Fighting Dirty

George Monbiot rails against the Pollution Paradox. This paradox notes that the dirtiest industries have the greatest incentive to invest in politics. Politics, consequently, comes to be dominated by the donations and powerful corporate lobbyists of those industries (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/22/air-pollution-lobbying-politics-ulez). Monbiot points out that contaminated air poisons almost everone in Europe. 'Dirty industries', however, fight dirty to deceive folk into accepting pollutants as a part of their lives. He notes there's seldom mention of the fact that, a major source of highly-damaging particulates (PM2.5s), is ammonia from farms. This ammonia is a byproduct of keeping intensive livestock. Farmers admit they spread the resulting faeces and urine on the fields, largely to get rid of it (rather than as a necessary fertilizer for crops). In UK cities, ammonia from farms is actually the biggest source of particulates. In London, Birmingham and Leicester, agriculture produces respectively 25, 32 and 38% of their particulates. This is a bigger proportion than the cities generate themselves. It's been estimated that halving UK ammonia emissions, would save circa 3000 lives a year. In spite of this, the National Farmer's Union has successfully resisted all current attempts to reduce the impact of its ammonia generation. Leaving farmers free to dish out more dirt.