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Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

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Re: Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

#41

Post by newsclues »

ldh0011 wrote: post #5
dagmx wrote: post #2

Anecdotally, moving from India to North America really helped my health. I know this study is about long term effects but I believe even short term , it’s quite noticeable. It’s why I find it perplexing why so many people in the US want to do away with EPA regulations. Not only was pollution rampant in many Americans lifetimes, it’s completely observable how bad pollution is elsewhere in the world for people.

On a tangentially related note, it confuses me why so many people seem to think that the only reason to do away with fossil fuels as much as possible is climate change. Millions die prematurely from air pollution every year. Even if climate change was fake we should still be trying to use cleaner energy.

As a bike riding hippie in the age of video meetings and streaming, explain to me why the world elite need to fly all over the world in private jets to discuss climate change?

Can you tell me why my grocery store stopped giving out free plastic bags by charging for them, and now phasing them out for paper, but they still sell plastic garbage bags and I can't reuse the grocery store bag for my garbage bag now?

Can you tell me why bunker fuel for cargo ships which is a major driver for pollution isn't being stopped? Seems like there are a limited number of large ships creating a massive amount of emissions that would be go after.

Can you explain why the phrase "Climate Change" is a better mission that "reduce pollution", which seems easier to understand and get behind for everyone?

Re: Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

#42

Post by jahewson »

aidenn0 wrote: post #33
cactusplant7374 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much would it cost to lower the PM 2.5 in his house? Even cut it in half? I don't know your friend but for some people they can afford air purifiers, running the A/C, and keeping the windows closed, but they feel it's not worth it. It's seen as a wasted expense. Especially true during Covid when many doctors could have retro-fitted their practices with HVAC filters. I think we really need an educational campaign.

"running the A/C," presupposes that the house has A/C. When a wildfire is near, I close up the house and run air-filters, but it can hit 100F inside in the afternoons.

Actually it doesn’t have to be A/C. If you have central air then you have a HEPA filter so just run the system’s fan.

Re: Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

#43

Post by VancouverMan »

defrost wrote: post #32
VancouverMan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We too often see environmental regulations becoming pointless and costly burdens, or them even being used as bureaucratic weapons, rather than something that brings a net benefit to society. Even minor construction and infrastructure projects can end up needing costly environmental assessments or studies prepared by "qualified experts", for example, even when the environmental impact is obviously negligible. Activist…

Quoted post unavailable.

I'm merely pointing out the way that many average Westerners directly experience environmental regulations, and why they may become opposed to the idea, even if such regulation may be beneficial in some cases.

Having to go through a costly and time-consuming permit process merely to trim or remove a tree in one's front yard will leave a sour taste in one's mouth when it comes to environmental regulations in general.

Sometimes the regulation process itself actually causes more environmental harm than it prevents.

For example, somebody I know was telling me about how the environmental assessment process significantly delayed the replacement of a small, old, and poorly-maintained road bridge over a creek near the end of the rural road he lives on.

That project, which could have been (and eventually was) easily finished within a week with minimal environmental disruption turned into a multi-year debacle thanks to environmental assessments.

The bridge was closed to traffic the entire time, causing him and his neighbors to have to drive multiple additional miles each day to backtrack and detour around it, emitting far more vehicle exhaust and causing far more unnecessary wear-and-tear (including oil changes) than if the bridge has just been replaced without the delays that were imposed by environmental regulation bureaucracy.

Re: Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

#44

Post by Syonyk »

borissk wrote: post #19
ldh0011 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a tangentially related note, it confuses me why so many people seem to think that the only reason to do away with fossil fuels as much as possible is climate change. Millions die prematurely from air pollution every year. Even if climate change was fake we should still be trying to use cleaner energy.

Quoted post unavailable.

In other words, you've not talked to many (any?) Trump supporters, and are just speculating about what evilly evil things they might evilly support for their own evil ends. Or something of the sort.

The conservative end of the spectrum is generally more concerned with things like "a stable power grid with enough power at all times" than carbon emissions, though I know quite a few pretty hard conservatives with solar, hybrids, EVs, etc. And a good case can be made for all that stuff without bothering with carbon emissions at all.

And then you see things like California, within a week or so, deciding to ban ICE car sales in some fairly near future, and having to send out power announcements about "Please don't charge your EV during these hours." It doesn't take a genius to do the math that, hey, more EVs charging while coal power plants are turned down, that might be a problem. I think it's a solvable one, but "shouting down anyone who points it down as a fossil fuel shill" (as happens in some circles of the internet - not here, but I've certainly been accused it for some nuanced arguments about power systems) doesn't help solve it.

If coal with carbon capture has a future in the power grid... so be it.

Re: Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

#45

Post by fragmede »

newsclues wrote: post #41
ldh0011 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a tangentially related note, it confuses me why so many people seem to think that the only reason to do away with fossil fuels as much as possible is climate change. Millions die prematurely from air pollution every year. Even if climate change was fake we should still be trying to use cleaner energy.

