Stuttgart residents sue mayor for "bodily harm" caused by air pollution

On a frosty Friday evening at the end of January, after her usual walk around her central Stuttgart neighbourhood, Susanne Jallow felt an unusual cough and irritation in her throat.

Jallow, 54, lives in Neckartor, an area chock-a-block with residential buildings hugged by a busy road, B14, which handles around 100,000 vehicles a day.

Neckartor is a hotspot for air pollution, not just in Stuttgart but in the whole of Germany. PM10 values (coarse dust particles between 10 and 2.5 micrometres in diameter) recorded on sensors installed in the busy intersection of B14 often hit around 200 micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m³). EU standards set the top limit of safe PM10 levels at 50µg/m³.

On this particular evening, however, Jallow came home and checked the readings on a sensor hanging from her balcony, provided to her as part of an open data citizen initiative called Luftdaten (“air data”), and found that it had recorded 300µg/m³.

Keen to draw attention to the scale of Stuttgart’s problem, Jallow and her neighbour Peter Erben – both members of local citizens’ forum BI Initiative – lodged a criminal complaint on 23 January against the city’s mayor, Fritz Kuhn, and the district president, Wolfgang Reimer. The complaint accuses the officials on two counts: bodily injury with death as a consequence (due to air pollution), and lack of assistance.

Susanne Jallow and Peter Erben. Photograph: Prathap Nair for the Guardian

The issue was immediately picked up by local media. “We wanted to highlight the bureaucratic apathy of the city administration. There is a pressing need for more proactive measures to combat air pollution. The existing ones are inadequate,” says Erben.

He suspects other neighbourhoods in Stuttgart are just as in danger of air pollution from PM10 and nitrogen dioxide as Neckartor is. “Right now, the official explanation is that only Neckartor suffers from bad air in all of Stuttgart. I don’t necessarily think that is true.”

Popular resistance to air pollution in Stuttgart has been ongoing for more than a decade. In the autumn of 2004, two of its citizens approached the court seeking redressal from air pollution and fine particulate matter. The government reacted by introducing a truck transit ban that did little to control PM levels. In 2008, a Neckartor resident filed another lawsuit – and the court, in its ruling, noted that no effective measures had been taken to address the city’s poor air quality.

The concept of Feinstaubalarm (“fine particulate matter alarm”) was introduced in January 2016 to mark the days when the city’s air pollution exceeds EU limits. On these days, the city administration urges residents to stop using their wood-fired chimneys and utilise public transportation rather than cars – tickets are reduced to half price as an incentive.

Last year, Stuttgart breached the EU’s daily permitted PM10 levels on 63 days – almost double the allowed 35 days.

“Combustion residues, mainly from diesel engines, as well as the abrasion of brakes and tyres, are the main reasons for these high PM10 values,” says Dr Ulrich Vogt, head of the Department of Air Quality Control at Stuttgart University.

A foggy view of Stuttgart. The city’s dense population contributes to the air pollution. Photograph: Alamy

One reason for Stuttgart’s heavy traffic is that it doesn’t possess any ring roads, so much of the traffic passes straight through the city. In contrast, Munich has three ring roads.

“Another reason we have such a high concentration [of air pollution] is that everything is very, very densely populated,” Vogt says. “Stuttgart west has the highest population density in Europe. There are no broad avenues here, only narrow street canyons.”

But the problem is also geographical: Stuttgart’s city centre is located in a basin, surrounded by mountains on three sides. “We do not have good ventilation and hence no way of diluting the air pollutants,” Vogt adds.

Winter brings further weather-related issues: “We are now experiencing a phenomenon called temperature inversion. It acts like a lid, trapping cold air in the ground without allowing for exchange,” explains Dr Ulrich Reuter, an environment counsellor with Stuttgart’s Office of Environmental Protection.

From Reuter’s office window on a late January afternoon, the city’s landmark Fernsehturm (TV tower) is shrouded in thick smog. “I hope it will be possible to bring down the pollution levels,” he says. “But I’m afraid it’s not possible without restrictions.”

“The politicians are satisfied with Feinstaubalarm without considering any other action,” says Jallow. “Why can’t we have a ban on vehicular traffic on pollution days, like Paris and Madrid?”

Protests against air pollution in Stuttgart in 2016. Photograph: DPA Picture Alliance/Alamy

But such a ban would be controversial in the industrial city home to major manufacturers including Porsche, Daimler and NeoPlan (the maker of Man buses and trucks).

“I think it would be fatal,” Thomas Bareiss, the commissioner for energy policy, told a local newspaper. “Even the discussion about driving bans will lead to the destruction of [Stuttgart]. There are more intelligent ways to tackle the fine dust problem.”

But according to Julia Pieper, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Transport for the state of Baden Württemberg, of which Stuttgart is the capital, traffic restrictions are being considered for next year.

“In the eventuality that the 2017 limit values are not met, traffic restrictions on individual days are planned for the year 2018,” Pieper told the Guardian. “In doing so, the affected area is kept as small as possible.”

In the month of January alone, the city experienced around 25 of the acceptable 35 Feinstaubalarm days – so restrictions look certain to be introduced next year.

