Smog in our brains
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Smog in our brains
1–10 of 93 posts
Re: Smog in our brains
#2I wouldn't be surprised if some future historians are able to look back at modern cities the same way that we look at granny pictures of a soot-streaked city of the industrial revolution.
"Yes, some of them thought that it was bad to have all that stuff around, but most thought it wasn't too serious compared to the immediate economic benefit it brought."
Re: Smog in our brains
#3I wouldn't be surprised if some future historians are able to look back at modern cities the same way that we look at granny pictures of a soot-streaked city of the industrial revolution. "Yes, some of them thought that it was bad to have all that stuff around, but most thought it wasn't too serious compared to the immediate economic benefit it brought."
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Re: Smog in our brains
#4I wouldn't be surprised if some future historians are able to look back at modern cities the same way that we look at granny pictures of a soot-streaked city of the industrial revolution. "Yes, some of them thought that it was bad to have all that stuff around, but most thought it wasn't too serious compared to the immediate economic benefit it brought."
Someday people may also look back at the television and the smartphone and compare the garbage we call mass media that we put into our minds to the lead in Roman water pipes.
Re: Smog in our brains
#5I wouldn't be surprised if some future historians are able to look back at modern cities the same way that we look at granny pictures of a soot-streaked city of the industrial revolution. "Yes, some of them thought that it was bad to have all that stuff around, but most thought it wasn't too serious compared to the immediate economic benefit it brought."
It's not so much how close the stuff is together as what is being burned to power it, how much of that stuff is being burned, and how close that is happening to where people live. Rural areas with coal plants nearby are going to perform very poorly on these particulate matter metrics.
Re: Smog in our brains
#6I wouldn't be surprised if some future historians are able to look back at modern cities the same way that we look at granny pictures of a soot-streaked city of the industrial revolution. "Yes, some of them thought that it was bad to have all that stuff around, but most thought it wasn't too serious compared to the immediate economic benefit it brought."
And the question is "were they wrong?" Soot-streaked cities of the industrial revolution had to be soot-streaked. They didn't have any other technology. They had to use what they could to make better things. It provided better economic benefit, and ultimately better life for us all (such as antibiotics).
We're at a point where we have better things, but choose to not use them. It's intrinsically different than the industrial revolution. It's more like slavery in the relatively modern Western world. They knew better. They just chose to argue against their core morality because they could make more money.
Re: Smog in our brains
#7I wouldn't be surprised if some future historians are able to look back at modern cities the same way that we look at granny pictures of a soot-streaked city of the industrial revolution. "Yes, some of them thought that it was bad to have all that stuff around, but most thought it wasn't too serious compared to the immediate economic benefit it brought."
Someday people may also look back at the television and the smartphone and compare the garbage we call mass media that we put into our minds to the lead in Roman water pipes.
Are you referring to non-ionizing radiation?
Is there anything yet to show negative effects? My understanding is that there hadn't been conclusive study, but from what we know of thermal radiation there aren't known mechanisms for damage to occur within the FCC(think it's their rules?) guidelines.
Re: Smog in our brains
#8I wouldn't be surprised if some future historians are able to look back at modern cities the same way that we look at granny pictures of a soot-streaked city of the industrial revolution. "Yes, some of them thought that it was bad to have all that stuff around, but most thought it wasn't too serious compared to the immediate economic benefit it brought."
And the question is "were they wrong?" Soot-streaked cities of the industrial revolution had to be soot-streaked. They didn't have any other technology. They had to use what they could to make better things. It provided better economic benefit, and ultimately better life for us all (such as antibiotics). We're at a point where we have better things, but choose to not use them. It's intrinsically different than the in…
I think there is a good argument to be made that we did (and typically do) opt for speed and low cost over safety unnecessarily.
Though I think you could also argue that speed and low cost bring chain benefits that may balance it out. I feel we may never get quantitative answers without quantum computers crunching these numbers.
Re: Smog in our brains
#9I wouldn't be surprised if some future historians are able to look back at modern cities the same way that we look at granny pictures of a soot-streaked city of the industrial revolution. "Yes, some of them thought that it was bad to have all that stuff around, but most thought it wasn't too serious compared to the immediate economic benefit it brought."
Someday people may also look back at the television and the smartphone and compare the garbage we call mass media that we put into our minds to the lead in Roman water pipes.
If they did, I would hope people around them recognized that their conflation of neurotoxins in water and largely benign electronics makes very little sense.
I think I understand the sentiment, but I don't think the three are the same. And if they had similar results, hypothetically, they would be for entirely different reasons.
edit: I'm interested to know more about peoples' concerns about smartphones and other devices emitting harmful radiation. I've never seen anything conclusive at all, but my girlfriend is positive research will eventually reveal something, for example. Very curious if anyone knows more about this. Perhaps I'm totally incorrect.
Re: Smog in our brains
#10How can it be that there are not decades of thorough, prioritized studies on the connection between air pollution and cognitive impairment?