my air pollution research

so it seems that i have come to a pretty conclusive point in this research. on finding the report oxford submitted to the national transport office i have been pretty angry. first to work out why i am so incensed:

1. it seems like the authors of the report are blatantly lying about the air pollution problem, in fact worse than lying, they are conceding there is a problem but writing about it in a way that 'it is a minor thing and we've got it under control anyway...oh and we don't actually care much about your objectives defra because what we don't see we don't care about and we don't see people dying of air pollution.'
   
2. air pollution is also hyped as being an important thing in the introduction, but then reading the whole report it is clearly just lip service as air pollution is given around a third less importance than tackling congestion
3. and if you think, 'well that's okay isn't it because by tackling congestion there will be less air pollution' well that's the trick. congestion is normally solved by road building and oxford's greatest folly which has been allowing rediculous numbers of highly polluting and dangerous diesel powered buses onto the streets.
   
4. then i get angry because i imagine the types of people who make these reports, old codgers who've churned out exactly the same kind of thing for the last 30 years. they are doing the same because that's all they know and they are making a power point to the little fresh young thinkers in the environmental departments (who they are law-bound to work with) that they know transport

so with that expressed (not out yet) what are the lessons learnt:

1. this is where G Bush comes from, grass-level incapability of creating an economy that is not oil-based
2. total disregard for health issues because rich people can afford to live in big houses in the country where the precious clean air is. and what's more they can drive in to town in their SUVs to pick up their kids from private school and a couple of items from the shops
3. that committees cannot make brave decisions
4. that this country's democracy is in a sorry state
5. that politicians are the people we should all feel most sorry for, those attention-seeking kids with no saving grace who we prop up in their adult life to stop them taking drugs

what can i do?

1. go see someone responsible for the transport report
2. follow up with phone calls the people i have written to i.e. evan harris, air watch, defra, oxford city council, oxford county council
   
3. go see my mp evan harris
4. write a newspaper report
5. start a web site, especially if wikipedia won't let me keep the air quality page
   
6. start a campaign with support from some advisory group like foe
7. i could also present to the ICT for local government on how to improve their web site
   

i need to pull together the medical facts too, since this is the main thing that is mis-represented

questions that need answering:

1. how many people responded to the local transport policy document and was this a representative group
2. why are the local government web sites so bad
3. how did air pollution get pushed down the agenda and why does the report downplay the data recorded by oxford airwatch
4. find out where the report is now, contact who is reading it and point out the errors
5. map the interests of people in local government to policy development by getting their CVs