On the other hand, covid-19 hasn't caused yet as many deaths but we quickly intervened, as it should be.
Why can't we, as a society, react with the same effectiveness to air pollution?
- [0]: https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/40/20/1590/537232...
In the UK at least, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) is a powerful lobby group. Car sales are used as a key economic indicator. Cars have long been seen as aspirational and a measure of personal success. Cars support other sectors of the economy such as civil engineering (roads, bridges), petroleum sales and car accessories, parts and repairs..
Cycling and walking on the other hand? Not so much, despite the many benefits. Just recently, there has been a move in some areas to introduce low-traffic neighbourhoods and create more cycle-ways. The hoo-ha has been deafening. It causes congestion, it blocks emergency vehicles, it increases air pollution because cars are at a standstill. (According to critics.) Newspapers have been running stories about how evil and undemocratic this is, and dear old Nigel Farage seems to have re-invented himself as an anti-cycling campaigner.
I don't think there's an actual conspiracy - there usually isn't. But the status quo serves the interests of some powerful and wealthy groups, and it takes a strong-willed government to overrule them. They'd rather hand-wave about meeting 'green' targets by 2060, and meantime hope that electric vehicles arrive in sufficient numbers to eliminate or ameliorate the problem. The alternatives cause so much political friction that they seem impossible to implement, at least without more courage than our politicians are used to showing.
During lockdown, back in April and May, there was a noticeable difference in the air quality. It felt different. When we went out for a walk you could also tell the difference in noise pollution from there being so few cars on the roads. It was lovely.
There is a church nearby that we can sometimes hear when the bells ring on the hour at night but during lockdown we could hear them during the day. My wife commented back then how she knew when the area had "returned to normal" as she could no longer hear the church bells when she had lunch in the garden.
And almost nobody gives a fuck — when you try to discuss it with someone, you either get a blank stare, or "stop exaggerating, it's no so bad" (by which they mean "you don't drop dead right away (unless you're asthmatic)".)
A single badly maintained diesel car produces as much pollution as thousands of legal new cars.
Same goes for trucks -- the low in air pollution you felt was likely not due to less cars but less trucks (and possibly busses, depending on where in Europe you live)
The Covid frenzy reminds me something that happened in my friend's village.
Four small apartment rooms burned down affecting four people.
The village went into a frenzy of help and concern. They had multiple fundraisers to raise money for the affected. Local news would go to local businesses to film them putting together care packages. People on the street would be interviewed about the disaster where the interviewee would quickly sneak in what they're doing to help the cause. The local news cycle was deep-diving on the history of each affected person to show what a good person they were, and they were filmed receiving all sorts of gifts and comically large charity checks. Facebook feeds are constantly lit up about the disaster and how everyone can pitch in a hand.
Two months later some living quarters burn down killing one and putting twenty people out of a home. But it barely even makes the news and nobody really utters a word over it. The village has already blown its concern load.
We humans have this weird laserbeam of attention, and what it will focus on is a true lottery, and when it focuses on something it ignites it and it burns to a crisp and it gives us our fill for a while, and we ignore everything else.
Sometimes it feels as though we have only so much for others' plights before we run out and only have enough to focus on our own. I'm not sure.
People seem to love their cars more than their health, and other measures like modernizing heating don't seem to have much traction.
well ain't that some shit. How is that crap legal??
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/19/india-suffers-...
On the other hand the neighbour's lawnmower would often send clouds of burnt oil through the yard requiring a frantic closing of all windows.
> 800k yearly premature deaths caused by pollution[0] and still not care at all
The deaths are diffuse and happen all over so there's not a huge panic about it because it's hard to spot. Also 'air pollution' isn't the listed cause of death so people have to make the extra step to link the huge number of knock on effects back to the cause. Even when you do there's a lot of push back from well paid lawyers to argue that there's no direct link between the pollution of their clients and the fact that communities near their factories die 5 years sooner than anyone else.
