Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Dr Guy Coulson: Air Quality Collective Director on the amount of pollution in New Zealand

Transcript

Dr Guy Coulson: Air Quality Collective Director on the amount of pollution in New Zealand · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ear pollution is gradually getting better in New Zealand, but
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: much of the ear we breathe is still more pollution
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: than The World Health Organization recommends doctor Guy Coulson as
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: the director of the Ear Quality Collective. He's with us
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: this morning, Good morning, you is ear so bad here
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: order to kill us?
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Sorry? Say that again?
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Is the ear so bad in New Zealand? It could
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: kill us.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: In some places? Yes, I mean generally air quality in
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: New Zealand is very very good, you know, but there
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: are small pockets where we could do better. And our
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: best estimate at the moment is that something of the
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: region and three thousand people die each year as a
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: direct result of air pollution where they live.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: How do we know that these people die from air pollution?
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: And do they live literally next to a motorway?
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: You can't. I can't give you their names and addresses
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: on anyone's death certificate that they died of their pollution.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: This is a statistical measure, if you like. We know
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: from epidemiological studies around the world that an increasing level
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: of air pollution leads to an increasing number of corresponding
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: number of death. So it's a statistical association that as
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: air quality increases, the number of people turning up our
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: hospital or dying will go up as a function of that.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: This motion concentration, this gradual improvement in our air pollution
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: thanks to what cleaner cars, heat pumps and things. Is
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: this a good thing? Does this name? We're sort of
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: on the right track.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: It's going in the right direction, definitely. Yes, it's just
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: happening rather slowly. So when our air quality legislation came
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: in about twenty years ago, there were a lot of
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: places that were very bad. They improved rapidly till they
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: met the legislation and then for the most part improvement
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: from there has been very slow. But yes, we then
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: what's doing in the right direction, But as usual could
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: be better.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Where is the best place in New Zealand if you
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: do worry about pollution? Where's the place of love?
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Out of the main town centers. So if the large
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: town centers like Auckland, Wellington, christ Churchs have a traffic
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: pollution problem, and then small towns in the rest of
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: the country, particularly sort of South Ireland.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: I think we just lost them. Yes, I think we
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: have two anyway. That was doctor Guy Colson, Director of
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Equality Collective. The interesting thing about the Equality Collective. So
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: he was part of a bunch of guys who were
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: employed at Kneewha to look at ear quality monitoring. They
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: who got fired made redundant because of changes there. He's
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: now gone and set up with his buddies an independent
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: group and they are contracting back to the government. He says,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: at the moment, the government doesn't have any ear any
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: ear quality monitoring experts on hand twenty. I mean, I
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: suppose just go out somewhere in the country and the
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: wind and breathe if you're really feeling, you know, if
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: you've got a bad chest issue, just don't live under
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: a motorway. For more from News Talk said b listen
• 3:33
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• 3:36
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