AU. POWER POLLUTES • It would be a worthwhile effort
Page 74
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
for the RI-IA to clarify exactly what is or is not an environmental issue. If Ms Hanna's letter (CM 2-8 November) is any guide, Transport 2000 would be greatly helped by such guidance. As with any emerging issue, it has become fudged as people attempt to load their favourite hobbyhorses on to the bandwagon. In particular, the Green movement is being overloaded with numerous urban and civic issues, some of which involve lorries.
The sole impact on the environment which results directly from a lorry is the exhaust gas which escapes from its internal combustion engine. This, however, represents a small part of the atmospheric pollution problem, albeit a particularly visible one: ships, aircraft, railway locomotives and industrial engines belch out huge volumes of pollutants, largely uncontrolled by legislation but which escape public disapproval by remaining almost invisible. While it may be right to use motor vehicles as the cutting edge of the quest for cleaner power, it must never be forgotten that greater returns (in terms of cleaner air) can be found by bringing all combustion engine exhausts up to the standards of motor vehicles – those of heavy lorries in particular.
There are two sides to the problem of atmospheric pollution: input from fossil fuel combustion and removal by vegetation. The rapid increase in carbon dioxide — one of the "greenhouse" gases — in the atmosphere is due as much to the reduction in forest cover as it is to motor vehicles. This, as many will know, is largely the result of clearance of tropical rainforest for short-term agricultural purposes by locals. The driving force behind that is the population explosion in the Third World — caused, in the main, by the impact on survival rates of food and medicine provided by the West.
Issues of environmental protection are complex and multifaceted as they are without the addition of unrelated issues. If Transport 2000 is really concerned with the environment it should do something about it: it could, for example, donate its subscription revenue to World Wildlife and Greenpeace who will do something useful with it.
Ralph Ingham-Johnson, Transport Consultancy Services, Thatne, Oxfordshire.