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Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone
- stuaxo 2mo agoI've needed my inhaler way less since the ULEZ came in. Visiting London used to mean blowing your nose to black snot for a week afterwards, these days living in London it's pretty good.
- glenngillen 2mo agoI've not lived in London for more than a decade. I always thought the black snot was from the Tube. Is it not?
- lazide 2mo agoIt is, but not just from it.
- nullify88 2mo agoI lived on Upper Street in Angel, London by some traffic lights and there was always a layer of black dust inside. I assumed it was brake particulate.
- walthamstow 2mo agoEvery house inner London is covered in black soot from the days of coal fires. Have you ever seen one after it's been sandblasted?
- sokoloff 2mo agoTire wear was probably a greater source than brake wear.
- walthamstow 2mo agoI've lived in London all my life and I only get black bogeys on days that I've been on the tube. Before COVID that was every day.
- mrec 2mo agoYup, especially on the older lines (Northern, Victoria, Jubilee, Bakerloo). Particulate pollution can be two orders of magnitude higher than at street level. This tends to be glossed over when trumpeting the success of ULEZ measures pushing people away from cars and onto public transport, and I say that as a non-car-owner.
- walthamstow 2mo agoPeople tend to walk 10-15 mins at either end when taking the tube, and will walk more through the day. My understanding is this activity is net positive despite the extra particulates while on the tube. I might be misremembering this with a study I read on cycling in road pollution though
- ifwinterco 2mo agoAlmost certainly some asbestos dust still in there from prior decades as well, the tube is absolutely filthy and never cleaned properly
- TheOtherHobbes 2mo agoIndeed. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/18/london-underground-passengers-should-know-about-toxic-dust-risks-whistleblower-says https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/18/london-under...
- inigyou 2mo agoJust one more reason to wear an N95 on the Tube.
- Lio 2mo agoOh yeah "tube bogeys" are definitely a thing. Whenever my best mate goes on about having access to "cultural experiences" that I don't have for living in the sticks I remind him it comes at the cost of massive tube bogeys. :P
- smashah 2mo agoPretty sure that's due to the tube.
- jabl 2mo agoWhat's so uniquely bad about the tube in London? Poor ventilation and brake dust?
- vkazanov 2mo agoIts the oldest metro in the world. An achieviement, yes, but in old stations ventillation is crap, materials are poisonous, etc.
- badgersnake 2mo agoYeah, seems way better now than it was in the 90s though. They’ve improved the ventilation a lot.
- tarkasteve 2mo agoULEZ massively reduced the amount of NO2, which is a trigger for asthma. It also seems to have reduced the hospital admissions for heart related emergencies. Sources: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c75q9d2pqyeo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c75q9d2pqyeo https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/12/emergency-hospital-admissions-reduced-london-t-charge-ulez-air-quality https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/12/emergenc...
- flipbrad 2mo agoPeople don't fire their chimneys or have garden bonfires much any more, either.
- hobo123 2mo agoTell that to Germans. Winter air here is extremely bad. Rising natural gas prices due to the Ukraine war also made even more people install fireplaces (as if that was cheaper).
- elric 2mo agoMore anecdata: I've been using my inhaler more since moving to a city with worse air quality than my previous location.
- BrunoBernardino 2mo agoAnecdotal, but similar situation here for me (I don't need an inhaler, but visiting London around 2015 meant blowing my nose to black snot for a week, and then back in 2024 it was completely fine)!
- ecshafer 2mo agoAnecdata I was living very close to a busy highway, and my young daughter was wheazing when she had a cold, we had to give her medicine via a nebulizer. When we moved out to the country more, far away from any major roads, these issues all disappeared within a couple months.
- roughly 2mo agoA friend of mine does research on air pollution from cars - the TL;DR is you should not live within a third of a mile of a highway. The falloff is pretty sharp, but you don't want to be in that zone.
- lazide 2mo agoNotably, most major cities have been building tons of housing (especially ‘affordable housing’) right next to highways, as it is the only areas that aren’t already built out with tons of high value houses. Surprise surprise.
- energy123 2mo agoIt's a dumping ground for poor people.
- tony69 2mo agoIt’s not like they do it on purpose rubbing hands
- weird-eye-issue 2mo agoHousing development happens at random?
- masklinn 2mo agoPlus the US literally built highways in the middle of poor neighbourhoods.
- satvikpendem 2mo agoUsing scientists being "stunned" should take the same amount of relevance as someone being "slammed" in article titles.
