Air Pollution
Air Pollution Pandemic
The world is facing a pandemic crisis far exceeding Covid19, in number of deaths, as well as vast costs to our economy.
Air pollution kills millions of people every year. It's cutting life expectancy on a scale greater than diseases, wars and other forms of violence. Researchers say the world faces an air pollution ‘pandemic’. It's one of the leading causes of harm to human health affecting the physical, mental and psychological well-being. It is also greatly exacerbating global warming, which will kill millions more indirectly.
Unlike Covid-19, air pollutions deaths and other impacts are less visible, and less immediate. Unlike Covid-19, air pollution kills the old, the young and the middle-aged alike. As Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg famously said: A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.
Which Pandemic is more Deadly?
Apart from forward-thinking Sweden, most governments made a conscious choice in 2020 to shut down the global economy. Undoubtedly, this saved many lives, but at an onerous cost. The USA will pay $10 trillion in Covid-19 stimulus payments alone - solely related to the economic shutdown. If such eye-watering payments and government policy were directed at reducing air pollution, vastly more lives could be saved. Air pollution already kills 7 million deaths a year as it is, not even counting Covid-19 air pollution-related deaths. To save more human life years, we should reduce air pollution.
The Role of Transport
The World Health Organisation identifies transport as second only to energy production for being responsible for air pollution. It is a dominant factor, and (avoidable) traffic congestion is a significant part. Reducing traffic congestion (not just traffic) can thus save millions of people.
Solutions, Solutions...
There is a simple and almost universally accepted view by city planners - that congestion can be greatly reduced by congestion pricing. Which is easy to explain, but technically difficult to implement.
NeoMatrix is developing technology to specifically enable effective dynamic road pricing, redefining how vehicles are monitored for this purpose, and how privacy is managed. NeoMatrix has several novel solutions to assist in reducing traffic congestion.
The time to act is now!
