Professor Hedley reacts to the Government’s just-launched air pollution video: “As expected, it’s mostly disingenuous bunkum.”
The Government just launched a new video to emphasize the harms of air pollution. We encourage you to watch it here, then read Professor Hedley’s comments about it below.
“This video is interesting from many points of view. While it has some merit in that it actually acknowledges problems like mobile sources, it mostly comprises of disingenuous statements that ignore the fact that the government itself can do more than the whole population can collectively, through legislation and mandatory action.
Examples include:
Spelling out the principal sources of pollutants such as road vehicles is no help when there are no effective measures in place to deal with them. Ensuring “adequate ventilation” for indoor spaces involves, for most people, drawing in heavily polluted roadside air.
The Environment Secretary’s current mantra “take public transport, especially on high pollution days” is a certain recipe for increased exposure for those who do so. The best approach to personal protection is to travel in a private car with the vents closed. None of us are advocates for private cars, but the current Hong Kong stock must be the least polluting vehicles on the road.
We are advised to take account of the HK API for personal protection, which even under the new proposed HKAQO, remains a totally ineffective instrument to drive enforcement and control of pollutants and reduce harm to health.
The repeated statements from the EPD about windless days failing to “dissipate pollution” and statements in the video about high buildings reducing wind speeds are inappropriate messages. We should not be suggesting for a minute that the environmental mess in Hong Kong should be blown into someone else’s jurisdiction. However, that is actually what is happening on most days of the year and it violates air quality standards thousands of miles away.”
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