- powerpcmac 2mo agoI'd like to imagine the stunned scientist is a scientist from another field, they show some medical findings to a guy who looks at snail butts all day and he's the one "stunned" by the findings
- Nition 2mo agoThe scientist who used the word "stunned" is one of the study's authors.
- bryanlarsen 2mo agoSmokers don't magically undo the damage they did to their lungs after they stop smoking. Stunned might be hyperbole, but it is at least a little bit surprising.
- zdragnar 2mo ago"Stunned" isn't really a scientific term. It's the sort of editorializing you should expect to come from people who aren't the scientists themselves. More than hyperbole, it is classic click bait. Also, quitting smoking definitely eases a number of symptoms, especially if you're not at the point of chronic emphysema. The reduction of inflammation triggers alone after a bit of time is fairly significant. Less coughing, less mucus buildup, etc.
- Nition 2mo agoBut this isn't that at all. "Stunned" is used here because it's the word one of the study's authors actually used. '"I was absolutely stunned when I first saw the results," Prof Chris Griffiths, a senior author on the study, at Queen Mary University of London, told the BBC.'
- XorNot 2mo agoSo punchline, probably a good idea to electrify all the cars yeah?
- jimbob45 2mo agoThat doesn’t solve brake and tire particles. Although…rail might solve those?
- cousinbryce 2mo agohttps://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/pollution-tyre-wear-worse-exhaust-emissions https://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/pollution-tyre-wear-... Rail, bike, even busses are better. Cars are uniquely bad transportation in urban environments
- mhandley 2mo agoDo the numbers in that article make sense? 5.8g/km for tyre wear? Generally my tyres last maybe 25000 miles. So at that rate they would lose 230kg. Seems high.
- lazide 2mo agoThey might be counting trucks?
- danparsonson 2mo ago"Non-exhaust emissions (NEE) are particles released into the air from brake wear, tyre wear, road surface wear and resuspension of road dust during on-road vehicle usage." I guess they mean total non-exhaust particulates.
- mhandley 2mo agoTyre, no, but regen braking almost eliminates brake particles at the speeds I drive in London. But mostly I take the train. Unfortunately the highest I measured on my particulate sensor is not near the roads, but in the tube.
- OutOfHere 2mo agoI use air purifiers mounted on my windows, running continuously except in the deep summer and deep winter. This makes my air contain 50-100x fewer particulates than the outdoor air. In contrast, the best I can achieve with floor air purifiers as people have them is a 5-10x reduction. The window purifiers also keep excess CO2 and VOCs out.
- Terr_ 2mo ago> The window purifiers also keep excess CO2 and VOCs out. I assume you mean that the increased air-exchange (purified or not) helps CO2 that originates inside the house to leave promptly? (Equalizing it with the outdoors.) Literally "keeping CO2 out" is a much trickier and more-expensive proposition.
- OutOfHere 2mo agoYou are quite correct on both counts.
- energy123 2mo agoYou have activated carbon to filter out the VOCs?
- OutOfHere 2mo agoYes, the filter absolutely has an activated carbon layer in it in addition to a HEPA layer. I understand that activated carbon doesn't last long. I have been changing the filter every two months. Note that because this purifier is mounted at the window, it filters incoming air from outside, not the indoor VOCs that are already in the residence. The indoor VOCs will simply have to get exhausted from elsewhere due to the air pressure. What I am suggesting is that my need for activated carbon is slightly less because I am rapidly pushing the VOCs out in the resulting exhaust.
- bad_username 2mo agoHealth improvements are not measurable any more if you go below 5 mcg/m2 average level of PM2.5 particulates. For 50x reduction to be beneficial, you need to live in an area where the pollution is 250 mcg/m2, which is an extreme level found only in a few unfortunate places on Earth. 5-10x reduction is reasonable almost everywhere.
- bilekas 2mo ago> strongest evidence yet that local clean air zones could help reduce some of the harm caused by pollution during childhood. It's incredible this is even in debate. It's one of those intuitive things well known since the reduction of coal burning and smog during the industrial revolution in London?
- Symbiote 2mo agoThe right (Conservative) and far right (Reform) parties both say they will abolish low-emission zones and other measures to reduce pointing traffic. They made it into a culture war topic.
- iamflimflam1 2mo agoThe right latches onto anything where a small minority are upset and amplify it. They are the ultimate rage baiters.
- rightnutwingjob 2mo agoSomehow I don’t think that is the exclusive domain of the Right.
