Pages

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

The right to clean air; it ought to be a thing



It’s time to press the panic button on the air we breathe in the Upper Hunter and there’s no time to waste.
At the Upper Hunter Health Forum (Tuesday 12th March ) presented by Dr Ben Ewald, Dr John Van Der Kallen and Dr Bob Vickers from Doctors of the Environment (DEA), we heard how air pollution is a major environmental risk to health and how it is killing us. 
We also heard that there is strong evidence that we can reduce illness and death from stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, and respiratory diseases by significantly reducing air pollution levels but … and it’s a big ‘but’ … we need political will and leadership from those who represent us.
With the NSW election only 3 days away, we have an opportunity to make a difference in our health outcomes by voting for politicians who take climate change seriously and who are prepared to transition quickly to renewable energy. 
The DEA doctors told us that stopping emissions from coal-fired power stations would immediately improve our health with fewer deaths, fewer incidences of cardiovascular disease, fewer low birth weight babies, fewer premature babies and fewer new cases of diabetes.
In a nutshell, choosing a politician prepared to deal with climate change would provide us with an opportunity to improve our health. We need to vote for this sort of a politician.
In the Upper Hunter, air pollution routinely breaches Australian national standards and nothing is done about it. Yes, there are monitoring stations and we monitor that we are steadily being poisoned but nothing is actually done to stop the breaches re-occurring. It is air pollution ‘Groundhog Day’ over and over again.
So, what to do! 
Hit that panic button and vote for the candidate who takes our Upper Hunter predicament seriously and who recognises that we have a right to breathe clean air … 
… and PS don’t forget to number all the boxes to get the most out of your vote!!!
(this post has been cross-posted at Scone Blogger)