53. The poison sky

I don't mean to worry you, but if you live in a city, the air you breathe is probably killing you. As many as 40,000 deaths a year in the UK have been linked to air pollution; the WHO reckons that, in 2012, it was a factor in one in every eight deaths around the globe. So, that's the cheery topic for this week's show: why the air is disgusting and what we can do about it. To discuss it, I'm joined by the New Statesman's environment correspondent India Bourke and our Wellcome scholar Sanjana Varghese. We also speak to Simon Alcock of ClientEarth, about the environmental law charity's ongoing efforts to hold the British government to account for its repeated breaches of European law on air pollution.Don’t have nightmares, now.Skylines is the podcast from the New Statesman's cities site, CityMetric. It's hosted by Jonn Elledge. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.