Study: Air Pollution Is the "Major Culprit" of Heart Attacks

As we can read at GOOD Magazine:

"Think air pollution might give you asthma, at worst? It's a little more serious than that, according to new research in the journal The Lancet:

Air pollution triggers more heart attacks than using cocaine and poses as high a risk of sparking a heart attack as alcohol, coffee and physical exertion, scientists said on Thursday.
Sex, anger, marijuana use and chest or respiratory infections and can also trigger heart attacks to different extents, the researchers said, but air pollution, particularly in heavy traffic, is the major culprit..."

Report by Andrew Price, web editor.

You can read more here.

Reference sent by Uriel Fogué, Agencia de Arquitectura.

Image (cc) by Flickr user steven.buss, Smog over LA.

Flashmob in Madrid

Last saturday It was the 1st Flashmob against pollution in the center of Madrid!!!

You can read more at El Pais.

Images: Marina Fernández Ramos.

El ROTO, finally

We´ve been waiting, but he has finally done it:

"We realize that the air exists when we can´t breathe"

High pollution in Madrid and Barcelona

More news about the actual pollution situation in the cities at the national press:

El País: "The rain will clean the air, the politician wont"
El País: "Gallardón: We have the cleanest air of the last ten years"
El País: High pollution in Madrid and Barcelona
El Mundo: The plan for restrict the trafic that Gallardón never executed.
El Mundo: video: "The most polluted square".
El Mundo: video: opinion of the citizen.
El Mundo: "PSOE: the pollution affects all the community"
El Mundo: discussion.
El Mundo: "Ways to reduce pollution"


Image: El País.

Warning of high pollution in Madrid

Last night there were pannels at M-30 street asking the drivers to use public transport. There are high levels of pollutants in the city. The situation will stay like this for some more days becouse there is no rain or wind.

You can read more at El Mundo or El País newspapers.

Image: El Mundo.

Reference sent by Eva Moraga.

More cities will be investigated

The Environment Fiscal of Madrid, Antonio Vercher, will investigate the data pollution in other cities of Spain like Barcelona, Sevilla, Valencia o Bilbao.


"Ecologistas en Acción" declares that at least 8 more cities changed the location of their pollution detectors: Burgos, Córdoba, Granada, León, Ponferrada, Valencia, Valladolid y Zaragoza.


Click here for more information (El Pais newspaper).

The President of the Community of Madrid defends the Mayor

The President of the Community of Madrid Esperanza Aguirre defends the Mayor Gallardón. She says that the EU doesn´t ask to locate the pollution detectors in the most contaminated areas.



You can read more here (El País newspaper).



And click here for more information about the pollution in Madrid during the last days.



Image: El País.


Reference sent by Lucía Fernández.

Statements of the Environment Minister

The Environment Minister declares that the air quality in Madrid is very bad and urges the Council to "take urgent actions", like rearranging the traffic, avoiding it in some areas and improving public transport.

Read more at El Pais newspaper.

Image: El País.

Reference sent by Enrique Soriano.

Statements of the Environment Local Responsable

Ana Botella, the responsable of the Environment department of the Local Gobernment declares that the Air Pollution of Madrid is not dangerous for the health of the citizens.

She also says that the government is blamable for promoting the use of diesel cars.

You can read more at El Mundo , Público, ABC, El País.

Image: El Mundo.

The Environment Fiscal ask for responsabilities

The Environment Fiscal of Madrid, Antonio Vercher, asks Madrid Local Gobernment for an identification of the responsable people who ordered the change of the location of the pollution detectors in the city.

As we explained in other posts, some pollution detectors were moved to green areas (in order to get better data), so the air of the most polluted areas is not being mesured.

Vercher has ordered the collection of air pollution data in these points and they´ve noticed that It hasn´t been reduced.

Madrid is not respecting The EU limits for Air Pollution and there is not a real local strategy to reduce them.

You can read this new at El Pais newspaper.

Image: El Pais.

Statements of the Environment Fiscal

The Environment Fiscal of Madrid declares that the change of the location of the pollution detectors of Madrid demonstrates that the Local Government is ignoring an important problem of air pollution.

You can read more at El Pais newspaper. Also an old report of El Mundo.

Image: El País.

Bruselas stops the CO2 market

The 20th of january Bruselas stopped the market of CO2 emission rights (at least until the 26th of january) becouse there´ve been some informatic thievery.

You can read more at the El Pais newspaper.

Image: El País.