What I Read this Week
From the Great Smog of London to the burning Amazon; Reform's war on young people; and Mark Carney's government of Goldman Sachs executives.
Articles
Air pollution in Amazon rainforest worse than big cities like London and Beijing, new data shows - The Independent
Air pollution was on my mind this week as I listened to a fascinating history of the Great Smog of London (check out the podcasts section below). I had no idea that the UK had suffered with such a significant smog problem until so recently. Even today, air pollution remains a challenge for the capital - particularly for low income residents and people of colour. So, when I saw the headline that air pollution is currently worse in the Amazon than in London, I had to check it out.
The article covers a study from Greenpeace, which finds that the Amazon’s 50 million residents are being exposed to dangerously high levels of air pollution. The main culprit is deforestation for activities like cattle ranching, which is achieved by burning down large swathes of rainforest. These fires release a fine particulate known as PM2.5, which, when inhaled, increases the risk of issues like bronchitis, asthma, and cardiovascular disease.
Greenpeace has found that thousands of people across the Amazon have been hospitalised thanks to conditions linked to PM2.5 inhalation. There are a few cities - like Porto Velho and Lábrea - where concentrations of the toxic particulate exceed WHO safety guidelines by more than 20 times. It’s the same story everywhere - those who have contributed the least to climate breakdown are the ones most affected by it.
Not long after reading this piece, I saw another headline: Low-income areas in England and Wales face worst air pollution, analysis finds. Levels of air pollution in London have fallen in recent years thanks to local and national interventions to tackle it: the number of neighbourhoods with double the levels of PM2.5 recommended by the WHO has fallen by 93% over the last decade. But, the neighbourhoods that do still have concerningly high levels of air pollution are more likely to be poor and ethnically diverse. Check out this stat:
At the start of the decade, 30% of those in air pollution hotspots were on low incomes, 20% were people of colour and 22% didn’t own a car. Now, half the population are people of colour, 48% are on the lowest incomes, and 60% don’t drive.
In total, the WHO estimates that air pollution causes 7 million premature deaths annually. The wealthy are better able to protect themselves from this blight - they can move to areas in which air pollution is lower. And the most polluting firms tend to set up shop in poor areas, where they think political resistance to their activities will be lower. But no one can protect themselves completely. If we want clean air, we’re going to have to work together to fight for it. Which is exactly what communities are already doing - just take Choked Up, a campaign started by black and brown London teenagers to fight for cleaner air in their communities.
Carney to present first budget after drawing cabinet from private sector - The Financial Times
Mark Carney, the new Canadian Prime Minister, has announced that he’s going to be filling government positions with private sector executives, including a few of his former colleagues at Goldman Sachs. According to this piece, the premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, said “Carney is the CEO of Canada. He has to run it like a business.” This piqued my interest because I had a whole section in Vulture Capitalism about the idea that the state should be run like a business. It’s a statement that reveals a lot about modern capitalism.
