7 ms·

Exhaust particulates are the absolute worst as far as city dwelling. I had a balcony overlooking a boulevard in Paris. I would have to clean it every week from

• dleslie 8y ago
  No need to wonder, as this sort of thing has been studied[0]. You can check your local air quality online[1]. 0: http://berkeleyearth.org/air-pollution-and-cigarette-equivalence/ http://berkeleyearth.org/air-pollution-and-cigarette-equival... 1: http://aqicn.org/here/ http://aqicn.org/here/
  • greeneggs 8y ago
    In major cities in the US, I've found that PurpleAir is a much better resource for checking local air quality. Air quality varies significantly, and the EPA only has very sparse monitors. PurpleAir San Francisco: https://www.purpleair.com/map?&zoom=12&lat=37.7&lng=-122.4 https://www.purpleair.com/map?&zoom=12&lat=37.7&lng=-122.4
    • corv 8y ago
      This is a great product, unfortunately it’s quite expensive.
• nitwit005 8y ago
  I recall this photo from New York: https://viewing.nyc/nyc-building-exterior-cleaning-before-and-after/ https://viewing.nyc/nyc-building-exterior-cleaning-before-an...
• magduf 8y ago
  This is one big advantage the US has over Europe: for the most part, only trucks/buses have diesel engines. Gasoline engines don't produce all the particulate pollution that diesel engines do, and Europe made a big mistake by adopting diesel for passenger cars. As a result, our city air is much cleaner.
  • blattimwind 8y ago
    > Gasoline engines don't produce all the particulate pollution that diesel engines do With injection engines this simply isn't true any more. > made a big mistake by adopting diesel The small injection turbo diesel engines offered much higher efficiency and thus much lower CO2 emissions (~half) compared to contemporary gasoline engines (they still do). Other parts of the emissions profile (e.g. NOx) have almost exclusively to do with how efficient the engine is run, e.g. gas engines that are close to efficiency to diesel engines will produce similar amounts of NOx. Broadly speaking, as more aspects of the combustion are externally, forcibly controlled, differences between diesel and gas engines become a lot less. (The average German car has a 1.6 liter three or four cylinder engine doing something like 4.5l/100km ~ 50 mpg; basically no one is driving big cars with six or eight cylinder engines).
    • bunderbunder 8y ago
      Regardless of what's technically possible, the fact remains that US standards for particulate emissions and nitrous oxide are quite a bit stricter than European standards. So much so that, as we discovered recently, at least one major European automaker apparently felt the best way to get their diesel cars cleared to sell in the USA was by, in effect, lying.
      • azernik 8y ago
        One of the revelations of the VW scandal is that, when they actually comply with emissions standards, diesel engines are not cost- or efficiency-competitive; one interpretation of the events is the result of a failed overinvestment in a technology that didn't pan out. https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-looks-to-electric-cars-after-diesels-dead-end/ https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-looks-to-electric-car...
• oh_sigh 8y ago
  Buying a hepa filter was the first thing I did once I moved to NYC. Very happy with it
  • corv 8y ago
    Yes! It’s scary how much dirt accumulates in a relatively short amount of time
• zokier 8y ago
  At least we have stopped burning coal in our major (western) cities. Despite car exhausts, our city air has cleared tremendously in the past 50ish years. I don't expect to see smog clouds settling on London, killing thousands anymore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London
• paulie_a 8y ago
  > Exhaust particles are the absolute worst Second worst is the noise pollution by the constant use of the horn. I swear it should cost money every time someone uses it.
  • mmirate 8y ago
    Then it should also cost money every time someone outmaneuvers me in traffic and ends up ahead at my expense.
• stephengillie 8y ago
  Diesel cars are the worst polluters, as "Dieselgate" and other scandals have recently shown. They pollute 10x more than buses, and have been enabled by ECUs created by Bosch. > The actual programmer & designer of the software is the supplier of the engine control units (ECUs), in most cases Bosch. The software that they supply actually already contains these cheating routines. These routines are delivered as a part of the software packages, and can be turned on/off with some flags. It is up to the auto company how to set these flags. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17286697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17286697
  • dredmorbius 8y ago
    Pollution is specific as to mode. Deisel may be 10x worse than petrol for particulates, but not in other emissions modes: CO2, NOx, SOx, CO, partially combusted hydrocarbons, etc. You've got to specify details if you care to be accurate.
• sametmax 8y ago
  This is one of the only environmental topics where things are improving. I can clearly recall breathing uneasily in Paris not that long ago. Now when I go back, it's way better. Even the noise is more bearable. It still sucks, but clearly the car manufacturers and law makers did a decent job. I'm so ready for electric cars taking over the cities though.
  • Ntrails 8y ago
    Cities should be optimised for (clean/electric/cheap) public transport and cars electric or otherwise are a pain in the ass. They're inefficient, space consuming and impossible to manage. We can use all that spare roadspace for proper cycle lanes. (I'm never going to win)
    • Reason077 8y ago
      Simply eliminating parking on many main through-roads would provide plenty of space for cycling. Parked vehicles occupy a huge amount of public space and prevent it being used for more productive purposes.
      • Ntrails 8y ago
        I'm in London, there's no parking on through roads anyway :p