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(In case it will change, original title was "Air pollution is much worse than we thought") The whole piece reads like political propaganda anti fossil fuels. (

(In case it will change, original title was "Air pollution is much worse than we thought") The whole piece reads like political propaganda anti fossil fuels. (Which might be what you are looking for, but not what I expected from the title). Only about 10% of the text is about the air pollution aspect of using fossil fuels, these 10% are buried somewhere in the middle and basically come down to linking to a couple of studies. Are they even new studies? Additionally there is some mentioning of the phrase "air pollution" in sentences that give no new information whatsoever and discuss the various political and societal movements tangentially related to it... If you are looking for legit reliable information, this piece will hurt your mind to even read. Even the writing style feels like political agitation and not information. (It would actually make more sense if GPT-3 wrote this.)

rootsudo 6y ago
Welcome to VOX, The Internet and news sites few weeks before election. I agree.
- refurb 6y ago
  Yup. It’s kind of amazing seeing the “news” shift as the election gets closer. A bunch of articles that indirectly support one or the other candidate all while trying their best to not look like that’s what they are doing.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
nicoffeine 6y ago
> If you are looking for legit reliable information, this piece will hurt your mind to even read. Even the writing style feels like political agitation and not information The article is filled with information on air pollution and its economic effects, making the point that the savings in health care and recovered productivity would more than pay for a transition to a vastly cleaner and more sustainable energy model. If a brief historical overview, excerpts from congressional testimonies, and summaries from scientific studies are "hurting your mind", I don't think the article is the source of the pain.
kyle_martin1 6y ago
Agreed. Vox isn't in the news business, they're in the selling ads through confirmation bias business.
- bosswipe 6y ago
  Could it be that you didn't like the article because it didn't confirm your biases?
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    Anyone who takes particulate pollution seriously is not going to like the article. To solve particulate pollution in a practical way we don't need to build wind turbines to replace gas plants (that would be good for CO2 reasons though), we need to slap filters on diesel garbage trucks and heavy industry exhaust stacks and wet down construction sites and do other things to keep small dust (which invariably gets into people's lungs, reacts with various organic molecules and causes problems) to a minimum. Straw manning particulate pollution as a fossil fuel problem is a great way to make particulate pollution seem like a bigger and harder to solve problem than it actually is.
    - sebmellen 6y ago
      Nuclear power is also a far more feasible alternative to the "wind power and solar panels" pipe dream. I'm part German, and the German obsession with "green energy" and fear of nuclear power is leading to dependence on Russia and more coal plants. France, on the other hand, is thriving with nuclear.
    - bosswipe 6y ago
      Even better than diesel filters is not using diesel at all! Fossil fuels are never going to not produce pollution. California with some of the strictest tailpipe emission standards still has huge smog problems. I don't see the issue with highlighting the air quality co-benefits of fighting climate change. We need to do both!
      - 6y ago
scottlocklin 6y ago
Vox is, has always been, and always will be a midwit center-left propaganda organ whose mission is explicitly to tell people what to think. I find it hilarious and slightly terrifying there is an actual market for stemwinders like "Facebook’s new voter information center gives Americans fact-checked voting information" "How a homemaker with no political experience took on Europe’s longest-serving dictator" "Can a college course in moral philosophy convince people to eat less meat?" "Microsoft’s astonishing climate change goals, explained" I guess as a business proposition to oligarchs, intelligence operatives and sinister public relations shysters who pay for it, this makes sense, but the idea of people actually reading and somehow enjoying this neoliberal lizard man gorp really tweaks my misanthropy. I try to picture them: foam-coffee drinking insurance adjusters working in their housecoats and grumbling at the unenlightened pipe-fitters who voted for the other old white guy, middle aged human soybean product managers making hellmouth when new star wars action figures come out, tattooed baristas who wish they had a job in a non-profit, unapologetic Elizabeth Warren voters who are a little uncomfortable with how her stances might affect their 401k, but who excrete perfectly round high fiber pellets... The world, apparently, has entirely too many of these.
- take_a_breath 6y ago
  I think the phrase “triggered” was invented to describe this post. Maybe take a walk?
  - scottlocklin 6y ago
    Not at all; I find Vox to be laughable rather than anger-making -I just can't figure out how anybody can take it any more seriously than something like the Drudge Report. You can be "middle of the road" and still super, monstrously wrong. Vox is very good at this! The article itself isn't the worst thing they ever published, but it's pretty typical of the genre; vapid, misleading, basic midwit nonsense that seems like a good idea but actually is barking insanity.
- lumberjack 6y ago
  Yes but what's so bad about advocating for less air pollution? Why does this have to be a divisive political issue? Honestly seems to me like you are the one being misled by whatever politics. If you weren't you wouldn't react so harshly to an article about improving public health. I don't like vox either because they are biased as you say, but I am not somehow going to think that breathing petrol fumes is fine.