> covid-19 hasn't caused yet as many deaths but we quickly intervened ... Why can't we, as a society, react with the same effectiveness to air pollution?
COVID is acute and new which means we haven't grown systematically numb to it's effects yet so there's the chance for a very pointed response. Even now though there's people arguing the same line as polluting industries, that the numbers are skewed and people with other conditions didn't die because of COVID but should be listed as dying because of their heart disease/respiratory problems/etc.
It also helps that no one is in the business of COVID and in theory once the vaccine is widely available and COVID is just another occasional background illness things will largely go back to normal. To address pollution on the other hand you have to permanently make whole swaths of industry either vastly more expensive (and therefor less profitable) or practically eliminate them. Those get a lot of push back of course.
Lockdown South American nations have had about the same COVID toll as non-lockdown nations.
Same when you look at individual US states.
Doesn't seem to be much of a link between lockdowns and COVID - but a heavy link between lockdown and economic and social devastation.
The virus will follow its own seasonal trends, impacted by herd immunity, as every respiratory virus has.
Edit: Y'all so predictable.
It's the same with covid too, it's the government which had to force close the economy.
The issue is the right people feeling threatened for their lives. As soon as you can convince rich people that their survival is at risk, and they can't just fly off to another planet or live in their own biosphere somewhere in the Alps, something will be done.
The closest school to me in London is next to a busy road with twice the legal level of no2, you can see all the buildings along that road are noticeably blacker from exhaust smoke.
While electric cars may help a bit, rubber from breaking and tyres is an issue, and cares have been getting much bigger over the last 5 years.
The efficiency of combined use of trains, electric buses and bicycles dwarfs electric cars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport
I'm sure this will pass in a surprisingly short amount of time but for the moment I'm glad that I can work from home and doing so has the lowest environmental impact I can muster.
In what way are they an issue?
Tyre emissions are around 1/20th of the PM2.5 ejected from the exhaust and the airborne proportion is even smaller.
Edit:
"Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants" has a fairly non-commital "needs more study" finding but they did say "Non-exhaust particulate matter (PM) emissions, ie from brake wear, tyre wear, road surface wear and re-suspended road dust currently comprise just under 10% of UK primary particulate emissions and they are expected to become proportionately more important, as vehicle exhaust PM emissions from road transport are expected to decrease over the coming years"
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
For NO2 I tried all the most expensive devices, and none of them worked :(
Dust and particular matter scares are definitely overblown. I live in zone 1, first floor with windows overlooking a small road, and I hardly ever saw PM25 level going over 2ug/m3 in a year I've measured it. Compare that to the safe long term exposure level of 10ug/m3 set by the WHO.
I live a few miles from steel mills, oil refineries, who take advantage of Lake Michigan, constantly polluting both air and water, occasionally dumping/"releasing" more toxic chemicals than permitted and don't raise the alarm for a few days: https://www.in.gov/idem/cleanwater/2576.htm, killing thousands of fish, closing water intake, parts of the National Park, etc. etc.
I've lived in Gary, IN since 2016, moving from the UK. A few weeks ago, a young lad from Gary died of a really rare cancer: https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/18/us/ben-watkins-masterchef/ind...
Last week, my 3 month old daughter got diagnosed with really rare genetic disorder called Kabuki Syndrome, on top of heart disease.
Who knows if either is/was caused by living so close to steel mills and/or pollution, but I'm skeptical. Did I cause/impact/increase/etc my daughter's condition by choosing to live next to a steel mill? I just have to accept that I'll never know the answer to that question.
I knew about Gary's history, but I really put it to the back of my head, I always thought it couldn't be that bad, could it? Or, I wouldn't be affected, would I? I knew the bad schools, crime, etc, I knew my wife and I would have kids, I always thought I'd deal with it when I'd need to deal with it, just didn't think it would affect me so seriously, so soon.
