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Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence

unenvironment.org

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Re: Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence

#161

Post by trhway »

SahAssar wrote: post #158
trhway wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A subway is a high latency, high bandwidth carrier. Trains coming in each couple minutes - show me lower latency than that :) >A lot more people can pass any point in a biketrack per hour than they can per subwaytrack several hundreds (up to a thousand in rush hour packing) people per train each couple of minutes - beat that. Anyway, the rest of what you're saying about biking is just a theory that doesn't come even…

I guess you have never visited Copenhagen or Amsterdam? Those two are pretty strong counterpoints to what you are saying.

I stated from the start that lower density smaller cities (which Copenhagen or Amsterdam are - having density 1/3rd and 1/4th of San Francisco for example) may allow for luxury of letting people to enjoy their commute on bikes.

Re: Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence

#162

Post by sxates »

siderax wrote: post #154
sxates wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or Solar or Wind or Hydro. In places like California and parts of Europe renewable sources are 1/3 or more of the electricity mix.

But when we look at the datas, country that use nuclear power are way way ahead of those that use renewable mix. Easy to look at : https://www.electricitymap.org

I'm not arguing against Nuclear, just pointing out that it's one of several low-pollution options.

Re: Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence

#163

Post by FooHentai »

lev99 wrote: post #137
gregwtmtno wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument is dead wrong and impeding progress. As other commenters have mentioned, stationary sources are much easier to filter. They're also more efficient than thousands of small internal combustion engines. They also produce pollution away from where people are breathing it. Electrification of surface transportation is a huge win for people regardless of how the electricity is generated.

The argument for public transportation is not dead wrong nor impeding progress. Expanding bus systems is something communities can do today in order to reduce their carbon footprint and their traffic levels.

The argument tarboreous put forward, as the parent, is presumably the one under discussion.

The problem is it presents a false dichotomy, or at least a choice which highlights merely a current state and not a move towards future improvements, and uses that blindless to make a case against EVs.

Thing is, even if a country is 100% coal and ICE right now (which is already not the case, China is not 100% coal), moving the fleet to EVs is still a good move. Putting aside an argument as to whether central power generation is 'cleaner' than distributed (ICE) generation, as long as a country also makes moves to renewables in it's centralized power generation, then the two things work in conjunction.

A lot of the current 'omg greenwashing' push-back is people confusing arguments for 'better' solutions with those for 'perfect' solutions. Which don't exist. Better is still worth doing, and paralysis until 'perfect' comes along is a big ol' waste of everyone's time.

Re: Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence

#164

Post by yorwba »

pavelrub wrote: post #151
r00fus wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say that a "year of education" is a lot more quantifiable to your average person than "2 points of IQ". IQ isn't used for anything meaningful in terms of ability or qualifications, especially since it's age-adjusted and historically has been biased against minorities/foreigners. A year of development however, is a graspable (if shocking) measure of lost opportunity/capability.

I disagree. "A year of education" is mostly about gaining knowledge. It's obvious that air pullution can't possibly make you forget one year of such knowledge, and I have no idea in what other intuitive way this can be interpreted that makes any sense to the average person. If it's meaningfull to someone then it's only because he understood it wrongly.

> It's obvious that air pullution can't possibly make you forget one year of such knowledge,

Is it? What people remember of one year of education is probably very little to begin with and it only gets less over time; it doesn't seem unbelievable that pollution could cause those memories to decay faster.

Re: Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence

#165

Post by SahAssar »

trhway wrote: post #161
SahAssar wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you have never visited Copenhagen or Amsterdam? Those two are pretty strong counterpoints to what you are saying.

I stated from the start that lower density smaller cities (which Copenhagen or Amsterdam are - having density 1/3rd and 1/4th of San Francisco for example) may allow for luxury of letting people to enjoy their commute on bikes.

High density usually isn't the problem for American cities (though it might be for SF, I don't know that one specifically), but rather low density suburban sprawl is. Higher density usually makes it easier to walk or use personal transport like bikes.

For it to be too dense for biking to be a viable transport they would have to be much denser than European cities which would by definition not allow for parking in the places where business takes place (in which case nobody would drive).

