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Speaker 1: Ear pollution is gradually getting better in New Zealand, but

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Speaker 1: much of the ear we breathe is still more pollution

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Speaker 1: than The World Health Organization recommends doctor Guy Coulson as

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Speaker 1: the director of the Ear Quality Collective. He's with us

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Speaker 1: this morning, Good morning, you is ear so bad here

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Speaker 1: order to kill us?

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Speaker 2: Sorry? Say that again?

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Speaker 1: Is the ear so bad in New Zealand? It could

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Speaker 1: kill us.

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Speaker 2: In some places? Yes, I mean generally air quality in

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Speaker 2: New Zealand is very very good, you know, but there

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Speaker 2: are small pockets where we could do better. And our

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Speaker 2: best estimate at the moment is that something of the

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Speaker 2: region and three thousand people die each year as a

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Speaker 2: direct result of air pollution where they live.

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Speaker 1: How do we know that these people die from air pollution?

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Speaker 1: And do they live literally next to a motorway?

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Speaker 2: You can't. I can't give you their names and addresses

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Speaker 2: on anyone's death certificate that they died of their pollution.

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Speaker 2: This is a statistical measure, if you like. We know

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Speaker 2: from epidemiological studies around the world that an increasing level

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Speaker 2: of air pollution leads to an increasing number of corresponding

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Speaker 2: number of death. So it's a statistical association that as

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Speaker 2: air quality increases, the number of people turning up our

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Speaker 2: hospital or dying will go up as a function of that.

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Speaker 1: This motion concentration, this gradual improvement in our air pollution

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Speaker 1: thanks to what cleaner cars, heat pumps and things. Is

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Speaker 1: this a good thing? Does this name? We're sort of

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Speaker 1: on the right track.

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Speaker 2: It's going in the right direction, definitely. Yes, it's just

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Speaker 2: happening rather slowly. So when our air quality legislation came

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Speaker 2: in about twenty years ago, there were a lot of

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Speaker 2: places that were very bad. They improved rapidly till they

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Speaker 2: met the legislation and then for the most part improvement

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Speaker 2: from there has been very slow. But yes, we then

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Speaker 2: what's doing in the right direction, But as usual could

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Speaker 2: be better.

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Speaker 1: Where is the best place in New Zealand if you

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Speaker 1: do worry about pollution? Where's the place of love?

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Speaker 2: Out of the main town centers. So if the large

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Speaker 2: town centers like Auckland, Wellington, christ Churchs have a traffic

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Speaker 2: pollution problem, and then small towns in the rest of

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Speaker 2: the country, particularly sort of South Ireland.

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Speaker 1: I think we just lost them. Yes, I think we

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Speaker 1: have two anyway. That was doctor Guy Colson, Director of

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Speaker 1: Equality Collective. The interesting thing about the Equality Collective. So

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Speaker 1: he was part of a bunch of guys who were

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Speaker 1: employed at Kneewha to look at ear quality monitoring. They

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Speaker 1: who got fired made redundant because of changes there. He's

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Speaker 1: now gone and set up with his buddies an independent

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Speaker 1: group and they are contracting back to the government. He says,

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Speaker 1: at the moment, the government doesn't have any ear any

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Speaker 1: ear quality monitoring experts on hand twenty. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: suppose just go out somewhere in the country and the

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Speaker 1: wind and breathe if you're really feeling, you know, if

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Speaker 1: you've got a bad chest issue, just don't live under

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Speaker 1: a motorway. For more from News Talk said b listen

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Speaker 1: live on air or online, and keep our shows with

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