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No, sorry - this isn't science. > air pollution was the biggest killer, leading to heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and other illnesses There's absolutely n

No, sorry - this isn't science. > air pollution was the biggest killer, leading to heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and other illnesses There's absolutely no way you can definitively link deaths from heart disease to air pollution with any substantial degree of confidence, at least not in 99.99% of the cases. I guarantee that within a short amount of time, this whole "study" will be invalidated as baseless political-motivated pseudoscience.

hn_throwaway_99 9y ago
> There's absolutely no way you can definitively link deaths from heart disease to air pollution with any substantial degree of confidence, at least not in 99.99% of the cases. I have not read the detail of the report in question, but your assertion is not really true, because it assumes that each individual case needs to be definitively linked as "yes-or-no" as being caused by air pollution. That is just not how population studies like this work. On the other hand, (and, again, it could be in the source of the report, not sure) but a more accurate/effective measure is years of life lost because of pollution. One of the most tragic consequences of heavy pollution is it's effect on the young. Pollution in some cities like New Delhi is so horrendous that it's like smoking a pack or two a day - imagine that effect on a young child.
- curiousgeorgio 9y ago
  > That is just not how population studies like this work. I agree (that's not how these studies work), and that's kind of my point. If you're going to throw around phrases like "caused by" (or "responsible for", as claimed by the study), then you really should be able to definitively link the two.
  - Retric 9y ago
    Not really, if you look at lung cancer rates among non smokers they are not zero. So, you can't say a specific smoker got long cancer from smoking but by comparing populations you can find changes in rates.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - curiousgeorgio 9y ago
      Are you really comparing the relationship between smoking and lung cancer with a relationship between air pollution (especially outdoor) and heart disease? Seriously, they're not even in the same ballpark in terms of objective statistical significance. Not even close. You may not be able to say with absolute 100% certainty that "a specific smoker got long cancer from smoking", but you can often be >95% certain. Can you (or anyone) say the same for outdoor air pollution and heart disease?
      - Retric 9y ago
        Don't move the goal post. If a very large populationa has 20%X vs 30%X, then only 1/3 of the cases are Caused by _. But, the difference is still very significant.
        curiousgeorgio 9y ago
        Again your example isn't even in the same ballpark as what you'd actually see in a rigorous study of the relationship between outdoor air pollution and heart disease, so please stop implying that it's somehow "very significant."
        Retric 9y ago
        I was simply pointing out the flaws in your logic. The actual studies linking air pollution to heart disease stand on their own just fine. The method of action is well supported and due to the inflammatory response. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3784920/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3784920/ But, at this point it's clear you don't care about science when it conflicts with your gut feelings, a common failing.
        curiousgeorgio 9y ago
tinco 9y ago
There's a full text available here: http://www.thelancet.com/commissions/pollution-and-health http://www.thelancet.com/commissions/pollution-and-health Is the lancet politically motivated? I haven't heard about it before, but I am not yet really well versed in the climate science field. It says in the abstract: Diseases caused by pollution were responsible for an estimated 9 million premature deaths in 2015—16% of all deaths worldwide—three times more deaths than from AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined and 15 times more than from all wars and other forms of violence. That's a pretty heavy claim to make, and it says it without any doubt. Perhaps they can rule out all other causes of heart disease statistically? I don't know what sort of things cause heart disease that they might not know about in a population.
- cr1895 9y ago
  It's a leading medical journal that has been publishing since the 1800s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lancet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lancet
PierceJoy 9y ago
> There's absolutely no way you can definitively link deaths from heart disease to air pollution with any substantial degree of confidence, at least not in 99.99% of the cases. We also can't definitively link specific cases of lung cancer to smoking. Would you also dismiss the link between smoking and lung cancer as baseless political-motivated pseudoscience?
- curiousgeorgio 9y ago
  Go ahead and visit your nearest hospital. Ask a cardiologist about heart disease cases they've seen in their career. Ask how many could have even possibly been a direct result of air pollution. Then ask how many were obviously linked to poor diet, lack of exercise, and/or smoking. Then you do the math.
  - PierceJoy 9y ago
    > Ask how many could have even possibly been a direct result of air pollution. That's now how this works. To go back to the smoking example, lung cancer is not a direct result of smoking. It's a combination of factors, smoking being one of them. Many people smoke their whole lives and are cancer free. The question is, across the population, how many more people die of heart disease when pollution is present. That does not imply that pollution is the only cause, but simply an additional factor that pushes the number of deaths higher. > Then ask how many were obviously linked to poor diet, lack of exercise, and/or smoking. Then you do the math. Where in the article did it imply that pollution was a greater risk than poor diet and lack of exercise?
    - curiousgeorgio 9y ago
      > how many more people die of heart disease when pollution is present Exactly. And I'm saying that question is much more difficult to answer than some people probably think. Heart disease is so extremely prevalent, and there are so many variables at play that I find it hard to believe anyone can confidently answer that question definitively, at least so far as to claim that pollution is "responsible for" the deaths of X number of people. It's especially hard to isolate because the dependent variable (pollution) and the independent variable (number of heart disease-related deaths) have both been increasing, and pollution levels are positively correlated with a lot of other risk factors for heart disease.
sien 9y ago
Certainly there isn't any way to link it with the certainty. But the number of dead from Air pollution being at least 5M is pretty widely accepted. The wikipedia page has a figure of 5M https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution The Copenhagen Consensus puts the figure at 7M http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/post-2015-consensus/air-pollution http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/post-2015-consensus/air-p... Bjorn Lomborg runs the Copenhagen Consensus centre. Lomborg is hated by many environmentalists because he says that the return on spending on Global Warming is not very good, He's not a far left environmentalist.
- curiousgeorgio 9y ago
  The Copenhagen Consensus link you provided is specifically referring to indoor air pollution from cooking and heating homes with open fires. I haven't explored the Lancet Commission's study enough to know how much they ascribe to indoor vs outdoor air pollution, but in my opinion, using the indoor figure in the same context as Global Warming or any kind of global pollution problem is extremely deceptive. You might as well just call all smoking-related deaths "caused by air pollution" because cigarettes were polluting the smoker's own air supply.
  - sien 9y ago
    Good spot. The Copenhagen Consensus is referring to indoor pollution there. The wikipedia page address both indoor and outdoor pollution. Presumably this new figure has both indoor and outdoor pollution. Burning things for fuel is what causes a lot of air pollution, both indoor and outdoor. The only reason I mentioned global warming is because Lomborg and the Copenhagen Consensus centre are far from most environmentalists on these issues.

