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A study on the extent of global air pollution
- waynenilsen 4y agoSeems like too few categories, safe or not safe? Clearly this is a spectrum
- Jorchime 4y agoWhy? If critical levels of "unhealthy stuff" is exceeded, it's not safe. Your spectrum is on the threshold of "unhealthy stuff"
- rootusrootus 4y agoSo there is a magic point, greater than zero, where it simply switches from healthy to unhealthy? That seems improbable. Edit: Downvotes but no comments. That's a pretty low effort way of admitting your position is faith-based, not scientific.
- Jorchime 4y agoYou have a multitude of things to measure in breathing air. For each you can establish thresholds for safe levels through the scientific method with evidence. Likely there is a transition area, but also regions with a very high likelihood of being unhealthy. If any of these measures is "in the red", your air is unhealthy. Why not?
- now__what 4y agoAs with most things, even if there is no "magic point," you need to draw the line somewhere as accurately as you can, or you'll be trapped in pedantic bickering and inaction forever.
- p_j_w 4y ago>or you'll be trapped in pedantic bickering and inaction forever. There are lots of people and groups out there for which this is the goal.
- jjk166 4y agoDrawing an arbitrary line where none logically should exist is the cause of, not the solution to, pedantic bickering and inaction. You're going to get a lot more people to agree "pollution should be lower" than "this is a good amount of pollution."
- peteradio 4y agoWhy? Here is a model that would make sense: your body is capable of clearing x ug/day and anything over that causes inflammation. Well then stay below that level and it is
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- trgn 4y agoThis is the battered spouse argument in our relationship to our living environment. Well of course the air is unhealthy, but see, you need to understand the whole story! Categorical thinking is not always because of a lack of nuance or of zealotry or stupidity (which are generally more modern dismissive interpretations). Delineating categories is a useful framing to firmly separate what is on the one hand good and virtuous (clean air), and on the other evil and depraved (polluted air). It's an excellent way to identify when exactly rationalization, submission or complaisance kicks in. Well, it's not as bad as it used to be. It's even worse in xyz country. It's not reflected in the average life expectancy. It's the price we pay for modern luxuries etc... etc... Having firm categories, and these will read as fearful or callous defenses. Good categories should compel to action. In this case, what can be done to move from Box B into Box A. And then do those things (because Box B is inherently evil). The real world is grey. For sure. And multiple opposing things can be true at once. Nonetheless, we need to cut through that, and I'm fearful we've forgotten how. The reason our cities are degraded is in large part because we have failed to think in categories, and have rationalized away (categorically) wrong habits.
- jjk166 4y agoNo it's not, and the comparison is absurd. With domestic violence it is trivially easy to have none at all, and there is a very distinct difference between none and some. With air quality there is a smooth and continuous measurement for what is in the air. You will never get to zero particulates per cubic meter, you can only get under a certain level. Further, the effects of air quality are also a smooth continuous function - there isn't some distinct point where if you are below it there's no risk of health issues and immediately above it you have guaranteed serious health issues. A binary categorization is clearly inappropriate.
- AstralStorm 4y agoBinary categorization is quite appropriate, considering there are IDLH levels. And it is actually highly nonlinear for most contaminants. There's an area of none to low risk, even chronic, then an area of exponentially increasing risk, then area where the levels are known to be harmful chronically, and yet another where they're immediately dangerous. So while not binary, the difference between dangerous and not is usually pretty sharp. For PM 2.5, < 12 ug/m3 is considered safe, while > 35 ug/m3 is considered harmful after just few hours. For chronic exposure, mean levels of < 15 ug/m3 over 3 years is considered safe. (There is probably some level that is certain to produce silicosis in about everyone. I would have to dig on that.) That is how thin the margin is. And these are the laxer NIOSH values. Even AQI which is weighted to be more linear and granular, easily gets pegged at moderate (risky to sensitive people) in clean seeming cities unless there's wind... (That is a level above 15 ug/m3 already by some.)
- mc32 4y agoI think you have a point. If there were no people on Earth, what would the PM 2.5 look like? If it would still be too high, then it seems this measure while, baseline to know, wouldn't be practically useful. We'd have to then control naturally occurring PM2.5 in the environment. That's not to say the obvious is not true, that Regions of China and India suffer from too much PM2.5 due to human activity and should be addressed. However, a chicken little situation is not helpful as people will tune out.
- dahart 4y agoIndeed it is, you’re right. Here is the spectrum the WHO publishes: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK574582/table/fm-ch1.tab1/?report=objectonly https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK574582/table/fm-ch1.ta... Note that the idea of a single safe “threshold” limit is based on the best available research today showing that they haven’t measured adverse health effects below 5 μg/m³ average annual exposure. The spectrum here is a spread of increased mortality that can be attributed to pollution above that limit. There’s a different threshold for a single day exposure than for average exposure. Also note that the recommendation recently came down from the 2005 recommendation of 10 μg/m³ due to more research showing adverse health effects of pollution. There might not exist any so-called “safe” limit, and speculating wildly, we might expect their recommendation to drop again in the future.
