust? It’ll only be so much HOT air anyway.
Years ago, I worked (briefly) for a company that made (amongst other things) the cork-patterned paper that goes around cigarettes at the filter end.
They were very proud of part of their process, which used lasers to precision-drill rows of holes that were almost invisible to the eye.
I asked what they were for, and they explained that they let air into special channels cut in the outside of the filter to dilute the smoke breathed in as you inhaled.
They were what made the cigarettes “low tar”. The holes were only there for the test machines – in the dry machine that robotically smoked and measured the gases (including tar), they worked perfectly. As son as they were dampened by human lips, and pressed by human fingers, the holes and channels closed up, and the “low tar” cigarettes immediately became just as toxic as any others.
Caveat: this was over 20 years ago, they may have discovered a different way to cheat the system since then.