CLEAN CITIES, CLEAN ELECTIONS, CLEAN AIR, CLEAN POWER: MAYOR GIULIANI cleaned up the streets of New York..go one better London Mayor - Clean up the AIR!

New York - the Green Apple? - under green(-ish) Republican(!!) Governor George Pataki N.Y. is way ahead of most of Europe in its deployment of state-of-the-art electric cars, buses, trucks, transits...

New York Sewage Power! 'NYPA' is one of just a handful of companies worldwide( Portland, Oregan is another ) now using hydrogen extracted from sewage waste to feed a state-of-the-art fuel cell electricity generator. 
Visionary NYPA chief Zeltmann also sees clean localised micropower  - including solar power - as the 'way to go'...

  Yep, Ken, the voters' favourite does it standing up...the 'wheelie' cool way to dodge his upcoming congestion charges.

• Not wishing to labour the point...but they say leaders are what they drive:
• "You Can Tell World Leaders By Their Cars".(Jonathan Glancey, Detnews) - see EVUK's HOTWIRE...
The Chrysler 'Grand' Voyager 'people-carrier' (well, what else?) gets Tony Blair's vote, whilst Transport and Environment Minister John '2-Jags' Prescott defiantly gives a non-integrated finger or two to the clean-air lobby with his personal..er..'energy-saving' choice of luxury 'people-barriers'. No surprises there then - two politicians mis-leading by example. They've even given up preaching what they never seem to practise anyway.

• Yes indeed, when it comes to the environment, Tony Blair is more about hot air than clean air - he'd surely turn 'green' - but only with ENVY - if Ken cleans up in London.

• 'CLEAN DRIVING' licence:
So Ken, why not supercharge your street cred by canvassing in a clean and stealthy electric vehicle?
(note: we have decided to keep pre-Mayoral Election comments in situ - just for the record, i.e. "We backed Ken!!").

• Leading by example...will Ken set the pace in the mayoral race and drive the DaimlerChrysler Epic EV??

• L.A. Airport uses 11 of these electric vehicles with plans to increase their fleet to 50 to save cash/the planet..when will London turn on to clean power??

• Was Ken's Green Alliance just a 'get-elected' ploy?
• Will his"Loves-Labour-Lost"(...loves Labour, lost Labour) dilemma tempt him already to put party loyalty before voters' eco-worries? Or will he literally 'drive home' the clean-green message with a clean-green Stealth Machine - like the vote-winning Epic?(see pic - the electric, clean power version of Blair's own..er..'people-carrier')?? In our dreams....

• Tony Blair still chooses fossil power, why not choose clean power?
Just think of the green..er... brownie points!

"But please - Ford, Nissan et al: don't just forcefeed Europeans with WORTHY but NERDY little eco-shoppers designed to deter mainstream car-buyers!!
TH!NK VAR!ETY, TH!NK CHO!CE!!"

   London Police get their skates on...
• London's Royal Park police get roller blades..US Police departments - over 130 - prefer electric bikes, for stealth/health. When will Britain's car-besotted police catch up with America's electrified bike cops?

• Sulphur dioxide: exacerbates bronchitis, causes tightening of chest - serious threat to children and asthmatics.

• Oxides of nitrogen: tightens airways, also exacerbates asthma. Camden Local Authority reports:"levels of nitrogen dioxide, the main traffic pollutant, have steadily increased since monitoring began there in 1992. Although the increase is small each year, it shows that technological improvements to car exhausts, made in 1993, had little effect on reducing pollution levels. This is because the increasing number of motor vehicles on our roads together with the ever worsening slow-down and stop-start effect completely outweighs any reduction in pollution which might be expected from cleaner exhausts."

• Benzene, toluene and xylene,1,3 butadiene: benzene is linked with 5,000 cases of cancer every year - so potent, in fact, its use is banned in laboratories. These gases give petrol its familiar smell and are known carcinogens. There are no safe levels. As with genetically modified foods, the cumulative effects over an entire human lifespan are unknown: the majority of research until now has been carried out on mice. Mice, unlike humans, live to the ripe old age of two.

