Michael Moynihan: Air pollution may not kill you off, but it may well reduce your life expectancy
A few days ago — wearing my sports hat — I referred in passing to the air quality in Cork, something that hadn’t come across my radar before.
I should have probably guessed in advance, though, that this was an area - like cycling or dereliction - with an informed community, and once I took an interest I found plenty of resources dealing with the subject.
And plenty of gloom, no pun intended. I found online air quality indicators which ranged from air quality in parts of Cork being “very poor” according to one measurement to another reading stating: “Health alert: the risk of health effects is increased for everyone with 24 hours of exposure” (for the evening of January 16th).
I decided to ask someone who’d know a simple question.
How bad can air conditions get in Cork?
“In Cork it can be very bad,” John Sodeau told me.
“It depends partly on weather conditions — if there’s not much wind around then the pollutants can’t be dispersed. Because of its topography the city of Cork sits in a basin and there tends to be quite a lot of solid fuel being burnt in fires, coal and wood, much like the rest of Ireland.
“In the last week or so it’s been prime set for some of the worst air quality in the country.”
That’s John Sodeau, professor emeritus of chemistry at UCC, and founding director of the Centre for Research into Atmospheric Chemistry. In other words, someone to take seriously on the issue, which is why I wanted to know what he meant by smoky fuel.
Isn’t that banned?
“I thought so too, until I got to know a bit more.
“Enforcement of the Air Pollution Act really ought to be done by the relevant councils, but they seem very reticent about prosecuting the two types of contributor to the air pollution.
“The first is the seller, the person selling the coal. The councils have the power to go and check if the coal being sold is low-smoke — there’s no such thing as smokeless, they all have smoke, and any smoke is dangerous — but they don’t do that.
“The other side is to use the polluter pays principle — the people who are burning the coal, who are equally liable. But local councils, not just those in Cork but all over the country, don’t seem to want to tread those paths.”
So, how dangerous is dangerous? I’ve been out and seen the mist form around the street-lights in Cork, but it’s a vague haze reminiscent of a Bogart film rather than a health hazard.
“You may not have a medical condition which is aggravated by this, but it’s these small particles in the air which are toxic and which can aggravate cardio-respiratory problems, and things like cancer, diabetes and dementia - as well as possibly inducing miscarriages.
“So while it may not kill you off, it may well reduce your life expectancy.
“In the old days of the Sherlock Holmes fogs and big-city smog, people could see a blackness about and would breathe in smoke and endure choking episodes. That doesn’t happen now so maybe people don’t feel it’s as serious.
“But we also know much more now than we did back then, and the one thing we’ve learned is that the truly dangerous particles are too small for us to see. They may be invisible to the naked eye but they can get into the lower lungs, our arteries and our brains.
“So you wouldn’t necessarily get a coughing fit, but in due course if they get into the body - into the arteries, for instance - they might cause a stroke because of the arteries seizing up.
“Air pollution might exacerbate the problems of asthmatics, or might affect the very old or very young - but don’t think you’re not affected because you don’t have an obvious reaction.”
In an age when people agonise over their food packaging, let alone their food, it seems surprising that there isn’t more awareness of this as an environmental hazard. Sodeau, who came to Cork about 20 years ago to set up up the CRAC with his colleague Professor John Wenger, feels that awareness is growing.
“From about 2015, we’ve come out with the Asthma Society and the Irish Heart Foundation to try to convey to the public the dangers of burning solid fuels.
“Dublin also has that problem but the level of traffic in Dublin means it has another issue on top of that - Cork obviously has traffic issues as well but they’re not as severe as Dublin’s.
“This seems to be getting more traction now as an issue, which is why the sports angle is a good way to consider air pollution. When you go to a game you may not be coughing but you’re still being affected by air pollution.
“Not much attention is paid to those events but while the players are quite fit, of course, the spectators are more at risk.
“They may be older, or children, or they may have asthma. That’s something that hasn’t been examined. Although if you’ve got a fire burning at home you might even be safer at the sports ground than sitting in your living room.”
With Covid, people have probably never been as conscious of the concept of ventilation and air flow. Sodeau acknowledged that, though he also raised a worrying possibility.
“There’s chemical air pollution, the particles from cars and solid fuel, and then there are biological particles, or aerosols, associated with covid.
"Everyone wants the healthiest respiratory system possible to combat infection by the coronavirus, but one area where a lot of research is being done is whether the virus can be transported by the air pollution particles.
“But even as the connection between them is being explored, why would you do damage to yourself in the first place by burning smoky coal?
“Perhaps the worst of all are the wood stoves, they’re the big problem.”
The danger posed in your own living room, of course wasn’t something I was conscious of. As Sodeau pointed out, if you live in an urban environment you’re going to have cars on the streets and you’re going to have chimneys near you: “If you live on top of a mountain it’s probably just you.
“But even in a rural area, if you light a fire it’s not just you you’re affecting, it’s your neighbours. You could say it’s safer on top of a mountain in that you don’t have neighbours — but if you have an open fire in your sitting-room it’s still not good.”
With restrictions easing everyone is looking to get back to normal. But in future if you’re strolling the Marina or the Lee Fields, should you maybe hang on to the face mask when you do so?
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