RE: A Toxic Cloud in the UK: The Terrifying Lackluster Reaction of the UK and Why the US is Better

Thanks for the post. I'm a voluntary co-ordinator for the local group of Friends of the Earth and have been following this 'chemical haze' story for a while now. The finger of suspicion is increasingly focussing on the shipping in the Channel that day. Worth bearing in mind that the English Channel is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. I gather that 180 ships passed Eastbourne that day. Also worth bearing in mind that shipping causes a huge amount of toxic air pollution because ships are allowed to burn diesel fuel that is very high in sulphur content, very much higher than would be allowed by land-based diesel transport. For example, a medium-sized cruise ship can burn 150 tons of sulphur-rich diesel fuel a day, emitting more pollution than one million cars can produce in a day! I wonder how many cruise ships were in the Channel that day. If the weather conditions are right, much of that shipping pollution can blow onto Eastbourne. There was also a lot of ozone hitting Eastbourne that day, which was picked up by the local air monitors around Eastbourne, and it's known that pollutants like sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide (which both ships and cars emit) can co-exist and interact with ozone. Interestingly both sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide cause eyes to sting and burn, amongst other nasty symptoms. Don't get me wrong: there may have been a single ship that illegally discharged a chemical or chemical cocktail that caused the 'chemical haze' and it may be that current investigations may find a ship that did that. But there is an awful lot of pollution out there in the Channel anyway, legally permitted, and it was a Bank Holiday weekend with a lot of car traffic around as well, and a lot of ground-level ozone around because of the weather conditions. These are factors that I feel have not been adequately looked into so far, partly because we don't have enough air monitors locally anyway, and the ones we do have don't sample for sulphur dioxide. Financial cutbacks imposed by government upon public agencies like the Coastguard, Fire Service and the Police don't help, as that means less money available for air monitoring equipment. I and my colleagues spend a lot of the time campaigning for government and local councils to put a much higher priority on air pollution and environmental health generally. After all, we all need clean, safe, healthy air, all the time!