BlaRo
Little Nudger
I am sitting in the Emergency Room of Androscoggin Valley Hospital in Berlin, NH, hunched over a machine that is delivering Albuterol via humidified oxygen, directly to my constricted lung passages.
It?s a routine to which I?ve become accustomed, over the past 30 years. And it?s one which too many of us who suffer from asthma and other lung diseases know all too well. Anyone who?s ever endured a full-blown asthma attack can tell you just how terrifying it can be. And rightly so?each year over 3,000 people die as a result in our country.
So, when the news broke this past week that VW had duped the EPA and, therefore, every one of us, with their emissions testing slight-of-hand, I took it personally. VW?s willful disregard of the law is a direct assault on my health. By cheating on the EPA test, nearly a half million of their diesel passenger cars are today spewing up to 40 times the allowable levels of nitrogen oxide?a pollutant known to be especially dangerous for those of us with a lung disease. It is an act of violence against, as Frank O?Donnell, the President of the DC-based advocacy group Clear Air Watch called it, ?The breathing public.?
I bought a 2015 VW diesel. I also suffer from Asthma. Boy, am I ticked off.