Look closely, it's the CN TowerWhen you live in a little town on Vancouver Island you don't get all the things that a Torontonian comes to expect. For example, we don't get to see the air we breathe. I'm not sure a Torontonian would breathe if he couldn't see the air first.
But there's good news. Pretty soon Torontonians might not just get to see what they're breathing but they might also be able to know just what they're looking at.
If the city's medical officer of health, Dr. David Mckeown, gets his way, Toronto could become the first city in North America to advise people what they're exposed to from their air and even where it comes from. Pretty cool, eh? From the Toronto Star:
"Most of Toronto's 11,000 businesses aren't required to keep track of the chemicals they use and pump into the atmosphere, the report notes. The city can't impose controls – that's up to the province. But shedding light on emissions should encourage companies to act, said Monica Campbell, manager of the environmental protection office at Toronto Public Health and one of the report's authors.
"Large industries must now report on about 330 chemicals to the federal government's National Pollutants Release Inventory.
"Their emissions have dropped by more than one-third since the system began 15 years ago. But that net catches only about 3 per cent of Toronto's sources.
"...two new sets of air quality data. Both suggest the city's air contains relatively high concentrations of chemicals that can cause cancer, breathing ailments or reproductive problems.
"One source was Environment Canada measurements at a handful of city locations from 2003 to 2005. Most spectacular was a single reading for chromium, a carcinogen, that was 1,150 times a benchmark set by California's Environmental Protection Agency – which establishes most of the continent's strictest standards. Three other chemicals had peak readings more than 100 times the benchmark. Average readings for chromium were 225 times the California standard.
"Five others were at least 25 times the benchmark.
"Lead, mercury and cadmium are the most worrying pollutants."
3 comments:
Great proposal.
We can boycott companies who are poisoning us if they don't clean up their act.
I'd also would like the companies doing this to explain why they felt it was ok to pump this crap into our air and why they never made an attempt to clean themselves up.
I am a little worried about finding out what they have been making me breathe the last 7 years.
My question, regardless of the value of this plan, what about the 90% of air pollution that comes via the industrial states along the Ohio valley?
You're right on the money, Neale. I found that out the hard way myself when I visited relatives at the Lake Erie shore two years ago. Within days I was off to the emergency ward thinking I had pneumonia. Turns out it was pollution-triggered asthma. This was in a small town and the air I'd been breathing was coming straight across the lake.
It has always surprised me that Ontarians put up with this environmental threat but they seem to be aware of it and yet just shrug their shoulders.
Makes me grateful for life's simple pleasures out here.
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