Some people lament how little impact they can have on government policy on these problems, so I'm heartened to see such initiatives from the bottom up. Imagine if even .1% of the global population were monitoring air quality? Such data could have real value to lawyers, journalists, policy makers, city planners, etc.
FYI, there are quite a few sensors throughout the world, maybe consider hosting your own: https://www.purpleair.com/map
My heart goes out to your daughter, you, and your family.
The boat/ship tracking is provided by Fleet Mon, I host one of their AIS trackers. Air traffic is provided by Aviation Edge.
There are other monitors in the region, but not in my community: https://aqicn.org/city/usa/indiana/gary-iitri, but I have no information about them, their data, or anything. If it was open source, I probably would trust it more than I do now.
Thank you, I'm still coming to terms with it, but life goes on I guess, just gotta take the lows with the highs.
edit, just realised I never answered your question, the source code is on github: https://github.com/kingsloi/community-airmonitor
Hardware: - PurpleAir PA-II (wifi) - FleetMon AIS (Ethernet) APIs: - Avaiation Edge API (Flights) - MapQuest API (Traffic) - forecast.io API (Weather) - etaspot.net (Trains) App: - node/express/vuejs app, pretty much all happens in this https://github.com/kingsloi/community-airmonitor/blob/master...
One of the concerns I hope will stick after this thing is (largely) over.
Something I would love for a HNer to solve is SEO for air purifiers: basically all Google results are absolute bullshit that make it harder, not easier, to make an informed choice. Much like VPNs where it just comes down to SEO, marketing, and affiliate links.
I understand to an extent of course, but can't help finding it painfully ironic.
Even if industrial society stopped tomorrow, my apartment would still be full of particulate matter - dust, lint, etc.
This video comes to mind, I had watched it when comparing products: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXL5NoX25XM
But even then, it's hard to get total transparency. Did they receive a product from a manufacturer for free? Are they receiving money to ignore a particular device? Etc.
Moving emissions away from the tailpipe in heavily populated areas seems like a great idea.
There's no free lunch though. The emissions are still happening, just in different places where they're, ideally, less likely to affect people.
It's a better situation but it's not yet perfect.
I suspect the drivers, not wanting to wear out their batteries, set the vehicles to use the engine the whole time, which is a built in feature (the 'save' drive mode)...
It's time we said "no taxi may run an engine inside zone 1, and if they do it's an £80 fine".
'A 2018 report found unlawful levels of pollution, which were detected at a monitoring station one mile from Ella's home, contributed to her fatal asthma attack'. The girl lived '25 metres from the South circular' in Lewisham.
Listing her death with claims 'air pollution' were a factor are almost certainly true (it would be interesting to see the autopsy data) but also serve the WHO's and other agendas.
We are not talking about a manufacturer hub here, but zones 2-3 of an deindustrialized city in one of the richest nations on Earth. How we can't find the means to solve this is beyond me.
Even as a 'well paid' person in London my choices were limited by the vector of where I could afford, proximity to transport, my office, and family/friend/support connections.
I lived close to the westway and used to cycle a lot in London, I'm pretty aware of denser urban arteries, but walls are not completely covered in soot from diesel vehicles, which are now much cleaner than ever before.
There is a tremendous amount of dirt and debris from tires and road degradation around high traffic areas, you are probably confusing soot with dirt.
Better road maintenance, recycling tires to incorporate into road surfaces would help enormously especially with heavier vehicles like EV's, SUVs and trucks.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/smog-kills-thous...
However, through her death and the resulting judgement, we (royal) can start holding polluters and companies liable. And through that, we can start to effect strong climate based change, through a series of steep punishments of wrongful death and the like.
I sincerely hope her death is not in vain, but as a loud bell to start a wave of changes.
I think that people have some kind of magical belief about car exhaust being harmless. It's like: okay, sure, a common form of suicide is to lock yourself in your garage and idle your car engine. But if you're outside, then magically the exhaust fumes become completely harmless... because (checks notes) air breezes or diffusion or something. Really, people?