- p1esk 4y ago“the lack of pollution monitoring stations globally for air pollution underscores the importance of innovative approaches such as machine learning to estimate global surface-level daily PM2.5 concentrations accurately.”
- moneywoes 4y agoLets say I'm living in one of these areas ( and can't help it) besides wearing a kn95 when going out, is there anything that can be done?
- Traubenfuchs 4y agoBuy and maintain an air cleaner for your home. That's the one and only realistic change you can make.
- graeme 4y agoThe average home in a mildly polluted area will actually generally have clean indoor air without filtration. Even with windows open. Don't ask me how this works, but I've verified it using a PM 2.5 monitor, a laseregg 2. With indoor and outdoor measurements on the same day. I recommend indoor filtration for other reasons (allergies, diseases, cutting down pollution from cooking). But if someone already isn't producing much cooking PM 2.5, an indoor filter won't actually cut their exposure much. A car with good filtration and a mask outdoors would be the most effective things one could do short of moving. Note that even lower quality masks such as surgical cut air pollution a fair bit. People somehow convinced themselves they have zero impact, because they lack perfect impact. Studies have found surgical masks generally cut over half of particles: https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/surgical-masks-surprisingly-effective-pm2-5/ https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/surgical-masks-surprisin...
- Traubenfuchs 4y agoNo one but the most concerned loonies are gonna start wearing a mask though and how do you select for a car with good filtration among the countless other decision parameters for a car?
- alwa 4y agoOne option, regardless of the car you choose, might be to seek out a high-efficiency aftermarket replacement when you change your cabin air filter. I went longer in life than I should have before I even realized I should be changing mine out every 15,000 miles or so in the first place.
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 4y agoOnly seventy thousand people? I don't believe you.
- dsq 4y agoJust the people living in Greenland, Lapland and the Antarctic scientists probably passes 70 thousand. Unless they include people breathing in smoke from their wood fires as they roast their wild venison or salmon.
- jodrellblank 4y agoWhat makes you think the people living in Greenland, and Lapland aren't doing anything with diesel engines or industry? Wikipedia says Greenland's main industries are "fish processing, and oil, gold, niobium, tantalite, uranium, iron, and diamond mining".
- dsq 4y agoGood point. I thought the fresh ocean winds would dilute those, though probably most of that takes place in closed environments.
- tpudlik 4y agoYeah, maybe there's a confusion between percentage and fraction, and this was meant to be 0.001 (not 0.001%). But if so, the error is not the journalist's: I clicked through and the original paper also contains this improbable figure.
- bumby 4y ago“The health impacts of exposure to PM2.5 are significant” I think they need to elaborate on this to put the funding in greater context. Statistically significant? Significant in terms of actual impact on one’s life?
- andsoitis 4y agoFrom the article: “The health impacts of exposure to PM2.5 are significant and include respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, lung cancer, and premature death.”
- bumby 4y agoYes, that’s what I quoted too. I’m drawing a distinction between what is “statistically” significant and what is pragmatically significant. An example is the processed foods study from a few years back that showed a statistically significant increase in cancer risk. But if you look harder at the data, it increases your risk from 1.0% to 1.18%. A relative difference of 18% sounds huge, but the absolute difference is very small. That’s not really much difference in the grand scheme of mortality risk. You can measure very small statistically significant differences with large data sets. It doesn’t necessarily mean it should drive people to change their behavior for every “significant” scientific finding.
- weird-eye-issue 4y agoRight, since there is no research on this topic already...
- bumby 4y agoSo they should quote it to put it in context. Otherwise, it comes across as click-bait and out-of-context
- easytiger 4y agoAnd how do they square the circle that with the deindustrialisation and move to central heating that those particulates production are at a century low in many western countries yet seem to be more deadly than ever.
- mishftw 4y agoFor those looking for additional data and more comprehensive coverage on the topic I would point you to Our World In Data's entry on outdoor air pollution. https://ourworldindata.org/outdoor-air-pollution https://ourworldindata.org/outdoor-air-pollution
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- idopmstuff 4y ago> a Monash University study has found that only 0.18% of the global land area and 0.001% of the global population are exposed to levels of PM2.5 - the world’s leading environmental health risk factor – below levels of safety recommended by Word Health Organization (WHO). I can't quite suss out the details, but it seems like they're saying that only 0.18% of global land area had levels of PM2.5 lower than the WHO's recommended levels _every day_. Most of the study seems to be looking at how those levels vary by day, but the big claim doesn't reference % of days at all, which is odd. Their bullet points are a little confusing as well: > Despite a slight decrease in high PM2.5 exposed days globally, by 2019 more than 70% of days still had PM2.5 concentrations higher than 15 μg/m³. Where, though? They measured different geographic areas, but this has no geographic information. That leads me to believe that the claim is that on 70% of days there was at least one geographic location with PM2.5 concentrations higher than 15 μg/m³. > In southern Asia and eastern Asia, more than 90% of days had daily PM2.5 concentrations higher than 15 μg/m³. This is much clearer but suggests that my interpretation of the last bullet was wrong... maybe that one meant a global average? I dunno, maybe I should read this again after some more coffee, but it seems to be written in a confusing way that goes back and forth from global averages to local averages to number of days above a threshold to annual averages.
