The first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death • Hacker News Board

Re: The first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death

#141

Post by TheOperator » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 3:27 AM UTC

dfgdghdf wrote: post #95

m0nty wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why can't we, as a society, react with the same effectiveness to air pollution? In the UK at least, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) is a powerful lobby group. Car sales are used as a key economic indicator. Cars have long been seen as aspirational and a measure of personal success. Cars support other sectors of the economy such as civil engineering (roads, bridges), petroleum sales and car acc…

Indeed. What's really crazy is how the "anti" side has managed to claim to be the side of the working class, fighting against a "green liberal elite". This trope is incredibly harmful; the poor don't even own cars in London, yet breathe the most polluted air.

I see the anti-side as more arguing that they're middle class. People wealthy enough to afford to not bicycle or take the bus, but of modest enough means that taxes can mean putting car ownership out of reach. The "Liberal elite" is putting a very manageable burden on the rich, actively promoting means of transit that help the poor, and is expecting the middle class to just suffer through the requisite sacrifices. It's a compelling narrative so long as you don't expect to live another 50 years in which case it's a rather dense one becuase you will actually have to pay the interest on your choices today.

What truly baffles me is people who are anti-immigrarion, anti-migrant, and anti-refugee but also against any form of regulation on carbon emissions. As if they don't quite grasp that if your goal is to reduce migration than environmental policy matters more than even immigration policy.

Re: The first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death

#142

Post by dcsan » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 5:37 AM UTC

scaladev wrote: post #41

satysin wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in [redacted], [redacted] and we often have high air pollution warnings and you really can feel it in the air. During lockdown, back in April and May, there was a noticeable difference in the air quality. It felt different. When we went out for a walk you could also tell the difference in noise pollution from there being so few cars on the roads. It was lovely. There is a church nearby that we can sometimes he…

I am not trying to undervalue your problems, but I suggest looking at some third world countries for some perspective. I live in one such place. In winter (which lasts for about 8-9 months each year) the air pollution is _horrifyingly_ bad: 250-300 µg/m³ of PM2.5 at day time, and 900-1500 µg/m³ each night. I am not bullshitting you, this is how we live. You can feel the taste of coal on tour tongue in a completely se…

I was living in China for the last 2.5 years and within that time span the quality of air in Beijing went from absolutely unbearable crossing over the 500 to blue skies almost every day. Probably one too many politician's kids died from lung problems. The other interesting thing in the bad days was how they could turn on a dime. When there was an important political event or international visits the air pollution would magically get better for a few days (coinciding with the international internet and VPN connectivity getting dramatically worse...). They would just shut down all of the factories in the area.

When there's a political will there is definitely a way.

Re: The first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death

#143

Post by mads_ravn » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 6:45 AM UTC

ynfnehf wrote: post #122

mads_ravn wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sweden has had a lower per-capita COVID deathtoll than European states with heavy lockdowns. But 5-12 times that of comparable neighboring countries like Norway, Finland and Denmark https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deat... And by own admission the strategy failed https://www.thelocal.se/20201215/what-does-the-first-report-...

The corona commission has not yet made any conclusions regarding whether lockdown or not lockdown was the right decision, that will (maybe) come later. So I don't really know how your article is relevant to that. The government and the independent agencies don't seem to believe that a harsh lockdown is the correct thing to do. Why do you think the other Nordic countries are the most comparable? Languages are pretty s…

Quoting from the article

> The report states that the main factor in the problems in residential homes for the elderly was simply the fact the virus spread so widely in society.

With regards to the difference in strategy, there has been analysis like this

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7227592/

Finally, and this is just a common sense argument, I believe it is clear that avoiding social interaction will slow transmission of airborne diseases. And lockdowns decrease social interactions (to a much higher degree than simple recommendations)

Re: The first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death

#144

Post by legulere » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 6:46 AM UTC

hombre_fatal wrote: post #74

pietrovismara wrote: post #25

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/…

> Why can't we, as a society, react with the same effectiveness to air pollution? 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.…

You also have to take into consideration feedback effects though. COVID-19 would be much worse if people didn’t react to it. There’s also an automatic reaction to it by people which is too slow though as could be seen in Wuhan, Milano and New York.

Re: The first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death

#145

Post by mads_ravn » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 7:03 AM UTC

mads_ravn wrote: post #143

ynfnehf wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The corona commission has not yet made any conclusions regarding whether lockdown or not lockdown was the right decision, that will (maybe) come later. So I don't really know how your article is relevant to that. The government and the independent agencies don't seem to believe that a harsh lockdown is the correct thing to do. Why do you think the other Nordic countries are the most comparable? Languages are pretty s…

Quoting from the article > The report states that the main factor in the problems in residential homes for the elderly was simply the fact the virus spread so widely in society. With regards to the difference in strategy, there has been analysis like this https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7227592/ Finally, and this is just a common sense argument, I believe it is clear that avoiding social interaction will…

Oh, I forgot, when looking at percentage of population over 65 both Sweden and Denmark clock in at ~20%, whereas the population density of Sweden is ~25 people/km^2 and Denmark has one of ~135 people/km^2.

