pollution

Photo by MacRonin47

Make your ride home today a leisurely one. We're under "massive swath" of smog in southern Ontario.

On the Ontario Air Quality site, almost every city is either "moderate" or "poor" today. At 8:30 this morning, the yellow tinge was already evident over North York.

For cyclists, it's hard to follow the advice of avoiding strenuous activity, so we're left with trying to make our cycling as unhurried as possible.

Ride slowly. Coast often.

This is a sneak preview of a short film I am currently working on for the Planet in Focus Environmental Film Festival.

The short film leans quite a bit toward experimental video but what I wonder about most is the ending. It's meant to be kinda subtle, except for the title, of course. That's the punch line.
However, the audio accompanying the credits is what matters to me most. The audio consists of two overlapping sound effects, city morning and schoolyard with children. I am hoping that the viewer in a theatre would walk away from the film with a sense of what some of the devastating impacts of oil pollution might be...

Anyways, comments are welcome and with a bit of luck it will be in the Planet in Focus Festival later in the year.

Eglinton and Scarlett, by Vic
So far in 2007 there have been 73 murders in Toronto, and 42 traffic fatalities. But what you might be surprised to learn is that when the year is done, more than 440 people will have died because of traffic pollution.

That's the assertion made by Toronto's Medical Officer of Health David McKeown in a new report released yesterday. The report goes on to estimate that a 30% reduction in vehicle emissions would save about 190 lives and save 900 million dollars in health care costs.

Would you drive less to save 190 people?

Walking and cycling, and creating infrastructure to encourage people to use these modes of transportation are encouraged by the report.

Some of the suggestions in the report related to cycling include:

• Enabling safer year-round cycling through snow removal on bike routes and lanes
• Completing the 1,000 km of bike lanes in the Toronto Bike Plan
• More and higher security bike parking at work places and other destinations and better integration with public transit for longer trips