71–80 of 165 posts
The "first"? What did they label all of those? https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/smog-kills-thous...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You want the real reason? Fixing air pollution quickly would disrupt the global economy on a long term scale. Capitalism doesn't like that. Edit: Y'all so predictable.
The real reason is that people are too poor to care about pollution or those dead people, same as anywhere else in the world. Actually, the poorer the country the less people care about the environment or infections. It's the same with covid too, it's the government which had to force close the economy.
Maybe I'm just amplifying your point, but you seem to be blaming people for being poor here, when, in fact, people are being kept poor intentionally by capitalism. It's much easier to control people who have no other options, after all.
This pandemic gave me so much to think about air pollution. It puzzles me how we can have, just in Europe, around 800k yearly premature deaths caused by pollution[0] and still not care at all. On the other hand, covid-19 hasn't caused yet as many deaths but we quickly intervened, as it should be. Why can't we, as a society, react with the same effectiveness to air pollution? - [0]: https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/…
The Covid frenzy reminds me something that happened in my friend's village.
Four small apartment rooms burned down affecting four people.
The village went into a frenzy of help and concern. They had multiple fundraisers to raise money for the affected. Local news would go to local businesses to film them putting together care packages. People on the street would be interviewed about the disaster where the interviewee would quickly sneak in what they're doing to help the cause. The local news cycle was deep-diving on the history of each affected person to show what a good person they were, and they were filmed receiving all sorts of gifts and comically large charity checks. Facebook feeds are constantly lit up about the disaster and how everyone can pitch in a hand.
Two months later some living quarters burn down killing one and putting twenty people out of a home. But it barely even makes the news and nobody really utters a word over it. The village has already blown its concern load.
We humans have this weird laserbeam of attention, and what it will focus on is a true lottery, and when it focuses on something it ignites it and it burns to a crisp and it gives us our fill for a while, and we ignore everything else.
The "first"? What did they label all of those? https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/smog-kills-thous...
Thank you Karawebnetwork. I read comments specifically to address this issue. I think Smog=Smoke+Fog is an example of air pollution. I'm sad so many people suffered from it, and sad that this girl died as well. Forgetting something that happened in the 1950s, because it was more than 65 years ago, doesn't seem like accurate journalism to me.
A lot of people are coming to terms with bad air quality, even in their homes. Air purifiers are selling like hotcakes, even where wildfires aren't a concern. One of the concerns I hope will stick after this thing is (largely) over. Something I would love for a HNer to solve is SEO for air purifiers: basically all Google results are absolute bullshit that make it harder, not easier, to make an informed choice. Much l…
I find the irony strong in the idea of buying electronics encased in plastic transported by ships and trucks to you in order to purify the air that is polluted majorly due to every single aspect of that chain. I understand to an extent of course, but can't help finding it painfully ironic.
There's a neat feature in the BMW X5 xDrive45e (a petrol plug-in hybrid SUV) - when you enter a low emissions zone, it automatically switches to battery power. Moving emissions away from the tailpipe in heavily populated areas seems like a great idea. There's no free lunch though. The emissions are still happening, just in different places where they're, ideally, less likely to affect people. It's a better situation…
London taxis are supposed to do the same. Decent idea for hybrids.
I suspect the drivers, not wanting to wear out their batteries, set the vehicles to use the engine the whole time, which is a built in feature (the 'save' drive mode)...
It's time we said "no taxi may run an engine inside zone 1, and if they do it's an £80 fine".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately those with a low income often are incredibly limited in where they are able to live. Even as a 'well paid' person in London my choices were limited by the vector of where I could afford, proximity to transport, my office, and family/friend/support connections.
Painfully aware of this, nevertheless this is a massive social services failure IMO.
I hope this will lead to changes in roads in London and other places. The closest school to me in London is next to a busy road with twice the legal level of no2, you can see all the buildings along that road are noticeably blacker from exhaust smoke. While electric cars may help a bit, rubber from breaking and tyres is an issue, and cares have been getting much bigger over the last 5 years.
In electric cars particulates from braking are also hugely reduced, as most braking is done by engine / recuperation.
I think that people have some kind of magical belief about car exhaust being harmless. It's like: okay, sure, a common form of suicide is to lock yourself in your garage and idle your car engine. But if you're outside, then magically the exhaust fumes become completely harmless... because (checks notes) air breezes or diffusion or something. Really, people?
I have a strong suspicion that in decades to come we will realize that car exhaust causes many of the big neurological disorders, like Parkinson's.