In other words I will argue, that one would expect Denmark to have been hit harder, but there is one fifth the deaths per capita.

And I’m sorry that I am ranting, but this disease has caused so much dead and suffering, when it could have been stopped if we took it seriously - this upsets me. I was talking with a friend living in Taiwan and they’ve had ~750 cases in total with aggressive tracing and isolation tactics, so we know it is possible.

Re: The first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death

#146

Post by rienbdj » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 7:42 AM UTC

TheOperator wrote: post #141

dfgdghdf wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. What's really crazy is how the "anti" side has managed to claim to be the side of the working class, fighting against a "green liberal elite". This trope is incredibly harmful; the poor don't even own cars in London, yet breathe the most polluted air.

I see the anti-side as more arguing that they're middle class. People wealthy enough to afford to not bicycle or take the bus, but of modest enough means that taxes can mean putting car ownership out of reach. The "Liberal elite" is putting a very manageable burden on the rich, actively promoting means of transit that help the poor, and is expecting the middle class to just suffer through the requisite sacrifices. It…

I don’t follow. No new taxes have been imposed on car owners in London.

Re: The first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death

#147

Post by kylebenzle » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 9:00 AM UTC

With Covid-19 Rates Rising Adding an Air Purifier To Your Home is the Single Most Important Thing You Can Do to Improve Your Health [0]

[0] https://kylebenzle.medium.com/adding-an-air-purifier-to-your...

Re: The first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death

#148

Post by nvarsj » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 9:01 AM UTC

olivermarks wrote: post #92

nvarsj wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s sort of ridiculous to suggest moving house and family is “quick and easy”. Most likely her house was only affordable because it was in such a polluted area. Many areas in London are like this unfortunately - walls completely covered in soot from diesel vehicles. They simply need to ban diesel in the city.

Nobody said anything about 'quick and easy'. I lived close to the westway and used to cycle a lot in London, I'm pretty aware of denser urban arteries, but walls are not completely covered in soot from diesel vehicles, which are now much cleaner than ever before. There is a tremendous amount of dirt and debris from tires and road degradation around high traffic areas, you are probably confusing soot with dirt. Better…

True, I'm not sure what the black dirt is from, it might not be from the diesel as you suggest. However most of the air pollution on high traffic roads is from diesel - they are not really clean at all. That is a complete myth propagated by companies like VW - the whole notion of "clean diesel" is completely bogus, like "clean coal". Even Euro 6 tests are completely unrealistic and don't reflect urban driving - hence the newer 6d test, but I am highly doubtful at this point after many years of outright lies. DPFs for instance are used to pass these tests, but all they do is save the pollutants, which they then periodically burp out in high concentrations into the local area. For urban driving diesel is by far the worst possible type of car and should simply be banned, the evidence is overwhelming that this is the main cause of urban pollution in most EU cities right now.

Re: The first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death

#149

Post by callumlocke » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 9:35 AM UTC

hombre_fatal wrote: post #74

pietrovismara wrote: post #25

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/…

> Why can't we, as a society, react with the same effectiveness to air pollution? 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.…

Having a limited supply of empathy is one way to think about this, but another (less immediately appealing) way is as fast moving moral fashions. In your example it seems like the empathy got ‘used up’, because of the order of those two events, but I think that sort of thing often happens the other way round too, in which cases it’s harder to tell ourselves stories about why. Maybe the best explanation is it’s mostly arbitrary. That’s the problem with relying on public charity and the feel-good factor as a mechanism for helping the worst off. Moral fashions are like weather – somewhat predictable, but not definitely not reliable or consistent.

Re: The first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death

#150

Post by ynfnehf » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 11:22 AM UTC

mads_ravn wrote: post #145

mads_ravn wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoting from the article > The report states that the main factor in the problems in residential homes for the elderly was simply the fact the virus spread so widely in society. With regards to the difference in strategy, there has been analysis like this https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7227592/ Finally, and this is just a common sense argument, I believe it is clear that avoiding social interaction will…

Oh, I forgot, when looking at percentage of population over 65 both Sweden and Denmark clock in at ~20%, whereas the population density of Sweden is ~25 people/km^2 and Denmark has one of ~135 people/km^2. In other words I will argue, that one would expect Denmark to have been hit harder, but there is one fifth the deaths per capita. And I’m sorry that I am ranting, but this disease has caused so much dead and suffer…

Nobody lives in the vast forests in Sweden. The population density of Denmark would only be 2 people/km^2 if Greenland was included. The urbanization is, however, pretty similar, but Stockholm is still much larger than Copenhagen.

I'm not saying that there are not more similarities between the countries. Both drive on the right side of the road, and have flags with crosses, for example. But you still can't just make a list of similarities and then say that they are identical except for the strategy, since the difference could be something not on your list, including just simple random chance.

The report states that there is a correlation between population spread and the spread in the elderly care. They have not made any comment on how the strategy impacted the population spread. I saw the press conference, I know what they said. They refused to answer any question from journalists regarding the over-all strategy. You should understand articles before posting them.