POLLUTION TRAIL
“For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some
Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands
of the Infidels.”
Henry David Thoreau, Walking, 1862
It is often said that walking is the true path to understanding – that it’s always best to have boots on the ground. The walker folds the landscape within themselves until sunlight transforms into a captured illumination. Unlike the walks of Thoreau however, we found neither solace nor anything to conquer during our sojourns in Hackney Wick, and not much we would want to absorb.
Instead, equipped with an air-quality monitor to guide us like a dowsing rod, we followed a pollution trail along the hidden peaks and floating valleys of brake dust, CO2, platinum, soot, vapourised diesel and rubber on a uneasy stroll through the neighbourhood. No psycho-geography, only pulmono-geography.
Annual Mean NO2 concentrations, 2013 and 2020 (projected), Greater London. Source: London Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (LAEI).
Annual Mean NOX concentrations, 2013 and 2020 (projected), Greater London. Source: London Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (LAEI).
Annual Mean NO2 concentrations, 2013 and 2020 (projected), Hackney. Source: London Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (LAEI).
Annual Mean NOX concentrations, 2013 and 2020 (projected), Hackney. Source: London Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (LAEI).
