Lucky we're getting a Clean Air Tax in Victoria, Australia - to keep the pesky, potentially solar powered EVs off the road - before we reach 1% market rate. Should help keep the diesels safe.
Oh, wait.
The health benefits of better air
211–220 of 471 posts
Re: The health benefits of better air
#212This article seems to make fantastic jumps from the believable -- mortality from overall air pollution (e.g. in Delhi) to the frankly unbelievable -- your ultrasonic humidifier supposedly reducing your life by nearly an hour each night, or that a daily commute between Newark and NYC takes half a year off your life. According to this logic, anyone who works in the subway should be dying, what, 10 years earlier? Which…
> According to this logic, anyone who works in the subway should be dying, what, 10 years earlier? Which is obviously not happening.
Are you sure this isn't happening? I could easily imagine people working in dusty places for example dying earlier due to health related issues that could be traced back to the lifestyle.
Re: The health benefits of better air
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's weird. I can easily get CO2 levels way below 800 with windows closed, just not completely sealed. And then air purifier can keep PM2.5 levels below 10 on the lowest setting while outside is above 30
What kind of home do you live in? I think a lot of the new construction is sealed very well and there are few leaks besides the actual interfaces.
Block of flats. Apartment is fairly well sealed. If I seal the windows I can drive up CO2 levels to 1500. I have plastic windows with seals that have "unsealed" mode. In this mode window is just barely opened. Like 1mm gap between a window and a frame.
And one window cracked like that is enough to drop CO2 levels below 800 while there's one person in the apartment.
Re: The health benefits of better air
#214This article seems to make fantastic jumps from the believable -- mortality from overall air pollution (e.g. in Delhi) to the frankly unbelievable -- your ultrasonic humidifier supposedly reducing your life by nearly an hour each night, or that a daily commute between Newark and NYC takes half a year off your life. According to this logic, anyone who works in the subway should be dying, what, 10 years earlier? Which…
I think the particular bit about the subway may be informed by very recent news that the air pollution in the New York subway stations is far in excess of what anyone had inspected. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/10/subway-a... As for actual subway workers… I mean it’s not exactly a coal mine, but I would be pretty surprised if their mortality wasn’t at least somewhat measurably lower than, say, tha…
Just to point out how why this is a fairly nuanced topic, a shepherd may be breathing clean air but they're also exposed to UV radiation all day. They may have a higher morbidity due to increased skin cancer rates.
Re: The health benefits of better air
#215This article seems to make fantastic jumps from the believable -- mortality from overall air pollution (e.g. in Delhi) to the frankly unbelievable -- your ultrasonic humidifier supposedly reducing your life by nearly an hour each night, or that a daily commute between Newark and NYC takes half a year off your life. According to this logic, anyone who works in the subway should be dying, what, 10 years earlier? Which…
> According to this logic, anyone who works in the subway should be dying, what, 10 years earlier? Which is obviously not happening. Are you sure this isn't happening? I could easily imagine people working in dusty places for example dying earlier due to health related issues that could be traced back to the lifestyle.
Yeah, it is not at all obvious to me that this isn't happening. Is anyone even collecting the data you would need to tell whether or not it's happening? I'm sure the transit authorities would rather not know.
Re: The health benefits of better air
#216EVs reduce tailpipe exhaust near roads but it's worth noting that brake abrasion dust isn't going away anytime soon and it's considered very bad to breathe, possibly in the same league as diesel emission particles.[1] I guess regenerative braking on an EV reduces this somewhat. Tire dust is also concerning.[2] [1] https://academic.oup.com/metallomics/article/12/3/371/595624... [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2264…
Most EVs indeed use regenerative braking. Which means your brake pads last a lot longer as you barely use them. Tire particles are a bigger problem. Just think of the mass of tires that you erode away before you replace them (routinely) and compare that to the brake pads you replace much less often. And it's not just the tires that erode but also the road. Asphalt particles are nasty as well. Though most of that dust is quite coarse and doesn't stay in the air as long. But then, tire and road dust is apparently the biggest source of microplastics in our oceans. It washes away, enters our sewers, rivers, and eventually the oceans. It's bad for different reasons as well.
Re: The health benefits of better air
#217Laundry and clothes by far creates the most dust and particles in my home, probably yours too. At night, with the lights off and the room dark, turn on your phone LED pointed at the ceiling. Look closely at the air just above the light, you'll see tiny little material threads and speckles. I do not like the idea of constantly breathing that in. I've used an expensive HEPA air filter in my room and did some testing, l…
I think large, visible particles are not as bad as the small ones like PM10, PM2.5, PM1
Re: The health benefits of better air
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
EVs drastically reduce brake dust.
Probably not in the city, regenerative breaking doesn't fit most scenarios, especially seeing how people tend to drive high torque vehicles.
I drive a 12yo hybrid and my annecdotal experience suggests that isn't correct.
I drive mainly around the city and had to replace brake pads recently as they became rusty (salt during winter). The pads had been on for 80,000km and were less than half worn. On regular ICE cars (which have bigger brake pads) you'd usually have to replace them well before that point as they'd be worn down. I'd imagine they last even longer on newer hybrid and EVs.
Re: The health benefits of better air
#219EVs reduce tailpipe exhaust near roads but it's worth noting that brake abrasion dust isn't going away anytime soon and it's considered very bad to breathe, possibly in the same league as diesel emission particles.[1] I guess regenerative braking on an EV reduces this somewhat. Tire dust is also concerning.[2] [1] https://academic.oup.com/metallomics/article/12/3/371/595624... [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2264…
One of the problems with EV’s is that the brake discs are rusting because they almost never gets used.
I don't think that really happens because breaks are used every time you stop. You can't regeratively break to 0.
Re: The health benefits of better air
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
note that the effects of periodically higher co2 concentrations on overall health is inconclusive at best (life evolved with significant co2 around). particulate matter and atmospheric pollutants (like voc’s), however, are most assuredly detrimental to our health, so it makes sense to act mainly on the latter (with air filters/purifiers) over the former.
I've worked in offices where the CO2 levels regularly spiked to levels not seen since... pants first started colonizing the land. It's been, what, 30? 50? million years since atmospheric CO2 levels matched current outdoor levels, much less what happens inside.
What kind of pants are best for removing CO2?