I have a strong suspicion that in decades to come we will realize that car exhaust causes many of the big neurological disorders, like Parkinson's.
Deaths using this method decreased dramatically when cars started having catalytic converters fitted.
Since I live in a high-altitude location, I really enjoy running when I travel, since I can go faster and farther and sight see at the same time.
The amount of diesel exhaust you breathe in running through London is pretty crazy compared to other cities I've been in. And I know that they have worked very hard to reduce this, so not trying to knock the UK or London itself. Just something I noticed and felt running along the Thames.
Nothing too crazy, but makes a difference for sure.
The first signs are that it's harder to sleep at night, because the mucus goes into your airways. If you feel that, move away far from any street with many cars while you can.
As I got older, it just kind of disappeared - by the time I was 15 or so, I was only very rarely using inhalers.
As an adult, I've travelled a lot to India for work, always staying in big cities, which are filled with 2-stroke rickshaws and are always heavily polluted (e.g. Mumbai, Pune, Delhi). Often a kind of horrible, acrid, thick smog descends after dark when the temperature drops a little. Every time I travel to such places, I have to take my inhalers because I really feel the effects of it! The first time this happened, years ago now, I was really quite shocked - how many deaths must this cause? How could the government allow this, and how could people stand it?
There are WHO and EU guidelines? I had no idea.
Most my life, I've lived in a city where the AQI is usually >250 during the day, and it's been in IQAir's top polluted cities[0] for the past 2 years.
Maybe its time we had immediate, short term and general causes of death?
For example:
1a Community acquired pneumonia 1b Mesothelioma 1c 2 ischaemic heart disease and type 2 diabetes mellitus
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/clearing-the-air-9781472953339...
> ...a detailed blueprint for saving our cities. Suggested measures include a ban on all petrol and diesel cars in city centres; the replacement of diesel buses and trains with electric vehicles; and an end to the use of wood-burning stoves and coal fires. It’s an achievable vision, he insists. “However, whether it happens in 10 or 100 years is down to public pressure and political will.”
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/31/clearing-the-a...
I also built a few monitors to add to Sensor.Community (a contributors driven global sensor network that creates Open Environmental Data), which are pretty easy to make.
High concentrations of NO2 can be directly attributed to diesel engines which is a much easier problem to tackle than the general problem of decommissioning ICE vehicles.
I've been taking sulforaphane supplements to help protect myself from air pollution as well. Here's a reference [0] to support the claim that sulforaphane helps protect against air pollution:
> Sulforaphane optimizes glutathione, serving as a nutritional "seatbelt"
> But consumption of this non-nutrient appears to be important – even essential – for optimal health. Sulforaphane promotes the production of glutathione, a powerful antioxidant that facilitates the body's excretion of a wide range of toxic substances, including pesticides, aflatoxin, and air pollutants. Glutathione binds with many of these toxins and forms mercapturic acids, which can be excreted and measured in urine.
> Robust clinical evidence has demonstrated that sulforaphane is beneficial for people who live in areas where air quality is poor due to pollution levels. An intervention study in Qidong, China, an area known for its high levels of air pollution, found that sulforaphane markedly increased the production of mercapturic acid metabolites of benzene and acrolein, known carcinogens present in air pollution. These effects manifested within 24 hours of sulforaphane administration in a dose-dependent manner.
> More importantly, however, these effects were sustained – even after several months – demonstrating that sulforaphane did not exhaust the body's capacity to protect itself from environmental threats and suggesting that regular consumption of sulforaphane in foods or dietary supplements provides a kind of nutritional "seatbelt" that protects against future toxic exposures. These findings have relevance for people living in the western part of the United States, where forest fires, which are sources of many airborne pollutants, are common.
[0] https://kylebenzle.medium.com/adding-an-air-purifier-to-your...
Even the Thames is much cleaner than it has been in generations.
It should be 'drinkable' but it's not as bad as used to be.