rootsudo 6y ago

Welcome to VOX, The Internet and news sites few weeks before election. I agree.

refurb 6y ago
Yup. It’s kind of amazing seeing the “news” shift as the election gets closer. A bunch of articles that indirectly support one or the other candidate all while trying their best to not look like that’s what they are doing.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

nicoffeine 6y ago

> If you are looking for legit reliable information, this piece will hurt your mind to even read. Even the writing style feels like political agitation and not information The article is filled with information on air pollution and its economic effects, making the point that the savings in health care and recovered productivity would more than pay for a transition to a vastly cleaner and more sustainable energy model. If a brief historical overview, excerpts from congressional testimonies, and summaries from scientific studies are "hurting your mind", I don't think the article is the source of the pain.

kyle_martin1 6y ago

Agreed. Vox isn't in the news business, they're in the selling ads through confirmation bias business.

bosswipe 6y ago
Could it be that you didn't like the article because it didn't confirm your biases?
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  Anyone who takes particulate pollution seriously is not going to like the article. To solve particulate pollution in a practical way we don't need to build wind turbines to replace gas plants (that would be good for CO2 reasons though), we need to slap filters on diesel garbage trucks and heavy industry exhaust stacks and wet down construction sites and do other things to keep small dust (which invariably gets into people's lungs, reacts with various organic molecules and causes problems) to a minimum. Straw manning particulate pollution as a fossil fuel problem is a great way to make particulate pollution seem like a bigger and harder to solve problem than it actually is.
  - sebmellen 6y ago
    Nuclear power is also a far more feasible alternative to the "wind power and solar panels" pipe dream. I'm part German, and the German obsession with "green energy" and fear of nuclear power is leading to dependence on Russia and more coal plants. France, on the other hand, is thriving with nuclear.
  - bosswipe 6y ago
    Even better than diesel filters is not using diesel at all! Fossil fuels are never going to not produce pollution. California with some of the strictest tailpipe emission standards still has huge smog problems. I don't see the issue with highlighting the air quality co-benefits of fighting climate change. We need to do both!
    - 6y ago

scottlocklin 6y ago

Vox is, has always been, and always will be a midwit center-left propaganda organ whose mission is explicitly to tell people what to think. I find it hilarious and slightly terrifying there is an actual market for stemwinders like "Facebook’s new voter information center gives Americans fact-checked voting information" "How a homemaker with no political experience took on Europe’s longest-serving dictator" "Can a college course in moral philosophy convince people to eat less meat?" "Microsoft’s astonishing climate change goals, explained" I guess as a business proposition to oligarchs, intelligence operatives and sinister public relations shysters who pay for it, this makes sense, but the idea of people actually reading and somehow enjoying this neoliberal lizard man gorp really tweaks my misanthropy. I try to picture them: foam-coffee drinking insurance adjusters working in their housecoats and grumbling at the unenlightened pipe-fitters who voted for the other old white guy, middle aged human soybean product managers making hellmouth when new star wars action figures come out, tattooed baristas who wish they had a job in a non-profit, unapologetic Elizabeth Warren voters who are a little uncomfortable with how her stances might affect their 401k, but who excrete perfectly round high fiber pellets... The world, apparently, has entirely too many of these.

take_a_breath 6y ago
I think the phrase “triggered” was invented to describe this post. Maybe take a walk?
- scottlocklin 6y ago
  Not at all; I find Vox to be laughable rather than anger-making -I just can't figure out how anybody can take it any more seriously than something like the Drudge Report. You can be "middle of the road" and still super, monstrously wrong. Vox is very good at this! The article itself isn't the worst thing they ever published, but it's pretty typical of the genre; vapid, misleading, basic midwit nonsense that seems like a good idea but actually is barking insanity.
lumberjack 6y ago
Yes but what's so bad about advocating for less air pollution? Why does this have to be a divisive political issue? Honestly seems to me like you are the one being misled by whatever politics. If you weren't you wouldn't react so harshly to an article about improving public health. I don't like vox either because they are biased as you say, but I am not somehow going to think that breathing petrol fumes is fine.