- scns 2mo agoIt is not, but all they have to offer.
- _joel 2mo agoReform are latching on to anything to detract from the 5 million pound "gift" to Farage from a crypto billionaire, Christopher Harbourne..
- 4ndrewl 2mo agoBloody Sadiq Kahn and his militant sharia ulez improving the health of forriners. /s
- ggm 2mo agos/stunned/pleased/
- 4ndrewl 2mo agoRtfa. "Stunned" is the actual word the scientist used.
- userbinator 2mo agoShort-term gains are likely to produce long-term negative effects. Hormesis and natural selection have been driving factor of evolution for a long time.
- alansaber 2mo agoWhat is this, eugenics from first principles?
- userbinator 2mo agoBetter than dysgenics for sure.
- sublinear 2mo agoAsthma is so common that this is not only easy to test, but has been. That's what the article was about. Anyway, by your own line of thinking, wouldn't sensitive lungs be an advantage? The incentive to find cleaner air is also breaking away from the pack. Since humans are social creatures, that's more likely to look like new leadership for followers who have their own reasons to break away. Every civilization in history has started out that way. It takes more than mere brute force to beat the competition. Survival is just as much about picking your battles and working smarter.
- rsynnott 2mo agoAre you suggesting that it would be advantageous for humanity to evolve to live in London circa 2000? Larry Niven played with this in one of his stories; a time traveller from the far (and highly polluted) future has to use mechanical breathing assistance, because the levels of CO2 in the air in the past weren't high enough to prompt the breathing response properly (human breathing is controlled largely by blood CO2 levels).
- inigyou 2mo agoAnything you can do externally will tend to evolve out. That's why humans can't make their own Vitamin C and half of them need glasses. Keeping a trait in the population does require keeping up the selective prrssure, which is eugenics.
- subygan 2mo agocompletely anecdotal. my earliest childhood memories in india were of asthma, sinusitis and constant cold. this was consistent until i was 26 and since then I've moved to the US and lived in New York with 0 days of sinusitis or breathing trouble. and i fallback to trouble breathing when i go home again. even New York is so much more better than Bangalore or my small village in the middle of coffee farms
- weird-eye-issue 2mo agoYes, pollution has both acute and chronic effects. What you describe here is an acute effect.
- 14 2mo agoI just made a comment about having good air quality but with summer fires we were getting smoke for weeks at a time so I got an air purifier. My kid wasn't struggling horribly but I did notice right away after putting one in his room that he slept better and his breathing seemed so much more relaxed at night and it just felt like it made a noticeable improvement to me.
- trial_version 2mo agoDuring my childhood, I lived across the street from a brewery. I suffered from chronic sinusitis for years, and no one understood the cause. When I moved to a different part of town, the problem immediately stopped. The same thing happened to one of my classmates who lived in the apartments next to me.
- astatine 2mo agoBangalore has historically (over decades) been known to have a high incidence of asthma due to the high pollen in the air. It's been made worse in recent years due to pollution. The pollen is present for a significant portion of the year while other pollen regions in the world tend to have it for a smaller duration.
- 14 2mo agoI live in British Columbia so we have fairly good air quality. But with the yearly fires lately summer air some years is poor. So one year with the fires smoking and air quality getting poor I got an air purifier for my kids room and the living room. It is only anecdotal but right away if felt like he had better sleeps. The smoke wasn't thick as it was from fires hundreds of miles away and it wasn't like any of us were hacking or coughing crazy but in hindsight I felt that my young son who would have been effected the most slept better and his breathing at night seemed quieter and easier.
- seanp2k2 2mo agoI've been meaning to do some data mining on how much PM2.5 differs with even a few hundred feet of elevation. I have a theory that even around Silicon Valley, living even up a little bit in the foothills would have you breathing massively cleaner air most of your life vs living in the pits of the valley. I see it all the time when I'm out there for recreation or just driving, the smoggy haze all over that just sits in the valley and the Bay. It's probably not too tough of a data processing challenge to compare the stats on Purple Air AQI sensors in reasonably close geo proximity vs elevation to get some statistically-significant data on this.
- herbst 2mo agoWhen I talk about health implications I often end up saying "but it's less bad than living next to a street" which statistically many things we spend time optimizing about are. However most people live next to a busy street ...
- itsyonas 2mo agoThe street isn't the problem. Cars and trucks are. If those streets were filled with people walking, cycling, etc., the health penalty of living next to one would vanish overnight.
