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INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINES
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OIL SPILLS KILL MARINE LIFE - And the fumes from car exhausts kills us slowly when we burn it and release the carcinogens into the atmosphere to create smogs.
The Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) was a wonderful invention leading to horseless carriages that had longer ranges than the then comparable electric vehicles of the time.
The invention of the electric starter motor gave ICE powered carriages the lead, when there would be over once hundred years of carcinogenic fumes and particulates accumulating in our atmosphere, polluting planet earth and killing hundreds of thousands of humans.
Formula One and other circuit racing would draw crowds of people, sponsored by cigarette companies like Camel, John Players, Marlboro (Phillip Morris) and Rothmans, amalgamating greenhouse gases with tobacco fumes. Can you imagine a more harmful environment with exhaust fumes and tobacco smoke everywhere. People would take their children to these events!
We now have Formula E and a ban on smoking in public places, thank goodness. How long then before the internal combustion engine bites the dust?
FORMULA 1 BECAME SYNONYMOUS WITH NICOTINE
Even so, Formula 1 (F1) is still hooked on nicotine. A habit that is hard to kick. Apparently cigarette companies still sponsor the sport by the back door.
Once hooked on nicotine, F1 embarked on a series of spending bonanzas funded by a wide spectrum of tobacco brands – ranging from 555 through almost every letter of the alphabet – all willing to shell out ever-spiralling sums to punt their brands via F1’s burgeoning live and TV audiences. Budgets exploded, and a case could be made that nicotine, and not petrol, fuelled the sport.
Marlboro facilitated the take-over of a limping McLaren by Ron Dennis’s Project 4 outfit and paid Ferrari’s drivers’ wages before switching full-time to the Scuderia as the extent of Jean Todt’s ambitions became clear. Undaunted, McLaren snared West, and the former day-glo cars turned into Silver Arrows.
Williams put its Camel stipend to winning use by building the FW14B, arguably the most technically advanced F1 car ever. Mild Seven funded Michael Schumacher to his two Benetton world titles. The last F1 world champion to be visibly tobacco-linked was Fernando Alonso in 2006.
However, the ultimate expression of F1 as a tobacco marketing platform was realised at end-1998, when British American Tobacco announced – in anticipation of global bans on tobacco sponsorship – that it would fund a turn-key operation in Brackley, to be known as British American Racing (BAR), with one car entered under 555 colours, the other in Lucky Strike livery.
We hope that Formula 1 and all racing involving ICE engines is banned alongside the sale of new cars fuelled by petrol and diesel starting from 2030.
DETROIT
- CARS & TRUCKS
We wonder how long it will be before an Erin Brockovich legal crusader mounts a class action against the US Government or Governors of California, citing their failure to act in good time to prevent the deaths of innocent citizens who were led to believe that there was no alternative - when in fact all these politicians appear to have been in the pockets of the oil cartels and motor manufacturers.
Air pollution levels tend to be higher in UK towns and cities.
So why would anyone live there? The answer to that is they
need the work and the money - so are prepared to accept the
risk of a shorter life and painful death. And of course it
costs more to live in the country, where there are no
affordable houses. Councils like Wealden
make sure of that.
Cars that emit carcinogenic greenhouse gases or sooty particulates should carry a government health warning. It is amazing that they do not, and that there have been no class actions against the oil and car companies that led us to believe it was safe to drive in machines that convert fossil fuels to toxic gases.
Fossil fuels kill, it is as simple as that. Governments have known about this for as long as they have known about the link between tobacco and lung cancer.
In 2013, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) confirmed that outdoor air pollution is a cause of cancer. Tiny dust-like particles just millionths of a metre wide, called ‘particulate matter’, make up a part of outdoor air pollution. The smallest particles known as PM10 and PM2.5 are linked to lung cancers caused by pollution. It is not fully understood how these particles can damage DNA in cells and cause cancer.
Air pollution is a killer and the level of toxins can lead to several health conditions. Apart from severe respiratory conditions like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cardiovascular problems and hypertension, stroke, impaired mental health, anxiety, low birth weight babies, pre-term delivery and depression, air pollution can also be linked to cancer.
Pollutants in the air are absorbed into the circulatory system and pumped all around the body. They can also get deposited on soil, water, and other natural sources, increasing human exposure. In a recent meta-analysis, it was found that exposure to the main air pollutants is associated with increased mortality from all cancers1. For instance, radon, which is a radioactive gas, that can accumulate indoors is one of the leading risk factors for lung cancer.
LINKS & REFERENCE
https://www.racefans.net/2019/02/13/how-tobacco-brands-are-returning-to-f1-by-the-back-door/ https://cancerstatisticscenter.cancer.org/#!/state/California https://www.lung.org/about-us/blog/2016/06/lung-cancer-and-pollution.html https://doctor.ndtv.com/cancer/world-cancer-day-can-air-pollution-be-linked-to-cancer-our-expert-tells-2171604 https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-smog-3444125 https://www.verywellhealth.com/air-pollution-and-lung-cancer-2249413 https://airnow.gov/ https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/air-pollution-radon-gas-and-cancer/how-can-air-pollution-cause-cancer
This website is provided on a free basis as a public information service. copyright © Climate Change Trust 2020. Solar Studios, BN271RF, United Kingdom.
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