“sending a child to school (for that matter
anywhere) in a non a/c vehicle for more than 30 minutes per day, will
drastically affect their health” (it most likely could shorten their life span)
Sri Lanka’s urban roads are choked with
traffic today, with the problem becoming increasingly dangerous in the past 10
years when the problem as more than doubled. Much of these fumes are either
diesel vehicle ones, or the fumes from 3 wheelers that are highly polluting due
to the lack of air purification systems like catalytic converters. We in Sri
Lanka are setting the stage for a catastrophe that no one has YET commented on,
(least of all the media) to the public, and if I am the first to make this statement, so be it.
The link below if proof were needed
shows how damaging diesel emissions are to your health. This has even led the
UK to ban diesel vehicles from 2020 within London, and we are still busily
importing them in numbers and have NOT converted even our urban buses to LNG or
Electric, both of which is a fraction of the cost of LRT and other transport
means currently being promoted.
Ingesting Diesel Fumes as the link
clearly shows can severely stunt the growth of the brain too!! So my headline
statement is NOT TO BE TAKEN LIGHTLY
Think about it! Comments and suggestions
most appreciated to begin an urgent
dialogue that will lead to decision making with the evidence at hand. It makes
the banning of Tobacco Cultivation which is in today’s papers a joke in
comparison.
Will this have an added benefit of
changing this current trend – the rush and competition to send your children to
the best Schools situated in the Center of many large cities as being the best,
especially in Colombo and Kandy where the air pollution is at its worst.
1 comment:
Please some sanity here, at least an immediate program of electric buses in the Colombo District local routes will immediately make a difference, as well as banning three wheelers completely within the Colombo District to begin with, however difficult a political decision it is and bring in electric vehicles without delay on concessionary terms before we cause a nightmare for future health costs, because we did not take basic precautions NOW
Post a Comment