hn_throwaway_99 9y ago

> There's absolutely no way you can definitively link deaths from heart disease to air pollution with any substantial degree of confidence, at least not in 99.99% of the cases. I have not read the detail of the report in question, but your assertion is not really true, because it assumes that each individual case needs to be definitively linked as "yes-or-no" as being caused by air pollution. That is just not how population studies like this work. On the other hand, (and, again, it could be in the source of the report, not sure) but a more accurate/effective measure is years of life lost because of pollution. One of the most tragic consequences of heavy pollution is it's effect on the young. Pollution in some cities like New Delhi is so horrendous that it's like smoking a pack or two a day - imagine that effect on a young child.

curiousgeorgio 9y ago
> That is just not how population studies like this work. I agree (that's not how these studies work), and that's kind of my point. If you're going to throw around phrases like "caused by" (or "responsible for", as claimed by the study), then you really should be able to definitively link the two.
- Retric 9y ago
  Not really, if you look at lung cancer rates among non smokers they are not zero. So, you can't say a specific smoker got long cancer from smoking but by comparing populations you can find changes in rates.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - curiousgeorgio 9y ago
    Are you really comparing the relationship between smoking and lung cancer with a relationship between air pollution (especially outdoor) and heart disease? Seriously, they're not even in the same ballpark in terms of objective statistical significance. Not even close. You may not be able to say with absolute 100% certainty that "a specific smoker got long cancer from smoking", but you can often be >95% certain. Can you (or anyone) say the same for outdoor air pollution and heart disease?
    - Retric 9y ago
      Don't move the goal post. If a very large populationa has 20%X vs 30%X, then only 1/3 of the cases are Caused by _. But, the difference is still very significant.
      - curiousgeorgio 9y ago
        Again your example isn't even in the same ballpark as what you'd actually see in a rigorous study of the relationship between outdoor air pollution and heart disease, so please stop implying that it's somehow "very significant."
        Retric 9y ago
        I was simply pointing out the flaws in your logic. The actual studies linking air pollution to heart disease stand on their own just fine. The method of action is well supported and due to the inflammatory response. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3784920/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3784920/ But, at this point it's clear you don't care about science when it conflicts with your gut feelings, a common failing.
        curiousgeorgio 9y ago

