Green Times

The Issues
It’s hard to get away from climate change in the news and even though we don’t have the ‘pea-souper’ fogs we used to, air quality is still an issue in Reading and elsewhere.Reading has recently experienced extremes of hot weather, water shortages and severe flooding.

Climate change will increase the chance of these happening more often. Although across most of Reading the quality of the air is good, there are some areas close to busy roads where pollution levels are higher than they should be.The Work so Far
In March 2006 Reading Borough Council signed up to the Nottingham declaration on climate change, pledging to work with partners in the community to reduce carbon emissions and prepare for the consequences of climate change. The council has carried out a full audit of its own emissions and Cabinet agreed a Carbon Strategy and Reduction Plan in June 07 which we are now implementing.

In September 2006 Reading Borough Council declared six air quality management areas, close to busy roads with higher levels of air pollution where we need to introduce measures to improve the quality of the air.

Your Part
We at Reading Borough Council are now in the process of developing local action plans for air quality and climate change and would like to know what you think should be done. Although air quality and climate change are closely linked sometimes they conflict, for example wood is a renewable resource so using it as fuel can help with climate change but burning it inefficiently can contribute to poor air quality. So we may have some tough decisions to make.

Many of us are aware of things we feel we “ought” to do to help the environment, so we’re also interested to know what you would like to do differently and what you think would make it easier for you to make these changes.

Source: Reading Evening Post