- herbst 2mo agoOk that's not what I consider a "busy street" but I get your point, need better wording there.
- itsyonas 2mo agoWhy not? A lot of streets often seem busy simply due to the incredible space inefficiency of cars. What I like to do sometimes, when I wait at a traffic light with my bicycle, is to count the actual number of cars that cross during a phase. The amount feels large, but when you count, it's often not more than the amount of cyclists that cross in the next phase, and they take up just a tiny fraction of what cars need.
- herbst 2mo agoSure it absolutely makes sense. But for me and my eyes 200 people passing by are somehow still less "busy" than 25 loud and stinky cars. That's what I mean with I need better wording
- rsynnott 2mo agoGenerally, the busiest streets are pedestrianised; you just can't move that volume of people in cars. (Actually, the _very_ busiest streets are probably major bus gates (where, again, there are no cars), those can have fairly ridiculous density at peak times.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- tomcam 2mo ago> Initial results showed children's lungs in London were smaller in capacity than those in Luton Sure but they had to live in Luton
- realty_geek 2mo agoThere is a chap in London who does some great work with researching and spreading awareness of air pollution: https://clara.southlondonscientific.com/ https://clara.southlondonscientific.com/ He also runs this repo: https://github.com/southlondonscientific/aeolus https://github.com/southlondonscientific/aeolus
- Aeolun 2mo agoScientists stunned healthy living is healthy?
- noelwelsh 2mo agoPointless anti-intellectualism. There is a big difference between believing something is true, and demonstrating it is true and measuring the effect. One is a vibe. The other can drive policy.
- Aeolun 2mo agoKind of, but there’s a lot of ‘water is wet’ studies, and this falls firmly in the ‘why the hell are you surprised by this?!’ category.
- wartywhoa23 2mo agoNewsflash, living in a healthy environment is healthy!
- noelwelsh 2mo agoPointless anti-intellectualism. There is a big difference between believing something is true, and demonstrating it is true and measuring the effect. One is a vibe. The other can drive policy.
- wartywhoa23 2mo agoIt's not pointless anti-intellectualism, it's pro-humanism. History holds enough examples of intellectuals who out of absolute lack of any human compassion subjected fellow human beings to anti-humane conditions, hoping to find and push the limits of their bodies and psyches in order to maximize profits, ahem, sorry, optimize spending. And those who you hope to be able to set "policies" on further cramming of people into the machine are either exactly those who profit off that, or eat crumbs from that table. Yet there are always heart/right hemisphere dead morons who need precise numbers and conclusions written in blood instead of simply relying on common sense.
- dzhiurgis 2mo agoFound the government consultant!
- internet_points 2mo agoIt was news to me that the lung damage from pollution isn't necessarily permanent in children, if a change in environment happens early enough. Up until reading this, I was under the impression it would be. We had a lot of construction work in the neighborhood, our house covered in fine dust particles each day. My kid got asthma in the same period, keeps asking when she can stop taking the medicines, and I say "I don't know" thinking "probably never". But maybe now the construction work is over, there is hope? (And if construction starts again, we know that it is better to move, because there is hope.)
- TheOtherHobbes 2mo ago
- Animats 2mo agoWhile having something done at Stanford's hospitals, at one point I was placed in a room with signs indicating it was on a heavily filtered ventilation system rated for COVID, etc. It was striking to be in an environment with air almost to clean room quality.
- rimworld 2mo agocease all travel and live to 88
- collabs 2mo agoWhat is more amazing to me is I thought this wouldn't be localized. I thought we have on earth and one atmosphere but clearly not? Like the standard of living can wildly change if we change our own local area. We don't need people in Montreal or Paris to come up with a plan? So unlike greenhouse gases, which can last in the atmosphere for years, seems like NO2 and particulates only stay in the air for less than a day or a few days. This is an amazing little fact because we can start small and call for meaningful reform where we live without requiring a global coordination. Maybe there will be a global consensus later but it doesn't matter because we can start making improvements today within our own local context. The bonus is we will likely also lower our own carbon footprint as we reduce our other emissions. I think this is the "selfish" breakthrough we need to convince people. When I say it doesn't matter, I don't mean like cross border contamination does not happen but rather that we can improve our own lives with our own action regardless of what others do. The obvious actionable thing that you can do for your own life is to stop using or being around gasoline or petrol powered two stroke engines such as in a leaf blower. But we can do more. We can completely ban these two stroke engines from being sold at all and that will bring meaningful improvements in weeks, not years. The problem is to make more impact, we will need to actually get people to give up or retrofit their existing equipment. We will need to educate people about the harms that these things cause and why the change is good. However, in today's siloed world, I don't think it will be easy at all. So perhaps the most difficult part ironically in a very connected and yet siloed world is the marketing of this idea and connecting the required change in behavior with the benefits. As we saw with the leaf blower example, the costs are concentrated, yes but so are the benefits! The benefits are NOT at all diffuse because guess who benefits the most from not inhaling in gasoline fumes? The person operating the leaf blower!
