2 ms·

Source on diesel being equally dangerous as chronic lead or asbestos exposure?

foxes 5y ago
Cars are definitely poisoning our cities. There is a plethora of evidence. Here's a few top hits. [0] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323426#causes https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323426#causes [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4390771/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4390771/ [2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/04/car-fumes-air-pollution-ban-motorists https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/04/car-fu...
jahewson 5y ago
No shortage of sources. https://phys.org/news/2019-02-pollution-deaths-linked-diesel.html https://phys.org/news/2019-02-pollution-deaths-linked-diesel... https://www.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/CATF_Pub_Diesel_Health_America.pdf https://www.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/CATF_Pub_Dies... https://www.hazards.org/chemicals/fuming.htm https://www.hazards.org/chemicals/fuming.htm That last article itself cites 15 sources. The data shows significantly more deaths from diesel than asbestos and roughly or par with lead. Remember that those exposures last a lifetime, so the data lags significantly.
- giantg2 5y ago
  "That last article itself cites 15 sources. The data shows significantly more deaths from diesel than asbestos and roughly or par with lead. Remember that those exposures last a lifetime, so the data lags significantly." Not saying it's not bad, but this equivocation is just not accurate in my view. More deaths sure - because more people were exposed. Can you honestly tell me you would rather be exposed to asbestos or lead (no ppe)? Also, emissions controls have increased as has air quality since the 80s. I doubt this idea that the data still has lag left in it. We would expect to see the most impact at the higher exposure levels.
  - Spivak 5y ago
    You’re missing the individual vs societal view. Obviously you personally would rather not be exposed to asbestos or lead but at the societal level 1000 people that are really really dead and 1000 people who are just normally dead aren’t that different. And honestly it’s worse for diesel having wide exposure because there are in between states between totally fine and dead and those affect more people.
    - necovek 5y ago
      But that wasn't the grandparent thread question where someone asked for sources on exhaust gasses being as dangerous as asbestos/lead? We all know that car accidents are one of the top killers in the world, yet we don't ban cars outright. But that's because absolute numbers are big simply because billions of people drive cars: on a per-trip basis, they are actually not that bad.
  - jahewson 5y ago
    The question was whether diesel could plausibly be “the next asbestos/lead” and the answer is yes, absolutely. The question was not which dosages of which chemicals would be more harmful for a short term exposure. That’s not relevant to answering the above question. In fact it likely has a different answer. (For lag I’m referring to the lead/asbestos data. Exposure to these has been on the decline for decades but we’re still seeing deaths due to exposures 40 years ago), so they presumably cause an outsize number of deaths per year currently).
    - giantg2 5y ago
      "The question was whether diesel could plausibly be “the next asbestos/lead” and the answer is yes, absolutely." If you mean by perception only, then sure. These three things have existed together for a long time. If you eliminate the two more dangerous ones, then the remaining less dangerous/acute one will be next in priority and get the attention.
      - jahewson 5y ago
noahtallen 5y ago
Flipping it slightly, what intuition leads to anyone thinking that fumes from burning _anything_ is safe to breath in large quantities? We know that standing in a room filled with fumes from burning one thing — be it gasoline or wood — kills quickly. So why wouldn’t it make sense for a million cars running every day to also have a negative health impact? There are plenty of events in history where stale air in a city along with significant pollution killed tens of thousands of people over a short period, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London. But taking it to a philosophical level, what framework gives one the right to pollute? In my view, the opposite is true. Clearly, if a factory dumps toxic waste on your property, they are violating your property rights. I don’t believe anyone should have the right to pollute, based on the simple fact that any polluter violates another’s property. Our society of course isn’t quite there, but I believe we are sacrificing a rights by allowing pollution (even from ourselves), rather than the other way around (polluters having a right to pollute.)
- necovek 5y ago
  What a strange way to pose a question. So, we know that there are risks with electromagnetic waves in X-rays, so we try to limit our exposure to them. But do you, for instance, run a Wifi access point at home? Do you use a cell phone? And you surely know how radios work: electromagnetic waves. To use your phrasing, "what intuition leads to anyone thinking that electromagnetic radiation is safe in large quantities?" While we know something of electromagnetic radiation effects on health, we know almost nothing regarding long term effects of the type that have become our daily environment, because this level of exposure (wifi APs, cell phones) is a very recent phenomenon. But, we could find out in the long run that they have a non-negligible effect on a part of the population that it may end up being classified as "pollution" in the future too. The point is that people disagree on what are "large quantities" with exhaust gasses (even different governments do, which is why there are different standards), or where do we draw the line. Going with the extreme example can actually be counterproductive because it can easily be proven irrelevant. The other problem with air pollution from cars is that it's conflated with global warming today (not saying it's not an issue, just that everyone wants to solve both problems at once). One can easily solve for one problem without solving for another (eg. allow only use of clean vehicles during peak hours as a pretty light restriction, to banning non-clean vehicles only in dense urban areas as a pretty strong one).