No threshold

The grubby, soot-laden walls of the grand old houses that sit along B14 in Neckartor bear the tell-tale signs of air pollution.

“You can only imagine what the lungs of people who live inside those houses look like,” says Erben, rubbing his fingers across the soot. An acrid smell hangs heavily in the air, resulting from the emissions let out by the cars hurtling past the busy intersection.

Experts such as Vogt and Reuter agree a reduction in car traffic is the most effective measure for improvement of air quality. “Every microgram per cubic metre of PM10 is unhealthy,” Vogt says. “So there is no threshold value or lower limit [of acceptability].”

There is certainly growing awareness of the issue among Stuttgart residents. Luftdaten is in the process of installing low cost, crowdfunded sensors across the city to measure PM levels, much like the one on Jallow’s balcony.

“I wanted to build cost-effective sensors, given the less than reliable government data and coverage regarding air pollution,” explains Jan Lutz, a social entrepreneur who runs Luftdaten’s website.

“But I think in five years Stuttgart will be like Detroit or something, because there is simply no innovation,” he adds. “The automobile industry continues to produce more cars, which is basically two tonnes of steel transporting a 70kg human. It’s an overkill, and not sustainable in the long run.”

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Stuttgart residents sue mayor for "bodily harm" caused by air pollution

Bodily Action Improves Heart Rate Variability In The Elderly

A new review in Circulation offers fresh proof that bodily activity is advantageous to the heart in folks aged 65 and older. Benefits were observed the two in elderly men and women who reported the highest amount of all round physical action and in these who elevated their physical activity in excess of time.

U.S. researchers evaluated heart charge variability (HRV) employing serial 24-hour Holter monitoring in 985 older grownups over a five-year time period.  They identified that higher total leisure-time activity, strolling distance, and walking tempo have been every single connected with a lot more favorable HRV indices. HRV has been previously shown to predict cardiac danger.

Elevated bodily activity was also connected with additional measures of enhanced cardiovascular threat, such as a more healthy circadian pattern. Any bodily exercise “is much better than none, and far more is far better,” write the authors. The final results were constant with previous research in younger populations.

Bodily Action Improves Heart Rate Variability In The Elderly

The Oh-So-Deceptively Basic Secret To Bodily Fitness

Most individuals want to be physically fit. It’s a single of life’s intrinsic joys. If there was a fitness pill—something that builds power, versatility, stamina, body awareness and lots of other very good stuff—everyone would get it. It would be the blockbusteriest of blockbuster medication. But, no shock, there is no this kind of pill. Cannot be. The only path to fitness is to get match. And what I want to do here is share 1 indispensable and deceptively straightforward fitness secret. That is proper, there is a secret to fitness everyone wants to know.

But 1st, ahead of the huge reveal, let’s note that not everyone agrees fitness is its very own reward. They believe when it comes to physical exercise this total intrinsic worth issue is a bunch of nonsense. Ok. They need to know that fitness is also linked with plenty of very good stuff: creativity, more youthful skin, longevity, emotional comfort, eyesight protection, plus plenty more. The “Well Blog” at the NY Occasions regularly reports on the regular stream of study documenting fitness benefits.

The wall at Nimble Fitness, a fitness studio voted by CitySearch as the top site for private training in NYC.

Also, getting fit tends to make men and women more productive and successful, as evidenced by the “healthy company” movement.  There are workplace applications created to incentivize fitness that do not just lower healthcare costs they help worker fitness. For illustration, JetBlue Airways reportedly provides a $ 400 bonus to those who total an Ironman triathlon.

Of course, there are lots of factors not to try out. Many individuals really feel fitness is unattainable, or not worth the problems. There is even proof that some people inherent a propensity to get pleasure from workout. And that implies other people do not, producing it tougher for them to take pleasure in all that fitness gives. For some exercising appears to conflict with pleasures and habits 1 definitely cannot dwell without having, so why bother. Other people rebel against the onslaught of goods and plans, often pitched by perky people or athletic gods, that inspire loathing and envy as much as a need to start just performing it.

But once someone knows the about to be exposed secret all people obstacles get started to drift away. And here it is, the secret: commence exactly where you are and demonstrate up. That’s appropriate, displaying up is the secret.

For some, exhibiting up indicates walking about the block a few instances every single week. Somebody else might get a trainer, or start off with a Pilates teacher. Other people are hopping on bikes or jumping in the water for a swim. Or perhaps taking dance classes or going for hikes. No matter what you need so you commence showing up is excellent point.

It doesn’t matter exactly where you commence. Just start off in which you are, and show up. Present up so fitness gets to be program, just like schedule private hygiene. If you habitually display up at the sink to brush your teeth then so also can you display up for what ever occurs to be your current fitness action. And we know from tons of research on habit formation that displaying up these days makes it less difficult to show up tomorrow, even with the occasional ache or soreness or sore muscle. After you start, momentum builds.

There you have it. Demonstrate up. If you are previously exhibiting up then bravo, keep it coming, And if not, effectively, tomorrow is another day, one more opportunity to display up for the joys and benefits of fitness.

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The Oh-So-Deceptively Basic Secret To Bodily Fitness