- rcxdude 2mo agoMost air pollution is pretty localized. CFCs and greenhouse gases are the biggest outliers for how global their effects are.
- IrishTechie 2mo agoThe localisation of it struck me when I read an Irish EPA report on traffic-related air pollution a few years ago that recommended carrying your child if you were walking regularly near heavy traffic. The air at 0.8m (their breathing height) has 5-15% more NOx in it than the air at 2m (the height they would breath at being carried by you).
- himata4113 2mo agoThis is a reminder that getting an air purifier with high airflow filters (NOT HEPA!) is lifechanging in cities with high pollution levels. I recommend getting one of these https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQGfO4hNb60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQGfO4hNb60 and just slapping a MERV 12 to 16 filter on it, you can get a whole roll off aliexpress for cheap and replace them monthly if you wanted to and it would be cheaper than 1 hepa filter replacement. They can also filter vastly more air, while you can keep hepa for 6 to 12 months MERV will filter a lot more air.
- rob74 2mo agoOpinion article on this by Sadiq Khan, the London mayor who introduced ULEZ: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/18/ulez-hardest-decision-mayor-london-impact-sadiq-khan https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/18/ulez-h...
- stevezsa8 2mo agoThe sad thing is... when the ULEZ went into effect, there were some wild conspiracy theories about it. Suddenly even my father was an expert and viewed it as sinister government intervention - all because of youtube crackpots. I couldn't get him to relate to my view that cleaner air must be a good thing. I bet if some youtube weirdos pushed out videos against "big soap" for making us unnecessarily clean our hands after pooping... we'd have a growing following of angry "freedom from big soap" people.
- wickedsight 2mo ago> I bet if some youtube weirdos pushed out videos against "big soap" for making us unnecessarily clean our hands after pooping... we'd have a growing following of angry "freedom from big soap" people. At one point during Covid, I tried (not very hard at all) to float a conspiracy that the vaccine was in fact not the poison, but the antidote. That Covid was deliberately designed by governments to filter the 'independent thinkers' (who won't take the vaccine) from the sheep (those who do take the vaccine). So by not taking the vaccine, you were giving the governments what they wanted. This was because the conspiracy that governments were killing the loyal sheep with the vaccine, therefore only leaving the 'independent thinkers' behind, made absolutely no sense at all to me.
- throwaway2037 2mo agoMy anecdata: I have a Japanese friend who was born in 1964. She grew up in Yokohama for the first ten years. Japan didn't pass its first (serious) environmental protection law until 1967. She said many, many of her friends had asthma. Fast forward 50 years, very few children have asthma in Yokohama. I will never forget watching this documentary about a Canadian man, Doug Rogers, who went to Japan in 1964 to train martial arts at a dojo. This YouTube video[1], watch it from 1:00 to 1:10. The air pollution is simply stunning. It shows you just how terrible the air pollution was in Tokyo in 1964. Today, it is night and day. The same is true for most large cities in highly industrialised nations. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBFx1a4L2ig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBFx1a4L2ig
- pcrh 2mo agoLink to the original study below, free to access [0]. The key data appear to be this: >At baseline, 184 (14%) of 1280 children with successful FEV1 measurement in London had a clinically low FEV1 (pre-bronchodilator FEV1 <80% of predicted value) compared with 126 (9%) of 1339 children in Luton (appendix p 8). At the end of the study, these values had dropped to 51 (9%) of 585 children in London and 41 (7%) of 606 children in Luton (appendix p 8). So the proportion of children with low lung function dropped from 14% to 9% in London, and from 9% to 7% at the comparator site in Luton. It's not that much different, though any improvement is obviously welcome. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(26)00163-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2...
- scotty79 2mo agoWho knew that populating Earth with mechanical horses that shit into the air is not such a great idea.
