Date published: 2007/03/06
The BBC says:
Tens of thousands of people are dying early because of where they live - and the government is not doing enough to address the problem, a report has said.
The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution says obesity, air pollution and traffic accidents all contribute to lower life expectancy.
The report says these problems are worse in towns and cities - where 80% of the UK population now lives.
It calls for an "over-arching" strategy on urban environments and health.
Members of the commission visited 11 British cities and towns to conduct their research, including Edinburgh, Swansea and Belfast.
And they concluded that the stresses and strains of urban living contribute to tens of thousands of deaths each year.
They say in 1995-96 air pollution resulted in 24,000 people dying on average eight to 10 months earlier than they would have done.
The report says: "Major issues include climate, obesity and mental health.
"Most of these problems are not unique to urban areas, but are important because of the high numbers of people living there and the aggravating impact of factors associated with urban areas, such as high levels of vehicle emissions, poor housing and a lack of good quality green space."
Members of the commission were "astonished" to find the government did not have an over-arching strategy to deal with the pollution impact of housing, transport and energy use in towns and cities.
The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP) is one of those dreadful quangos that has to constantly justify its existence by writing reports claiming the world is at an end. If you asked the people of Britain where environmental pollution figured on the list of the most important problems to face the country, it would barely rate a mention.
The members of the commission are all from the academic middle class. As such they reflect the usual views of that class. In particular, they make the usual claim that cars are allegely the source of all evil on the planet. They even use the obnoxious phrase "wicked problem" about cars, and have a cute graph showing how cars allegedly have only negative and no postive features. So a perfectly balanced report then. The non-workers of the world never have understood the point of cars.
On the housing front, the commission recommends that ordinary people should be forced to live in high density housing, since allegedly that is so much more "sustainable". This is the mentality that brought us the disasters of 1960s and 1970s housing. Of course they claim it will all be different this time around. If it is better this time around, it will be no thanks to the academic middle class.
On other issues they only report the usual things that have been reported over and over again (e.g. water is a problem in southern England, who would have thought it). There is not one novel idea in the report.
The UK wastes far too much money on these kind of vacuous reports and not enough money on science and engineering (including construction technology).
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