I live in the Peak District in view of Kinder Scout to the East. You would imaging that we have clear air here. Indeed we do when the weather is not so good, but that changes when the sun is bright and the weather is hot. The wind is generally from the West and that brings fumes from Manchester, Liverpool and everything between. The ultra-violet rays from the sun act on the fumes and turns them into photochemical smog. When the weather is really hot and bright we see Kinder through a light-blue haze. The fumes catch your throat.

You can't really say something like this kills someone when death is usually the cumulative results of many factors.

If you fall off a cliff you know that the landing injuries caused death, but here we are talking about rediculous figures pulled out of the air. People don't breath the fumes, drop dead and have a post mortem which finds exhaust fumes were to cause.

Edited by Hamsafar on 20/07/2013 at 18:34

Neither can you say that smoking a cigarette will do the same but we all know what the possibilities are if you are a regular smoker of them or are those just figures made up by the same health officials who warn about diesel pollutants?

Health officials should be reporting data from air quality monitoring stations-and that's it.

Typical diesel exhaust is different in composition to typical petrol engine exhaust, but not necesarily more deleterious to public health. It is facile to single out one particular pollutant and ignore all the others.

These are estimates of the effects of airborne particulates from all anthropogenic sources. This includes brake dust and tyre debris (and of course non-vehicular sources).

A lazy assumption often made by statisticians is that diesels generally produce more particulate matter by mass in their exhaust emissions (DPF notwithstanding) then they must be the bulk contributor to airborne PM2.5.

It is the evolution of the particles once they leave the exhaust pipe that matters, not the mass of the particulates in the exhaust stream.

DI petrols can often emit larger numbers of particulates than modern diesels although the total mass of the particles is initially small.

Particulates grow in size by absorbing hydrocarbons in the atmosphere-the presence of which is largely due to petrols.

Modern petrols with stop-start and direct injection exacerbate this problem, whereas modern diesels alleviate the problem with particulate traps.

These nuances are often missed by statisticians and policy wonks.

The thick cloud of yellow clag that sits over Belgium, where oil-burners have been de rigeur for decades, disappears like magic when you cross the Dutch border, where diesels are subject to a super tax on both purchase and use and petrol still rules the roost.

Didn't do much for air quality in US cities, did it?

You didn't have to be a genius to predict that effect, just someone who'd driven from the channel ports to NL in the right weather conditions any time in the last twenty years.

The thick cloud of yellow clag that sits over Belgium, where oil-burners have been de rigeur for decades, disappears like magic when you cross the Dutch border, where diesels are subject to a super tax on both purchase and use and petrol still rules the roost.

Clag is no respecter of national borders. That's why easterlies bring us pollution from the European mainland.

While not doubting what TC is observing I suspect there's a geographical feature in play, perhaps the Schelt and other inlets, dispersing pollution differently at their Northern and Southern limits. Or perhaps refining along the Rhine delta has some effect.

It's not just diesel.