- Havoc 2mo agoAnd yet we’ve still got people cutting down the enforcement cameras with angle grinders at night
- graemep 2mo agoA few things standout to me from the article. 1. London when the ULEZ was brought in was already a lot less polluted than historically.Are there gains from that? London was not that bad by global standards. 2. This was followed by the benefits of COVID lockdowns (not a phrase often used!) as pollution dropped much further. 3. Is this effect even across London? Suburbs vs centre, different types of housing etc.? I grew up a the edge of London and the difference in pollution was visible (i.e. you did not need instruments to see signs of it). 4. There was also a reduction in sales of diesel cars which had been heavily encouraged (because of lower CO₂ emissions) in previous decades. 5. As the articles notes, there have been a lot of other changes at roughly the same time. It only mentions one, but there have been significant lifestyle changes, so a lot of potential confounding variables.
- dabinat 2mo agoWouldn’t most of those effects also be in the control group too?
- graemep 2mo agoMuch smaller place and starting from a better baseline so they would not have experienced the same changes.
- foven 2mo ago1. Less than historically still has a quite high baseline compared to after ULEZ - if it was more polluted, presumably the change seen here would be more dramatic. 2. Definitely kickstarted it, but we're looking at taking that impact and continuing it for some 5 years after covid ended now. 3. You can look at the ULEZ map and it really covers everything but the outer tube line suburbs [1]. 5. The control group in Luton, presumably, has the same lifestyle changes - it's not that far away (about 30 miles), so it is as close as you can get to a one to one comparison, not accounting for the fact that Luton is likely to be more deprived than London (especially in the council estates, which have horrible reputations). [1] - https://tfl.gov.uk/ruc-cdn/static/cms/images/ulezdetailedmapgif.gif https://tfl.gov.uk/ruc-cdn/static/cms/images/ulezdetailedmap...
- kahf56 2mo agoIsn't this common sense? What is being "stunned" !!
- bjackman 2mo agoIf you click the link at the top you'll find it goes to an article. The article will often expand upon the text in the link!!! In this case: "While we would expect children's lungs to grow year on year, our results indicate that the London children's lung growth had accelerated during the four years to 'catch up' with the control group in Luton to reach similar levels of lung capacity," researchers say. "I was absolutely stunned when I first saw the results," Prof Chris Griffiths, a senior author on the study, at Queen Mary University of London, told the BBC. "The speed of catch up in lung capacity in the London group was surprising and impressive."
- lynguist 2mo ago- Fuck diesel cars [0]: https://www.zh.ch/content/dam/zhweb/bilder-dokumente/themen/umwelt-tiere/luft-strahlung/luftschadstoffquellen/verkehr/abgasmessungen-rsd/icct_ldv_nox_emissions_zurich_20190628.pdf https://www.zh.ch/content/dam/zhweb/bilder-dokumente/themen/... "High diesel-family averages were approximately 1–3 g NOx/km. Most gasoline-family averages clustered around approximately 0.02–0.15 g/km." [1]: https://publications.tno.nl/publication/34635198/KxBBl3/TNO-2020-R10006.pdf https://publications.tno.nl/publication/34635198/KxBBl3/TNO-... "TNO tested in-use vehicles directly at the tailpipe. Three diesels with DPFs emitted: 3.9–5.3 million particles/cm³ at warm low idle. The same report measured warm Euro 5 direct-injection gasoline cars without gasoline particulate filters at: 50,000–60,000 particles/cm³ at low idle." [2]: https://d-nb.info/137495313X/34 https://d-nb.info/137495313X/34 "In 2017, the highest diesel was approximately 12 g black carbon/kg fuel, versus roughly 0.4 g/kg for the highest gasoline car. In 2023, the highest diesel was roughly 8 g/kg, versus approximately 0.7 g/kg gasoline." [3]: https://trueinitiative.org/insights/true-brussels-emissions-testing-dpf-malfunctions-and-tampering-responsible-for-90-of-all-diesel-euro-5b-and-6-emissions/ https://trueinitiative.org/insights/true-brussels-emissions-... "approximately 5% of measured Euro 5b/Euro 6 diesel vehicles exceeded one million particles/cm³, and this small group produced more than 90% of the particle emissions from the tested diesel group"
- unglaublich 2mo ago- Fuck two stroke engines even more "Levels in the raw 2S scooter exhaust were as high as 300,000 μg m−3 or 146 p.p.m.(v) from idling. The EU annual mean limit for the protection of human health is 5 μg m−3 (ref. 13), while the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recommends that workers wear special breathing equipment when exposed to benzene at levels exceeding 1 p.p.m. for 15 min. Waiting in traffic behind a 2S scooter, for example, at junctions and while the scooter is idling, may therefore be highly deleterious to health." [0]: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms4749 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms4749 But cities are full of shitty mopeds and old Vespas, for no benefit but cultural cosplay reasons.