tinco 9y ago

There's a full text available here: http://www.thelancet.com/commissions/pollution-and-health http://www.thelancet.com/commissions/pollution-and-health Is the lancet politically motivated? I haven't heard about it before, but I am not yet really well versed in the climate science field. It says in the abstract: Diseases caused by pollution were responsible for an estimated 9 million premature deaths in 2015—16% of all deaths worldwide—three times more deaths than from AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined and 15 times more than from all wars and other forms of violence. That's a pretty heavy claim to make, and it says it without any doubt. Perhaps they can rule out all other causes of heart disease statistically? I don't know what sort of things cause heart disease that they might not know about in a population.

cr1895 9y ago
It's a leading medical journal that has been publishing since the 1800s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lancet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lancet

PierceJoy 9y ago

> There's absolutely no way you can definitively link deaths from heart disease to air pollution with any substantial degree of confidence, at least not in 99.99% of the cases. We also can't definitively link specific cases of lung cancer to smoking. Would you also dismiss the link between smoking and lung cancer as baseless political-motivated pseudoscience?

curiousgeorgio 9y ago
Go ahead and visit your nearest hospital. Ask a cardiologist about heart disease cases they've seen in their career. Ask how many could have even possibly been a direct result of air pollution. Then ask how many were obviously linked to poor diet, lack of exercise, and/or smoking. Then you do the math.
- PierceJoy 9y ago
  > Ask how many could have even possibly been a direct result of air pollution. That's now how this works. To go back to the smoking example, lung cancer is not a direct result of smoking. It's a combination of factors, smoking being one of them. Many people smoke their whole lives and are cancer free. The question is, across the population, how many more people die of heart disease when pollution is present. That does not imply that pollution is the only cause, but simply an additional factor that pushes the number of deaths higher. > Then ask how many were obviously linked to poor diet, lack of exercise, and/or smoking. Then you do the math. Where in the article did it imply that pollution was a greater risk than poor diet and lack of exercise?
  - curiousgeorgio 9y ago
    > how many more people die of heart disease when pollution is present Exactly. And I'm saying that question is much more difficult to answer than some people probably think. Heart disease is so extremely prevalent, and there are so many variables at play that I find it hard to believe anyone can confidently answer that question definitively, at least so far as to claim that pollution is "responsible for" the deaths of X number of people. It's especially hard to isolate because the dependent variable (pollution) and the independent variable (number of heart disease-related deaths) have both been increasing, and pollution levels are positively correlated with a lot of other risk factors for heart disease.

sien 9y ago

Certainly there isn't any way to link it with the certainty. But the number of dead from Air pollution being at least 5M is pretty widely accepted. The wikipedia page has a figure of 5M https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution The Copenhagen Consensus puts the figure at 7M http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/post-2015-consensus/air-pollution http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/post-2015-consensus/air-p... Bjorn Lomborg runs the Copenhagen Consensus centre. Lomborg is hated by many environmentalists because he says that the return on spending on Global Warming is not very good, He's not a far left environmentalist.

curiousgeorgio 9y ago
The Copenhagen Consensus link you provided is specifically referring to indoor air pollution from cooking and heating homes with open fires. I haven't explored the Lancet Commission's study enough to know how much they ascribe to indoor vs outdoor air pollution, but in my opinion, using the indoor figure in the same context as Global Warming or any kind of global pollution problem is extremely deceptive. You might as well just call all smoking-related deaths "caused by air pollution" because cigarettes were polluting the smoker's own air supply.
- sien 9y ago
  Good spot. The Copenhagen Consensus is referring to indoor pollution there. The wikipedia page address both indoor and outdoor pollution. Presumably this new figure has both indoor and outdoor pollution. Burning things for fuel is what causes a lot of air pollution, both indoor and outdoor. The only reason I mentioned global warming is because Lomborg and the Copenhagen Consensus centre are far from most environmentalists on these issues.