Call for stop to Shinrone Tractor run on Public Health Grounds
A local preservation group is calling on Offaly County Council, Laois/Offaly HSE and the organisers of the Shinrone Tractor Run to stop the tractor run on public health grounds.
Just Forests acknowledges and appreciates the great voluntary effort such fundraising events such as the Shinrone Tractor Run scheduled for Sunday 1st January, 2023, entail. However, these events are major contributors to public health matters.
The group says that reams of scientic evidence tells us that the burning of fossil fuels in combustion engines such as tractors and lorries is a significant contributor to air pollution.
The medical and scientific evidence couldn’t be clearer: increased numbers of children with autism linked to air pollution, increased adult deaths linked to air pollution, increased numbers suffering from acute respiratory distress in children and adults.
The tractor run was cancelled in 2020 on public health grounds namely the Covid pandemic. This time the justification for stopping the tractor run is more pressing according to Just Forests.
According to the Health Service Executive website: “Exposure to air pollution poses significant public health risks.” A variety of air pollutants have known or suspected harmful effects on human health and the environment. In most areas, these pollutants are mainly the products of combustion from heating and power generation, and motor vehicles.
Pollutants may cause problems in the immediate vicinity of these sources, but also can travel long distances and affect more people and places.”
At a time when our hospitals are overburdened and struggling to deal with increases in Covid and influenza the Irish Times reports that the “HSE secures private beds as hospitals struggle to handle ‘apocalyptic’ surge in respiratory illnesses.” The article goes on to say that, there are currently some 1,200 people in hospitals with respiratory illness such as flu, Covid-19 and respiratory syncytial virus(RSV).
The World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) concluded that ambient (outdoor) air pollution is carcinogenic to humans with the particulate matter component of air pollution most closely associated with increased cancer incidence, especially lung cancer. An association also has been observed between outdoor air pollution and increase in cancer of the urinary tract/bladder. Scientists tell us that fossil fuel combustion led to ‘8.7 million deaths globally in 2018.’
Of more immediate concern to people with children and the organisers of the Shinrone Tractor Run on the report of Just Forests should be the research published in April 2021, by Harvard T.H. Chang School of Public Health, Boston, USA, stating that, ‘exposure to fine particulate air pollution (PM2.5) has been linked with significantly increased risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children.’
Ecoanxiety is also having a significant impact on children’s mental health.
Just Forests would be very willing to meet with voluntary bodies to help them brainstorm new and exciting ways of raising much needed funds for their favourite causes.