- 8by3 2mo agoSeems electric cars produce the same or sometimes more non combustion particulates than ICE cars, eg. bits of road and tire that are flung into the air while driving. So EVs are better than ICE for air quality, but fewer cars even better.
- dan-robertson 2mo agoI think it’s mostly break dust. Electric cars are heavier but can also hopefully mostly use regenerative breaking instead of break pads. Road vibrations (and wear?) tend to go as the fourth power of weight over the axle and so it tends to be worse for (naturally heavier) electric cars but even worse for goods vehicles.
- dzhiurgis 2mo agoBut london tube have order of magnitude of dust pollution and buses damage roads (aka pollute) 30,000 (yes 30k) times more due to weight.
- ninalanyon 2mo agoHow do you get 30k? A new Routemaster double decker weighs 12.6 tonne and carries up to 80 passengers. A typical car weighs 1.6 tonne and carries up to 4 passengers, they both have two axles. If we guess at half the rated passenger count then we have: Bus damages the road (12.6/1.6)^4 = 3845 times as much as a single car. But it carries 20 times as many people so the damage is only 192 times per person. Still a lot of course but other pollutants such as NOx are surely so much less that it can be justified. I'm sure my calculation is imprecise but surely not that far out. What have I missed or misunderstood?
- dzhiurgis 2mo agoYou forgot the passengers. Gross weight of electric double decker is 19.2 tones. (19.2/1.6)^4=20,736. Which also means roads for heavy transport is 20k times more expensive!
- 2mo ago
- thelastgallon 2mo agoChina has 350 million electric two-wheelers, 20 million EVs. China reduced air pollution from transportation by 80% in a decade. Delhi: 442. Lahore: 334. Beijing: 16. These are the levels of PM 2.5, one of the principle measures for air pollution, on November 19. How China cleaned up its air pollution – and what that meant for the climate: https://theconversation.com/how-china-cleaned-up-its-air-pollution-and-what-that-meant-for-the-climate-270170 https://theconversation.com/how-china-cleaned-up-its-air-pol...
- TechDebtDevin 2mo ago[dead]
- thelastgallon 2mo agoOutdoor pollution ---> Use these for transportation: walk, bicycle, e-scooters, public transit, electric 2 wheeler, EV Indoor pollution ---> Use these for cooking (induction, electric resistance) stove, heatpump waterheater and furnace for HVAC Would also be nice to do: stop using coal, gas power plants. These are usually farther out from cities and probably not the most urgent. (except when Elon Musk or new DCs decide to use gas turbines in cities). Researchers say they have cracked how air pollution leads to cancer, in a discovery that completely transforms our understanding of how tumours arise: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-62797777 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-62797777 (discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32788706 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32788706) Surprise! Electric cars are already making California healthier (2023): https://electrek.co/2023/02/10/surprise-electric-cars-are-already-making-california-healthier/ https://electrek.co/2023/02/10/surprise-electric-cars-are-al... Air Pollution Kills 10 Million People a Year. Why Do We Accept That as Normal? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/opinion/environment/air-pollution-deaths-climate-change.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/opinion/environment/air-p... Tiny air pollutants may cause changes in brain structure that resemble those of Alzheimer’s disease: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/25/well/mind/air-pollution-brain-dementia-alzheimer-memory.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/25/well/mind/air-pollution-b... It is important to use metrics and language that people can understand. Cigarette smoking is very well known, because public health initiatives make sure the harm is labeled. Air Pollution and Cigarette Equivalence: https://berkeleyearth.wpengine.com/air-pollution-and-cigarette-equivalence/ https://berkeleyearth.wpengine.com/air-pollution-and-cigaret... Delhi’s air pollution equivalent to smoking 50 cigarettes per day but experts say it can be fixed: https://epic.uchicago.in/delhis-air-pollution-equivalent-to-smoking-50-cigarettes-but-experts-say-it-can-be-fixed/ https://epic.uchicago.in/delhis-air-pollution-equivalent-to-... Almost all countries failing to meet mark for PM2.5, tiny particles expelled by vehicles and industry that can cause health problems: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/19/air-pollution-health-report https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/19/air-poll... Bees struggle to find flowers because of air pollution: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37434381 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37434381 Cars and automobility have killed 60–80 million people since their invention. 1 in 34 deaths are caused by cars and automobility with 1,670,000 deaths per year. Car harm: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39465354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39465354 Gas stoves pollute homes with benzene, which is linked to cancer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36364524 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36364524 Amazon backs power plant that may become top source of US climate pollution: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49249971 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49249971
- marsven_422 2mo ago[dead]
- matsemann 2mo agoI grew up in a small town in the mountains in Norway. There is a children's "hospital" there (Geilomo Barnesykehus), where kids come to live because they can't live in the cities. Kids with severe asthma, eczema and some other conditions. It started as far back as the 1930s, still unfortunately a problem so kids have to come live there away from their families.
