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New Map Offers a Global View of Health-Sapping Air Pollution

14 points by icey 16y ago

brc 16y ago
It's airborne pollution that the brains of the world should be working on. It's an immediate, proven, visible problem right in front of us. But the focus has been shifted to c02 pollution and climate change, a field with no proven deaths, an uncertain set of effects and a far-off problem horizon. Even the development of electric cars is now done at the behest of 'zero carbon' instead of 'zero emission'. Instead of electric cars in LA to reduce smog, it's now to stop global warming. I think this is the wrong way around. Changes should be made to decrease airborne pollution now. This is already proven to effect billions of people around the world, now, today. It already leads to premature deaths around the world, now, today. People are more likely to respond to a cause that effects their local lives than the globe as a whole, and it's a whole lot easier to bring in political solutions that affect a single area than global solutions. It's my belief that changes in the transportation and electricity generation sectors should be concentrated on reducing air pollution. This has synergies with the reduce-co2 brigade, so there should be no problems there. But taxing and trading bits of paper should be scrapped in favour of increasingly stringent emissions control. If the CARB plan had been stuck to, how much cleaner would the world's air be today? We could be 10 years further along the path to the widespread use of zero emissions vehicles in large urban centres, with real and measurable positive health effects.
- rdl 16y ago
  Clean air, clean water, especially at the most local level, matters a lot more to me than global and theoretical things like CO2, definitely. I think the environment is way too important to be left to people who use "environmentalism" as a religion; it needs to be given reasonable cost/benefit analysis. Asia has come a long way in converting fleets of vehicles to LPG/CNG (taxis, buses, and other vehicles with really high miles and idle hours in downtown cores), which has improved air quality greatly. I'd rather have affordable electricity and running water than huge declines in CO2 emissions, too, of course.
  - celoyd 16y ago
    Clean air, clean water, especially at the most local level, matters a lot more to me than global and theoretical things like CO2, definitely. Over what time scale? The worst-case scenarios for excess CO2 are situations where the food supply is so disrupted that clean air and water would be low priorities. That said, I certainly agree that there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit, public-health–wise, in reducing particulates. Climate change amelioration shouldn’t absorb all the money just because it’s the bigger problem in the long term. Stricter smoking bans would go a long way in the developed world, where smog is not Beijing-like anyway.
    - brc 16y ago
      The worst case scenarios for c02 emissions are so full of unknown and unknowable variables they are barely more useful than SETI work. They're also over a timeframe beyond everyone here's lifetime. The models have a lot of assumptions in them, and cover variations of the order of 3-400%. It's just not useful information, apart from selling magazines and newspapers. You cannot do anything with vague forecasts from c02 research, apart from scare people. Conversely, we know exactly what happens when you breathe too many particulates. We know how to fix the problem. You don't even need to redistribute income globally to do anything about it. Cigarette smoke is literally a drop in the ocean from large scale emissions like diesel engines, coal stacks, car exhausts and the like. Clean air and water is priority no 1 for all humans. You don't need food until the first two are taken care of.
    - rdl 16y ago
      Strict smoking bans make a big difference for smokers, but not such a big deal for second-hand smoke. (I find it offensive if someone lights up a cigarette or cigar next to me without asking, and in some cases like at a sushi bar, I will cause this behavior to end, but casual infrequent exposure doesn't deliver that much incremental pollution to the lungs.) I agree Asia is way more affected by this than most of the US; I'm actually looking forward to being in SF or Seattle for air/water quality and not in Asia where I am now. $100 would do more good for more people in the highest-pollution cities, but if someone is donating to charity, it is up to him if he values places he lives/people he is near/places he visits over the rest of the world.

14 points by icey 16y ago

brc 16y ago

It's airborne pollution that the brains of the world should be working on. It's an immediate, proven, visible problem right in front of us. But the focus has been shifted to c02 pollution and climate change, a field with no proven deaths, an uncertain set of effects and a far-off problem horizon. Even the development of electric cars is now done at the behest of 'zero carbon' instead of 'zero emission'. Instead of electric cars in LA to reduce smog, it's now to stop global warming. I think this is the wrong way around. Changes should be made to decrease airborne pollution now. This is already proven to effect billions of people around the world, now, today. It already leads to premature deaths around the world, now, today. People are more likely to respond to a cause that effects their local lives than the globe as a whole, and it's a whole lot easier to bring in political solutions that affect a single area than global solutions. It's my belief that changes in the transportation and electricity generation sectors should be concentrated on reducing air pollution. This has synergies with the reduce-co2 brigade, so there should be no problems there. But taxing and trading bits of paper should be scrapped in favour of increasingly stringent emissions control. If the CARB plan had been stuck to, how much cleaner would the world's air be today? We could be 10 years further along the path to the widespread use of zero emissions vehicles in large urban centres, with real and measurable positive health effects.

rdl 16y ago
Clean air, clean water, especially at the most local level, matters a lot more to me than global and theoretical things like CO2, definitely. I think the environment is way too important to be left to people who use "environmentalism" as a religion; it needs to be given reasonable cost/benefit analysis. Asia has come a long way in converting fleets of vehicles to LPG/CNG (taxis, buses, and other vehicles with really high miles and idle hours in downtown cores), which has improved air quality greatly. I'd rather have affordable electricity and running water than huge declines in CO2 emissions, too, of course.
- celoyd 16y ago
  Clean air, clean water, especially at the most local level, matters a lot more to me than global and theoretical things like CO2, definitely. Over what time scale? The worst-case scenarios for excess CO2 are situations where the food supply is so disrupted that clean air and water would be low priorities. That said, I certainly agree that there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit, public-health–wise, in reducing particulates. Climate change amelioration shouldn’t absorb all the money just because it’s the bigger problem in the long term. Stricter smoking bans would go a long way in the developed world, where smog is not Beijing-like anyway.
  - brc 16y ago
    The worst case scenarios for c02 emissions are so full of unknown and unknowable variables they are barely more useful than SETI work. They're also over a timeframe beyond everyone here's lifetime. The models have a lot of assumptions in them, and cover variations of the order of 3-400%. It's just not useful information, apart from selling magazines and newspapers. You cannot do anything with vague forecasts from c02 research, apart from scare people. Conversely, we know exactly what happens when you breathe too many particulates. We know how to fix the problem. You don't even need to redistribute income globally to do anything about it. Cigarette smoke is literally a drop in the ocean from large scale emissions like diesel engines, coal stacks, car exhausts and the like. Clean air and water is priority no 1 for all humans. You don't need food until the first two are taken care of.
  - rdl 16y ago
    Strict smoking bans make a big difference for smokers, but not such a big deal for second-hand smoke. (I find it offensive if someone lights up a cigarette or cigar next to me without asking, and in some cases like at a sushi bar, I will cause this behavior to end, but casual infrequent exposure doesn't deliver that much incremental pollution to the lungs.) I agree Asia is way more affected by this than most of the US; I'm actually looking forward to being in SF or Seattle for air/water quality and not in Asia where I am now. $100 would do more good for more people in the highest-pollution cities, but if someone is donating to charity, it is up to him if he values places he lives/people he is near/places he visits over the rest of the world.