Letter: Turn your engines off

I want to ask the people of Taipei to understand something very important. Air pollution is a serious problem in this city: thousands of motorcycles, cars, taxis, buses and all manners of gasoline-powered vehicles drive the streets everyday and pump thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide and other poisonous gases into the air. These gases cannot be seen but this does not mean they are not there.

Everyday, the people of this city breathe in this air and with every breath they take they are damaging and slowly destroying their lungs, hearts and bodies.

But, they cannot feel it because the process is slow and takes time. Eventually, though, the effects of these poisons will be felt. For some people, however, the effects can be felt more readily. Take children, for example.They breathe faster and take in more air per kilogram of body weight than an adult. This means that with every breath your child takes, more poisonous air is entering his or her body than when you breathe.

The elderly are also at greater risk. Their fragile bodies, like children, are more susceptible to the effects of this air, effects such as respiratory illnesses like asthma and cancer.

Everyday, I see people sitting in their cars on the side of the road with the engine running and they are not going anywhere. Everyday, I see long strings of taxis waiting at the side of the road, hoping some one will get into their car and want to go somewhere, all the while with the engine running. This is not just one or two minutes and then they drive away, no, this is 10, 15, sometimes even 20 minutes of waiting; waiting with the engine on.

Every day, I see this and I wonder to myself: Don't these people realize what they are doing? Perhaps if they did, they would shut their cars off immediately. If they knew that they were killing everyone that walks past them on the sidewalk. If they knew that every minute the car is on it is slowly destroying the engine of the car. If they knew that sitting in the car also harms their bodies.

I want to let the people of Taipei understand that this is a deadly thing they are doing and it must stop. It does not benefit anyone or anything.

Sean Irving

Taipei