Most American cities were clearly designed with cars in mind, while most European where not (having grown organically rather than being designed), and while the American decision might have seemed better for the better part of the last 100 years, that might not be the case for the next couple of decades.

Re: Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence

#166

Post by yorwba »

radium3d wrote: post #60
baud147258 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they are still using coal to produce electricity.

This World Resources Institute graph^1 shows intense growth in solar electricity generation in China so they are at least moving away from fossil fuel electricity generation at a rapid pace and fossil fuel electricity generation is plateauing^0 [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China#/m... [1] https://www.wri.org/blog/2018/08/distributed-solar-pv-china-...

> fossil fuel electricity generation is plateauing^0

The graph you linked mostly shows exponential growth, with a slowdown in the last measured year. But similar kinks are visible twice before, with growth continuing at the same pace afterwards. I wouldn't call that "plateauing".

Re: Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence

#167

Post by eneveu »

I recently learned that the parisian subway and suburban trains contain a lot of particulate pollution (e.g. PM10), caused by braking (electrical brakes would reduce this) and rail grinding (maintenance done to reduce squealing in curves). The small particulate pollution is actually worse than what you find in traffic jams in the city center...

I'm looking into buying an anti-pollution mask. It will probably look weird, since nobody wears masks there... People will probably think I'm sick or something. Maybe I should buy some techwear clothing to complete the "goth-ninja" look, but I'm not sure how that will fly at work.

I have an air purifier at home since 3 years (Philips AC4072/11). I think it's a good investment, since I spend around 50% of the time at home. It also seems to have helped with my allergies, but that might be placebo.

Re: Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence

#168

Post by jellicle »

trhway wrote: post #56
jesstaa wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

human powered transport like walking or cycling works great in dense cities, it's more space efficient so it scales better too.

cycling isn't space efficient and doesn't really scales that good. It is a luxury ttransportation mode for low/mid density US cities not capable/not willing to build true mass transit modes. Look at the packed subway in say Moscow ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCZKXHsZo68 ) and compare to the best possible bicycle situation - mid-80s China http://www.theurbancountry.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/83... - around 1…

Bike lanes are incredibly efficient compared to automobile lanes.

https://www.cycling-embassy.org.uk/dictionary/capacity

Re: Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence

#169

Post by [deleted] »

SahAssar wrote: post #150
trhway wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

cycling isn't space efficient and doesn't really scales that good. It is a luxury ttransportation mode for low/mid density US cities not capable/not willing to build true mass transit modes. Look at the packed subway in say Moscow ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCZKXHsZo68 ) and compare to the best possible bicycle situation - mid-80s China http://www.theurbancountry.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/83... - around 1…

A subway is a high latency, high bandwidth carrier. A bike track is a low latency, high bandwidth carrier. That is in a subway all "packets" (people) need to wait for the next opportunity to depart, whereas in a bike system all packets move more slowly, but at a more continuous pace (set by the maximum speed of the transport). A lot more people can pass any point in a biketrack per hour than they can per subwaytrack,…

[deleted]

Re: Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence

#170

Post by xkcd-sucks »

wonderwonder wrote: post #76
saiya-jin wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't coal plants releasing small amounts of heavy metals and radioactivity from burning coal too? I recall some discussion here couple of months ago mentioning oceans pollution (and thus mainly predatory fish) mainly comes down to all coal plants churning all this at slow but steady pace. Somebody also mentioned that old decommissioned plants have their smelter quite radioactive and need to be handled accordingly.…

Coal ash, the waste from burning coal has significant amounts of radioactive heavy metals. It is stored in 'ash ponds' which can leach into the ground water and the ash can be blown into surrounding neighborhoods as they are not capped. Analysis of EPA data found that living around a coal plant can give you up to a 1 in 50 chance of cancer. Clearly a biased source (not necessarily bad though) but the data is likely a…

Does coal ash concentrate valuable metals found in coal? If so the ash could be a valuable source of radioisotopes... Presumably it's not profitable though, cause its not a very original idea
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