Breathe: Seven Ways to Win a Greener World

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I’m only a few pages in, but I can already tell that this book participates in a really exciting new direction for nature writing — one that accommodates fatigue and illness as well as strong, striding bodies. More than 90 per cent of air pollution-related deaths occur in low- and middle- income countries, where laws are ineffective or not upheld, vehicle emission standards are less strict, and fossil-fuel-burning is more widespread.

Combining wit, sass and great writing, it tells the story of a female scientist and her struggles in a male-dominated environment. Khan cleverly organises the book into the attitudes-or obstacles- to issues like air pollution that are viewed and displayed- from Fatalism and Apathy, through Deprioritisation and Hostility and Cost and bookends the text with the story of Ella Kissi-Debrah, who is the first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death.

Khan fails to mention that two London borough councils, Redbridge and Harrow (both then under Labour control) removed their Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs). A disproportionately large number of pages in the book are given over to events in cities like Accra, Ghana, which apparently has a huge problem with illegal toxic waste. And yet, until my Marathon experience – and my first meetings with Rosamund – I’d barely known about air pollution. Sadiq Khan’s first book is ostensibly structured as a self-help title in the vein of, say, Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.Why would Hillingdon be his favourite when it is Conservative-controlled, has thankfully not installed any LTNs, has challenged the ULEZ, voted to leave the EU, includes Boris Johnson’s constituency and its postal addresses are entirely Middlesex? All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of LSE British Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Since becoming Mayor of London in 2016, he has declared a climate emergency, introduced the world's first Ultra-Low Emission Zone, and turned London into the first-ever 'National Park City'. Air pollution and global warming are largely caused by the same thing: greenhouse gases, particularly from transport, industry and power generation.

Or at least we sincerely hope that democracy acts as a brake on some of the remedies proposed for climate change, which are clearly worse than the disease. And yet here I was in Glasgow Royal Infirmary, half of my body in suit trousers and the other in a hospital gown, waiting to be told if I was going to be admitted for urgent treatment.Energy production – the main cause of greenhouse gas emissions – causes 85 per cent of airborne particulate pollution and almost 100 per cent of nitrogen oxide emissions. Owing to an accident of geography then, your life span may not be equal to someone else in another area of the same city, simply owing to air pollution levels alone- and the impact of this is worse for the young with their developing lungs.

While Khan outlines the problems associated with air pollution, the book also fails to provide any solutions to tackle these issues. But to be fair, Khan admits that opposition to “green” policies was greater in 2021 than in 2016, although inevitably, he doesn’t say why. Facebook sets this cookie to show relevant advertisements to users by tracking user behaviour across the web, on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin. Passionate and authentic' GQ 'Refreshing and galvanising' Vogue 'Rousing and thoughtful' Independent 'Quite the page-turner' Evening Standard To win the climate war, you first need to win the climate argument.Then, aged 43, he was unexpectedly diagnosed with adult-onset asthma – brought on by the polluted London air he had been breathing for decades. Mark Billingham’s The Last Dance is a police procedural that sparkles with humour, interspersed with a brutal double murder and the grim realities of modern law enforcement.