The recent and highly contested decision by London mayor Sadiq Khan to expand ULEZ (ultra-low emissions zone) from central to the outer London boroughs has already caused considerable political pushback. It cost the opposition Labour Party a by-election result. and played a part in encouraging Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to realise, perhaps rather late in the day, that the push to ban sales of new petrol/diesel vehicles in 2030 wasn’t a great one.
It is always wise to heed the Law of Unintended Consequences, and who better to raise that angle than the Institute of Economic Affairs, the think tank. A writer, David Starkie (not the right-wing historian, but another chap), has this:
“The extra ridership on the Tube due to the ULEZ is no doubt tiny compared with daily numbers using the network; this number, about 5 million people a day, is equivalent to more than half the population of the capital. Tiny the extra numbers may be, but these transferees from road vehicles will have their health risk increased as a result of the ULEZ-induced modal shift. Whether this was considered when calculating the statistical numbers of reduced deaths due to the scheme is unknown, but it is by no means apparent that it was considered.”
The article is written in the cool, measured tones of economics. Starkie talks about “modalities” and so on. To translate into blunt language, Starkie argues that people are being encouraged to avoid cars and take dirtier underground public transport instead. The deeper Tube lines are full of dust, such as metal particulates thrown up as wheels grind on the rails. The Tube also, so a friend who used to work for the Tube tells me, has a lot of poison to kill mice and rats. (Here is a page about the mice problem with the Tube.) Starkie notes:
Parts of the Underground suffer from serious air pollution, discovered following research in 2019 sponsored by the Financial Times. According to the newspaper, the deep Tube is by far the most polluted part of the city because of considerable particulate pollution from metal friction, clothing fibre, and dust in general trapped in the tunnels. And there is a lot of it. Using hundreds of measurements inside carriages within Zone 1, dangerously high levels of pollution were found, particularly on the deeper lines. All the deep lines (Piccadilly, Jubilee, Bakerloo, Northern, Victoria and Central) had particulate PM2.5 levels at least five times higher than the World Health Organization’s safe limit and much higher than average levels on the surface, (generally less than PM1.0) particularly in outer London.
In short, some Londoners and those entering or leaving the city on a daily basis are swapping their cars, and where air quality is pretty good, for the Tube, where parts of it have air quality that is far worse. Whatever else Mr Khan may claim about the the expansion of ULEZ, I doubt that a rigorous or honest consideration of air quality is what this is about. It is about raising money and bashing those who own cars.
“I doubt that a rigorous or honest consideration of air quality is what this is about.”
We already knew this though – they deep-sixed the studies that didn’t give them the answer they wanted:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/08/19/khan-tried-silence-scientists-questioned-ulez-claims/
It is really about “unintended” consequences of ULEZ – ULEZ, at least in its expanded form, is nothing to do with “the environment” – Mayor Khan, and the various organisations of which he is an active, member have no real interest in “the environment” in general, or the C02 is evil theory in particular – other-than to use these things as an excuse for what they want to do anyway.
ULEZ, and the rest of this agenda, is about power-and-control, getting people under the total control of the state and of “partner” corporations. All the rest of it, Global Cooling, Global Warming, or whatever – is just a means-to-this-end.
It is much the same with crime – first adopt policies that lead (quite deliberately – intentionally) to a massive crime wave – then, when people are desperate, present such things as cameras everywhere, and I.D. cards, and so on, as the solution.
It is an old trick – “bottom up” (chaos on the streets), “top down” (state tyranny – accepted by the people because of the INDUCED chaos on the streets), then “inside out” – the “fundamental transformation of society” as Mr Obama calls it (although the Gentleman did not invent this term – he learnt it from his mentors).
The end game is a matter of public record – there is no “conspiracy” as it is all out in the open. Most people, other than a small public-private elite, are to live in apartments in “Smart Cities” – they will not be able to go far, as there will be few private cars and the cars that do exist will have computer enforced limitations on where they go, and if they dissent, in word-or-deed, people will find they will have no employment and no way of buying food and so on.
Nothing “unintended” – as this is the intended objective, it has been for a long time. It is “Stakeholder Capitalism”, the “Corporate State” of “Public-Private Partnership”.
It is really about “unintended” consequences of ULEZ – ULEZ, at least in its expanded form, is nothing to do with “the environment” – Mayor Khan, and the various organisations of which he is an active, member have no real interest in “the environment” in general, or the C02 is evil theory in particular – other-than to use these things as an excuse for what they want to do anyway.
Paul, another way of putting it is that climate change alarmism, or “white colonialism”, or Israel’s alleged crimes, or “toxic masculinity” are often not real, or logically considered views and topics worthy of the amount of anger around them. They are instead attack vectors on civilisation, full stop. They are the ploys of nihilists, what Ayn Rand referred to as the “drooling beast”.
Indeed the folks over at “Order Order” aka “Guido Fawkes” have been running their own rather low scale investigation into pollution on the London Underground vs ULEZ for a while in an attempt to bring Mayor Khan to recognise the hypocrisy.
Guido Fawkes: Air Pollution on the London Underground
But as we all know, ULEZ ain’t about pollution, it’s about filling the financial black hole in London’s coffers caused by Mayor Khan pissing the money away like a drunken admiral.
A few years ago the government was trying to encourage people to walk, forgetting that walking is the second most dangerous form of transport.
I wonder what would happen if London’s outer boroughs were allowed to opt out of Greater London?
ULEZ strikes me as being similar to Disneyland closing its parking lots and only admitting rich people who stay in the $2000/night park hotels. Keeps out the riff-raff, preserves the city center for the rich.
bobby b – correct.
In the future the international establishment have planned – there will still be air travel, there will still be car trips, there will still be houses in rural areas.
But only for the elite.
The rest of the population will be in apartments in “Smart Cities” – with every aspect of their lives controlled by the state and “partner” corporations.
Food will not come from independent farmers – it will come from bio factories, factories controlled by partner corporations.
Remember the international establishment do not believe in Free Will (Moral Agency) – the pet philosopher of the WEF makes this very clear, so none of the above is a violation of freedom as freedom is an “illusion”.
I wonder what would happen if London’s outer boroughs were allowed to opt out of Greater London?
There’s a thought to conjure with.
Dear Mr Pearce
That nice Mr Khan’s useless law enforcement zone, also known as London, is probably enjoying the best air quality since Roman times.
Part 1 of a DIY air quality monitoring video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n01GckFEkck
Part 2 has a link to a website which shows monitors world-wide in close to real time.
A one-month-after-useless-day follow up video demonstrates some statistical resources on the monitoring website.
DP