- rozab 2mo agoBetter than having to go down a salt mine, I suppose https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/29/respiratory-clinic-armenia-salt-mine-asthma-speleotherapy https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/29/respiratory-cl...
- thecaio 2mo agothe framing of this headline - "scientists stunned" while conveying pollution hurts lung recovery is a gem
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- unglaublich 2mo agoEurope should hurry up adopting ULEZ in every dense urban area. It's completely worth it in terms of health, neurological development, noise and quality of life, and has practically no downsides but "boohoo" from those who make everything into a culture war. A good start would be to immediately ban all two-stroke mopeds aka "super polluters" (emitting 50x as much PM2.5 as a truck), and then follow up with Diesel trucks and delivery vehicles. It's ridiculous that we voluntarily emit fossil fuel and oil fumes in our densest urban areas.
- jlovetemi 2mo ago[dead]
- briandear 2mo agoHow about chopping down all of the London Plane trees next? Absolutely disastrous for public health. They are also all over Barcelona and cause nothing but respiratory misery. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/05/04/scourge-of-london-plane-tree-must-end/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/05/04/scourge-of-londo...
- roryirvine 2mo agoUgh, yes. They trigger my hay fever almost as soon as they start budding, a good month before pollen season kicks off properly.
- ninalanyon 2mo agoWhat other effects would that have?
- xyzzy123 2mo agoI'm not really sure the thing they were trying to measure was measurable with the study design and level of funding they had. To be fair, the paper is fairly clear on the limitations and much better than the press release. The study is supposed to measure how clearing up pollution in London improved children's lung function. The decrease in London was meaningful — NO2 fell about 22%. But particulates fell faster in Luton and NO2 in London is still roughly double Luton's. The gap is larger than the decrease. By 2022 both cohorts get the same results on blow tests. But how does this happen if we believe that the study's dose-response model is true? Put another way, if the change in London NO2 is so crucial, how come it doesn't matter that the absolute value is still double Luton's?
- raphinou 2mo agoAny advice on in and outdoor detectors os small particles for home use?
- kazinator 2mo agohttps://archive.is/YpyHu https://archive.is/YpyHu
- pxc 2mo agoIn centuries gone past, members of the bourgeoisie would be directed by their doctors to summer homes and country estates so they could "convalesce in the countryside". It seems there was something to it, or at least there is now. (Even back then, it was explicitly about "fresh air".)
- thinkcontext 2mo agoThis would seem to be an issue MAHA would want to engage on. But they instead seem to be focused on issues for which there's no evidence or even substantial negative evidence like vaccines. What a wasted opportunity to actually improve public health.
- icefrog98 2mo agoAs a respiratory therapist in the US performing the same type of lung function and capacity tests this article speaks about, I find this research and journalism is so valuable to society! I have seen so many awlful situations with kids during poor air quality times. The lungs and respiratory track are exposed to the outside air. We simply are not designed to breathe particulate matter or emissions. Their lungs and alveoli are actively growing. Children breathe more rapidly than adults.When ultrafine particles and emissions bypass the upper airway defenses, they lodge deep in the lower respiratory tract, triggering acute inflammatory responses which can lead to deaths. I never want this to happen to anyones children. So many bad things in the world right now but seeing this made me smile today.
- 1970-01-01 2mo agoYou can reasonably calculate the deaths caused by VW's diesel gate. We did that to ourselves. https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/health-impacts-of-diesel-vehicles-suspected-of-using-prohibited-defeat-devices-in-the-eu-and-uk/ https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/health-impacts-of-...
- mitchbob 2mo agohttps://archive.ph/YpyHu https://archive.ph/YpyHu
- WorseIsBetter 2mo ago[flagged]
- zombot 2mo agoAmazing what a non-toxic environment can do for your health. Who'd have thought?