Cars are definitely poisoning our cities. There is a plethora of evidence. Here's a few top hits. [0] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323426#causes https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323426#causes [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4390771/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4390771/ [2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/04/car-fumes-air-pollution-ban-motorists https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/04/car-fu...

jahewson 5y ago

No shortage of sources. https://phys.org/news/2019-02-pollution-deaths-linked-diesel.html https://phys.org/news/2019-02-pollution-deaths-linked-diesel... https://www.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/CATF_Pub_Diesel_Health_America.pdf https://www.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/CATF_Pub_Dies... https://www.hazards.org/chemicals/fuming.htm https://www.hazards.org/chemicals/fuming.htm That last article itself cites 15 sources. The data shows significantly more deaths from diesel than asbestos and roughly or par with lead. Remember that those exposures last a lifetime, so the data lags significantly.

giantg2 5y ago
"That last article itself cites 15 sources. The data shows significantly more deaths from diesel than asbestos and roughly or par with lead. Remember that those exposures last a lifetime, so the data lags significantly." Not saying it's not bad, but this equivocation is just not accurate in my view. More deaths sure - because more people were exposed. Can you honestly tell me you would rather be exposed to asbestos or lead (no ppe)? Also, emissions controls have increased as has air quality since the 80s. I doubt this idea that the data still has lag left in it. We would expect to see the most impact at the higher exposure levels.
- Spivak 5y ago
  You’re missing the individual vs societal view. Obviously you personally would rather not be exposed to asbestos or lead but at the societal level 1000 people that are really really dead and 1000 people who are just normally dead aren’t that different. And honestly it’s worse for diesel having wide exposure because there are in between states between totally fine and dead and those affect more people.
  - necovek 5y ago
    But that wasn't the grandparent thread question where someone asked for sources on exhaust gasses being as dangerous as asbestos/lead? We all know that car accidents are one of the top killers in the world, yet we don't ban cars outright. But that's because absolute numbers are big simply because billions of people drive cars: on a per-trip basis, they are actually not that bad.
- jahewson 5y ago
  The question was whether diesel could plausibly be “the next asbestos/lead” and the answer is yes, absolutely. The question was not which dosages of which chemicals would be more harmful for a short term exposure. That’s not relevant to answering the above question. In fact it likely has a different answer. (For lag I’m referring to the lead/asbestos data. Exposure to these has been on the decline for decades but we’re still seeing deaths due to exposures 40 years ago), so they presumably cause an outsize number of deaths per year currently).
  - giantg2 5y ago
    "The question was whether diesel could plausibly be “the next asbestos/lead” and the answer is yes, absolutely." If you mean by perception only, then sure. These three things have existed together for a long time. If you eliminate the two more dangerous ones, then the remaining less dangerous/acute one will be next in priority and get the attention.
    - jahewson 5y ago

noahtallen 5y ago

Flipping it slightly, what intuition leads to anyone thinking that fumes from burning _anything_ is safe to breath in large quantities? We know that standing in a room filled with fumes from burning one thing — be it gasoline or wood — kills quickly. So why wouldn’t it make sense for a million cars running every day to also have a negative health impact? There are plenty of events in history where stale air in a city along with significant pollution killed tens of thousands of people over a short period, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London. But taking it to a philosophical level, what framework gives one the right to pollute? In my view, the opposite is true. Clearly, if a factory dumps toxic waste on your property, they are violating your property rights. I don’t believe anyone should have the right to pollute, based on the simple fact that any polluter violates another’s property. Our society of course isn’t quite there, but I believe we are sacrificing a rights by allowing pollution (even from ourselves), rather than the other way around (polluters having a right to pollute.)

necovek 5y ago
What a strange way to pose a question. So, we know that there are risks with electromagnetic waves in X-rays, so we try to limit our exposure to them. But do you, for instance, run a Wifi access point at home? Do you use a cell phone? And you surely know how radios work: electromagnetic waves. To use your phrasing, "what intuition leads to anyone thinking that electromagnetic radiation is safe in large quantities?" While we know something of electromagnetic radiation effects on health, we know almost nothing regarding long term effects of the type that have become our daily environment, because this level of exposure (wifi APs, cell phones) is a very recent phenomenon. But, we could find out in the long run that they have a non-negligible effect on a part of the population that it may end up being classified as "pollution" in the future too. The point is that people disagree on what are "large quantities" with exhaust gasses (even different governments do, which is why there are different standards), or where do we draw the line. Going with the extreme example can actually be counterproductive because it can easily be proven irrelevant. The other problem with air pollution from cars is that it's conflated with global warming today (not saying it's not an issue, just that everyone wants to solve both problems at once). One can easily solve for one problem without solving for another (eg. allow only use of clean vehicles during peak hours as a pretty light restriction, to banning non-clean vehicles only in dense urban areas as a pretty strong one).