• Carbon monoxide: deprives blood of oxygen and can lead to drowsiness, chronic exhaust-ion (possible link with ME, TATT?), headaches, dizziness: inhaling too much causes death.

• Potent particulates of lead, other metals and petroleum coke or soot: particulates are microscopic bits of carbon which have absorbed heavy metals and carcinogens. How they attack the body depends on the metal. Enough of them can induce neurological dysfunction and premature death.It is the   cumulative effect of particulates that does the damage.

• MTBE: Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether. 'It's been shown unequivocally to cause cancer,' says American lawyer currently suing big oil on behalf of well-owners. MTBE is a petrol additive/lead substitute and known carcinogen used to enhance engine performance. It was introduced as a result of the Clean Air Act passed ten years ago by the US Congress to oxygenate petrol - allegedly making it 'cleaner'!!
  According to the Environment Agency, 14 million gallons of MTBE-enriched petrol are still being sold each year in the UK alone - and as in the US is thought to have entered deep into the country's water-table....so, can we now expect armies of Erin Brockovich-style Class Action Heroes and Heroines (see also article Brockovich: Chromium 6/Toxin? )to soldier forth and start suing the oil giants and automakers for gross environmental negligence?? Or will America's blind love for the car once again provide the auto industry with that familiar special immunity from prosecution? Where is the public outrage as with GM foods, CJD and mad cows, Insiders and Big Tobacco lies, mobile phone radiation etc. etc?

• Overall, 51% of the filth in our air comes from transport. In our cities the figure can be as high as 80%.

New Scientist Magazine calculated the following statistics all related to air pollution in Greater London alone over a 24 hour period:
 • 27 deaths
 • 40 hospitalisations
 • 9,400 asthma attacks

• 25,000 deaths (St George's Medical Hospital statistics) in the UK occur as a result of air pollution-related diseases. But hey...don't despair! BBC Radio 4 assures us (report March, 2000) that 'small cars are SAFER to drive than most people think'. What comforting news for mask-wearing cyclists, pedestrians, and mothers with 'exhaust-ed' children in pushchairs.....( See Bubble Buggy - the wondrous air-cleansing pushchair).

• Traffic Pollution is "Top Public Worry"
According to a survey carried out by the Centre for Environmental and Risk Management (CERM), University of East Anglia, pollution is a 'top worry' among Britain's voters. Why, then, is such a miniscule percentage of the media's - and politicians' - focus devoted to this major problem? On the contrary - they're all falling over each other to resuscitate the EXHAUST-ed carmakers of Longbridge and Dagenham. Pollution? What pollution?!?

• In a 1998 address to the world's top automotive engineers at The 6th Annual Environmental Vehicles and Alternative Fuels Conference in Michigan, the US DoE's Thomas Gross quoted a Red Cross study which estimated that air pollution in the US taxes the economy $50 billion dollars a year in health care costs.
• In California alone air pollutants from cars cause 20, 000 - 40,000 deaths a year and 50 - 70 million annual 'respiratory-related restricted activity days' (from publication: Health Effects of Motor Vehicle Air Pollution, 1995 Inst. of Transportation Standards, University of California, see "Sprawl: Points of View").

    EV's really are 'Viagra on wheels...'
"Die-hard petrol-heads and Ferrari Testosterone-arossa fetishists, take note: - clinical studies show that noxious emissions(..vehicle,that is) can DRASTICALLY reduce your sperm count. Add to this the fact that in-car fumes are 3 times more toxic than outside your car. So, to really boost/hold on to your manhood...TURN ON to electric power!"

• Microsoft : Auto Industry - when is a monopoly not a monopoly?
When an industry's separate(d) companies compete on a cosmetic, superficial level but join forces, close ranks, collude and, yes, conspire to prevent and stall any changes and innovation they see as a threat ..When can we expect those valiant champions of the free market and free competition, Janet Reno and the US Justice Department, to hit on Detroit's Big Three Carmakers for 'anti-innovative' smoke 'n' mirrors practices in failing for decades to develop or adopt a non-toxic, zero-emission alternative to the Internal Combustion Engine?? As far as we know Microsoft's wickedly, heinously 'anti-competitive' products do not result every year in hundreds of thousands of hospitalisations and deaths around the planet...
The US Government has pressed the "ITS GOOD TO DEMONIZE" button in respect of BIG TOBACCO and Microsoft...can someone please explain the automakers' logic-defying lawsuit-immunity? The words 'standards' and 'double' spring to mind...