As a bike riding hippie in the age of video meetings and streaming, explain to me why the world elite need to fly all over the world in private jets to discuss climate change? Can you tell me why my grocery store stopped giving out free plastic bags by charging for them, and now phasing them out for paper, but they still sell plastic garbage bags and I can't reuse the grocery store bag for my garbage bag now? Can you…

I don't know about the others, but for the last one, "reduce pollution" only works if people, who aren't bike riding hippies by a large margin, see any point in reducing pollution. Why is pollution even bad, anyway? Seriously, factories have been working for centuries and nothing has gone wrong, so why should we regulate where they can pour their waste or make them pay for environmental nonsense like carbon capture? It's just this weird hippy tax that has no point since nothing has gone wrong.

Climate change (because people were too stupid to use the phrase "global warming" without making fun of the "warming" part whenever it was remotely cold) encapsulates the need for people to care about pollution with the understanding that it may be future generations will reap the benefits in a way that "reduce pollution" does not.

Re: Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

#46

Post by WalterBright »

dagmx wrote: post #2

Anecdotally, moving from India to North America really helped my health. I know this study is about long term effects but I believe even short term , it’s quite noticeable. It’s why I find it perplexing why so many people in the US want to do away with EPA regulations. Not only was pollution rampant in many Americans lifetimes, it’s completely observable how bad pollution is elsewhere in the world for people.

In Washington State, there was heavy wildfire smoke across the Seattle area for about a month in Sept/Oct. It was awful. I developed eye irritation, a sore throat, and a persistent cough. I stayed indoors as much as possible, and attached smoke filters to a box fan.

When the rain returned, all my symptoms disappeared.

As for the EPA regulations, they go about it the wrong way, using what in engineering we call "bang bang valves". Bang bang valves are full on or full off, nothing in between. EPA regulations are the same - 100ppm is dangerous and illegal, 99ppm is legal and safe.

This is just idiotic.

The regulations also target the rate of pollution, i.e. ppm, not the amount of pollution. A person can emit 99ppm all day and be golden to the EPA, while another can emit 100ppm for 5 minutes and be illegal.

The correct approach is to simply tax the total amount of pollution. For cars, this can be done with an annual emissions test. The rate of pollution in the test is multiplied by the number of miles driven in the last year, multiplied by the tax rate.

Re: Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

#48

Post by WalterBright »

newsclues wrote: post #41
ldh0011 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a tangentially related note, it confuses me why so many people seem to think that the only reason to do away with fossil fuels as much as possible is climate change. Millions die prematurely from air pollution every year. Even if climate change was fake we should still be trying to use cleaner energy.

As a bike riding hippie in the age of video meetings and streaming, explain to me why the world elite need to fly all over the world in private jets to discuss climate change? Can you tell me why my grocery store stopped giving out free plastic bags by charging for them, and now phasing them out for paper, but they still sell plastic garbage bags and I can't reuse the grocery store bag for my garbage bag now? Can you…

Because the government uses ban hammers instead of simply taxing the amount of pollution emitted.

Re: Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

#49

Post by warmwaffles »

mikeyouse wrote: post #36
warmwaffles wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other problem is, the EPA isn't also all sunshine and rainbows https://www.cnn.com/2015/08/09/us/colorado-epa-mine-river-sp...

To be clear - in that example, a river was polluted by waste that a negligent private company had gathered for decades and then abandoned in an uncapped gold mine -- the EPA was only involved because they were cleaning up what was already a nightmare of pollution. The spill which accidentally released 100k tons of acidic water mixed with mining tails into the river was proceeded by the owners of that mine intentional…

> It's like blaming the dentist for scratching your gums while repairing a cavity. A big dose of, "Well sure, but if you had listened to them in the first place.. "

Terrible analogy. The EPA knew there was heavy contamination in that mine, and yet decided to drill into the side of the mountain regardless knowing full well the implications of the heavy water getting released. There were other ways they could have gone about measuring and keeping tabs on the toxic build up. Yet they chose the most expedient riskiest solution that backfired spectacularly.

In your analogy, this is akin to the dentist taking a 1/4 inch drill bit to the side of your tooth to measure the cavity damage and spilling about a pint of blood on the floor in the process.

Re: Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

#50

Post by VancouverMan »

soperj wrote: post #31
jrussino wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_if_it%27s_a_big_hoax_an...

I honestly feel that people have got away with one with this type of thinking. In my province (British Columbia), there's a few major issues that have all been attributed to climate change; forest fires, flooding & decline of the salmon populations. Since there's this big boogeyman that they can't solve themselves (climate change), they don't even have to look into their forest management practices (spraying round-up…

The government-imposed greenbelts around some major Canadian cities have also backfired.

The reduced supply of land drives up prices within the urban area surrounded by the greenbelt.

This in turn just encourages more sprawl on the outer edges of the greenbelt, where land can be cheaper.

Those living in these new developments often commute into the urban area for work or other reasons, and now have to drive much farther each day as they pass through the greenbelt two (or more) times.

Infrastructure development in and through the greenbelt becomes bureaucratically challenging, preventing public transit or more efficient road infrastructure from being built.

Environmental regulations can too often have unanticipated (or ignored) environmental impacts that negate many of the supposed benefits.

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