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The cognitive costs of air pollution

patrickcollison.com

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Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#131

Post by bluGill »

CharlesColeman wrote: post #117
cameldrv wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy a cheap PM detector (There are a few on Amazon using the Plantower sensor that are ~$50.) Buy any HEPA air filter for your home. Buy the best cabin air filter you can for your car (Bosch makes HEPA filters for some cars), and try to get your office to install something, or just buy one for your desk. The hard math of it is that no matter what you do, you aren't going to be able to reduce your exposure by more tha…

> The hard math of it is that no matter what you do, you aren't going to be able to reduce your exposure by more than 75% or so, because you have to go outside sometimes, so going super high end on filtration makes essentially no difference in terms of total exposure. Couldn't you get a mask for outdoor use? https://www.guidingtech.com/62349/whats-difference-n95-n99-p...

You can. However a mask on your face is not comfortable and so in practice I doubt you would wear it unless there was great need.

I wore a mask all day Saturday while working on the insulation in my attic. I can report it was easier to breathe at the end of the day than times I've been in there without a mask. (fiber glass is not easy on the lungs - though there may be some other factor not related to the mask involved). However I also had red marks across the back of my head where the bands were digging in. It was also more tiring to breathe wearing the mask all day.

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#132

Post by cwkoss »

digitalsushi wrote: post #118

short of plants, i want to find a device i can put in my area that reduces the co2 in the air. (my space doesn't support plants, it's too cold).

Most CO2 scrubbing systems either use plants (sometimes algae) or expend chemical ingredients (not very practical for long term daily use). Id recommend looking at systems designed for survivalist bunkers.

I did find this interesting project for using a thermosiphon to separate CO2 from air which looks pretty cool, but would likely require a good bit of sun to work well. I imagine it could work with an electric heating element instead of the sun, however.

https://www.instructables.com/id/Solar-powered-CO2-Scrubber/

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#133

Post by Scipio_Afri »

javagram wrote: post #91
electricslpnsld wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The countryside can have some bad environmental problems too (expansion of fracking in the rural Midwest of America, etc).

Does fracking cause much air pollution of the type discussed in the article? I thought the main issue was groundwater and earth quakes , and methane gas release / flaring. Plus there are many countryside areas with no oil.

Well to their point, there is more wood, brush or other similar types of burning in rural areas. Especially wood in the US as it is the source of heating homes in rural areas. Bonfires, etc are also more likely.

Whether or not that translates into more risk for your exposure to small particles is probably related to where you are (e.g. are you inside the house while the wood is burning, probably, so you are close to the source of it and probably have a lot of small particles around your house that get brought in every-time you open the door).

If its so rural that its just you for some distance then this might offset the fact that your wood burning stove is (probably) not providing any sort of filtering that a catalytic converter, control systems to more fully burn the fuel (so there aren't as many byproducts), or other devices normally used to remove byproducts of combustion. So it comes down to which of those byproducts are most toxic to you comparatively to other forms of pollution, the density of those particles and where you are in relation to them is going to determine your daily exposure in your environment.

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#134

Post by sujNansnam »

yissp wrote: post #110
Scene_Cast2 wrote: post #8

How do you all monitor air quality? I personally have a couple of devices (an Awair and a Flow). They seem to under-report PM2.5 compared to purpleair, airnow, and waqi.

Do you act on this information? Is there really much you can do to mitigate the effects?

If you have central air, you can put a good filter in your air return. If you don’t, you can buy a standalone air purifier.

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#135

Post by cameldrv »

CharlesColeman wrote: post #117
cameldrv wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy a cheap PM detector (There are a few on Amazon using the Plantower sensor that are ~$50.) Buy any HEPA air filter for your home. Buy the best cabin air filter you can for your car (Bosch makes HEPA filters for some cars), and try to get your office to install something, or just buy one for your desk. The hard math of it is that no matter what you do, you aren't going to be able to reduce your exposure by more tha…

> The hard math of it is that no matter what you do, you aren't going to be able to reduce your exposure by more than 75% or so, because you have to go outside sometimes, so going super high end on filtration makes essentially no difference in terms of total exposure. Couldn't you get a mask for outdoor use? https://www.guidingtech.com/62349/whats-difference-n95-n99-p...

Sure, but what about when you eat? What about when you're exercising? My point is that caring much about filtration efficiency quickly stops mattering after you've done the obvious things, because there are simply going to be times where you're not breathing filtered air, and those will very quickly become your main source of exposure.

This also means that if you feel like you need to get a mask, you should probably get the most comfortable, least restrictive one, even with a worse rating because (say) 90% filtration all the time is better than 99% filtration 80% of the time (if the discomfort causes you to take it off 20% of the time)

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#136

Post by [deleted] »

CharlesColeman wrote: post #117
cameldrv wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy a cheap PM detector (There are a few on Amazon using the Plantower sensor that are ~$50.) Buy any HEPA air filter for your home. Buy the best cabin air filter you can for your car (Bosch makes HEPA filters for some cars), and try to get your office to install something, or just buy one for your desk. The hard math of it is that no matter what you do, you aren't going to be able to reduce your exposure by more tha…

> The hard math of it is that no matter what you do, you aren't going to be able to reduce your exposure by more than 75% or so, because you have to go outside sometimes, so going super high end on filtration makes essentially no difference in terms of total exposure. Couldn't you get a mask for outdoor use? https://www.guidingtech.com/62349/whats-difference-n95-n99-p...

[deleted]

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#137

Post by simonebrunozzi »

yagurastation wrote: post #122

Anyone interested should also check out the open source citizen science project https://luftdaten.info/en/ Build your own inexpensive sensor, contribute to the global network. See also https://github.com/opendata-stuttgart

For people living in the US like me, this is where you find US pollution maps: https://usa.maps.luftdaten.info/

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#138

Post by [deleted] »

fizwhiz wrote: post #65
Scene_Cast2 wrote: post #8

How do you all monitor air quality? I personally have a couple of devices (an Awair and a Flow). They seem to under-report PM2.5 compared to purpleair, airnow, and waqi.

Dylos AQM is the gold standard. It's pricey though and has an old school interface (no fancy UI, IoT or "AI").

[deleted]

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#139

Post by rbavocadotree »

OnlineGladiator wrote: post #77
rbavocadotree wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who works for a quantitative hedge fund, you wouldn't believe how many similar results I see of researchers showing a statistically significant predictor of stock market returns. Almost every single one of them is garbage. But your point stands. The paper has nothing to do with cognitive ability. So why is it being used as evidence?

> As someone who works for a quantitative hedge fund, you wouldn't believe how many similar results I see of researchers showing a statistically significant predictor of stock market returns. Almost every single one of them is garbage. Are you able to share any that aren't (or weren't) garbage?

Here's a disappointingly simple and well known one: Momentum. It produces real, statistically significantly, excess risk-adjusted returns over an index.

The remarkable thing is that it has been well known for decades, and continues to work. Many fortunes have been made by systematically exploiting it.

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#140

Post by CarVac »

cameldrv wrote: post #78
4ec0755f5522 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Find one that can filter nano particles. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191113-the-toxic-killer...

Essentially all air filters filter nano particles. https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/can-hepa-filters-capture...

That's specific to HEPA filters. Most air filters are not as capable as HEPA filters.
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