• Take a look at Electrifying Times's almost-hilarious EV questionnaire. Note especially Question 4: '...cost of gas is about $.05/mile, EV's around $.03.' With UK petrol still at 4 times US prices, UK drivers should be roughly 4 times angrier than US drivers that real EV's are steadfastly kept out of the news and out of the media!...Angry/fuming yet, UK ICE-suckers?!

• Spread the message, wear the T-shirt - logo: "Have a N.I.C.E. Day!/ SuckAmps!/End the ICE Age Now!"

• Learn to drive in an EV and get a "clean driving" licence.

• Help us by phoning the TV/Radio PHONE-IN's!! Phone the car-dealer freephones.

• Argue with petrol-heads - especially when they say things like "EV's just displace pollution" or "cars are much cleaner today"... etc - yawn - etc....

• Want to buy an EV but can't afford it? A POWERSHIFT grant will subsidise cost of long-range EV's - if you can smuggle one into the country!

• Why not email 'Red' Ken - the UK's Greenest Mayor and let him know that you back his clean transport..er..drive?

Leading 'Clean' Local Government Authorities (LGA's)

These LGA's show a real commitment to reducing emissions and with the exception of Westminster are involved in the little-heard-of Europe-wide Zeus project: eight European (why only 8?!!) cities are testing low/zero-emission vehicles. (Unfortunately, long-range vehicles - Lithium-ion or NiMH - are still nowhere to be seen).

: Camden

: Sutton

: Merton

: Southwark

: Westminster

See our Links page for other UK Authorities with forward-thinking policies aimed at improving air quality.

See "Rawstuff": Zero Emission Alternatives : USA way ahead of the UK

• We'd also love to put together a 'bottom 10 or 20' list of environmentally brain-dead councils - so please send your nominations our way.
• Indeed - why not try phoning your local council's Environment Department and 'innocently' asking them how they're getting involved in emissions reduction programmes such as 'ZEUS', 'ALTER' and 'CLEARZONE'.

• Ask if/when they'll be introducing low/zero-emission zones like Camden, Sutton and too few others?
What electric vehicles are they looking to acquire and what do they think of the longer-range electric cars like the lithium-ion powered Nissan Altra that received great reviews even in the UK motoring press.

• Dazzle them with your knowledge but expect a torrent of excuses...

• Why not Irritate and Embarrass your local Nissan dealer with an 'innocent' inquiry along these lines:..."Hi...I've been reading rave reviews on the web about the electric Nissan Altra....120 miles a charge..cost around £1.50. Why are they only available in the US and not here?? With our petrol prices and pollution problems it should be the other way round, shouldn't it??...especially with Nissan's flagship European Technology Centre being located in Sunderland an' all." Be prepared for stunned silence followed by an endless list of long-debunked excuses such as: "...no infrastructure, public would need to be educated about electric vehicles...no public demand..etc..". P.S: Don't believe a single syllable.

• A SHOUT OUT to UK and international visitors: We'd like to set up an international top twenty links page so if you think your town/city/district deserves a special mention or commendation for a particularly brilliant, clean, zero-emission initiative, tell us about it and we'll include it. Wir sprechen deutsch! On parle francais! Hablamos espanol!

• If you have any informed and original comments - with or without witty wordplay - please send 'em warp speed our way and we will use 'em to aggravate, agitate stir 'n' shake ...or whatEVer!

• You'll notice that a lot of EVUK's content is US-sourced. And of course this is precisely why we've set up EVUK! i.e. to compensate for the near-VOID of ZEV coverage in Britain's traditional car-lobbied media. End the EV taboo!!

last updated: 28/3/2001.