- dahart 4y agoThis article does a couple of things that seem strange. The title’s “first ever” claim is a bit odd since the WHO has been basing their recommendations on global studies for decades. The WHO page already says “WHO data show that almost all of the global population (99%) breathe air that exceeds WHO guideline limits and contains high levels of pollutants, with low- and middle-income countries suffering from the highest exposures.” https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution#tab=tab_1 https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution#tab=tab_1 Another strange bit is the quote “the WHO’s recommended safe limit of 15 μg/m³.” The WHO’s 2005 “ideal” recommendation was 10 for average annual exposure, and the recommendation in their 2021 is for 5 μg/m³. I’m not sure where the 15 came from, but the WHO has proposed 4 levels of “interim” targets for cities & counties to aim for, starting at 35 and dropping to 5. For anyone who cares about air quality, I’d totally recommend reading the WHO’s material, there is a shorter executive summary [1], a much longer full report describing methodology [2] and a web site full of resources [3]. [1] https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/345334/9789240034433-eng.pdf https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/345334/9789... [2] https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/345329/9789240034228-eng.pdf https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/345329/9789... [3] https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution
- gersh 4y agoWhere has the least polluted air? Is there a map?
- runnerup 4y agohttps://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2542-5196%2823%2900008-6 https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2542-5196%2823... Third page down.
- ThisMustBeTrue 4y agohttps://www.iqair.com/earth?nav= https://www.iqair.com/earth?nav=
- cmews 4y agoMy wife has severe astma and when traveling this is something that worries me all the time. At home we have blue air machines and plants to filter the air, but astma attacks still happen (when she didn't use her medicines enough) when she travels from work to home on bad air quality days in Amsterdam. The astma medication is something that comes with a lot of trade-offs/health complications if you use it too much. Hope this will improve in future, but prevention would be even better. I looked up the amount of people in the Netherlands that have health issues connected with air quality and it isn't negligible at all (1+ million on a 17,53 million population), but I don't understand why politically it doesn't get the attention it deserves. Unfortunately I can't create this kind of machine (software eng, no hardware skills), but I think there is a very big market for portable masks with safe air to breath temporary when you are outside. Especially with all the research that has been done on how much air quality impacts your health.
- stinos 4y agoI don't understand why politically it doesn't get the attention it deserves Same as the obesity pandemic, the climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis: there are no clear immediate effects for the general population (consequences of that in turn lead from claims that it's fake to 'yeah sure whatever I don't care doesn't affect me' and everything in between), dealing with it will in the short run cost lots of money, not enough momentum to get anything long term going, sprinkle some lobbyism on top. Sounds cynical, I know, but: I've yet to see this proven wrong.. The wait for the tipping point has started.
- cmews 4y agoI agree with you, however historically the move from leaded fuel to lead-free fuel proved that we could do it or the protection of the ozon layer (one of the few times in history that we took collectively action against something damaging humanity, but it doesn't happen often enough). Curious what would cause a tipping point for improving air quality or any of the other multiple crises you mentioned and if we could learn something from history.
- 4y ago
- fwungy 4y agoSo give up your ICEs.
- amanj41 4y ago> ICEs Internal combustion engines, for others that did not know
- stinos 4y agoOr, more generically: just that C. Burning fossils for heating and especially burning wood are serious contributing factors as well, no engine involved.
- orgels_revenge 4y agoOr stop reproducing so much, so there are fewer ICEs needed in a few short generations. How anyone chooses to have children these days is beyond me..
- flanbiscuit 4y agoIf you live in the US, the EPA has a website to check outside air quality https://www.airnow.gov/ https://www.airnow.gov/ There was a recent thread[1] about air quality sensors a few months ago. From that thread there were a lot of recommendations. I ended up buying the Airthings ViewPlus[2] because it covered the widest range. If it's too pricey for you, AirGradient[3] sells a DIY "Pre-soldered" kit for cheaper that I strongly considered as well. The article in that thread was about how "Many indoor air quality sensor products are a scam," but like people mentioned in the comments, even if they are not 100% exactly accurate, you can still see that something has changed and you can crack a window, or close one if PM2.5 from outside is too high. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33025995 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33025995 2. https://www.airthings.com/view-plus https://www.airthings.com/view-plus 3. https://www.airgradient.com/open-airgradient/kits/ https://www.airgradient.com/open-airgradient/kits/
- axelsvensson 4y ago"Better air quality is the easiest way not to die" https://dynomight.net/air/ https://dynomight.net/air/