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Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

cuimc.columbia.edu

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Re: Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

#131

Post by Schroedingersat »

legulere wrote: post #123
jodrellblank wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a reply to this comment, now deleted, which said " Should have cars add something to exhaust so humans can see/smell it--even if just for demo purposes. Might help people to understand. " And I wanted to reply to that to say that we did used to be able to see exhaust fumes, and things were added so that we can't see them. I have often thought that "the school run" would be different if everyone could see th…

> Especially including the radiation in the emissions from coal burning power plants, which kills more people every year than any nuclear power plant accident. I once did the maths, Chernobyl was on the order of 100 times Chinas current yearly nuclear emissions caused by coal burning. Particulate matter and nitrogen oxides are the real issue (and sulphur dioxide where it’s not filtered out yet).

There's one particular mine/set of generators in china that basically just burns low-grade uranium ore (the ash is more concentrated than Namibian and Nigerian mines). If you exclude that one 100x is about right.

For the rest, yeah.

Also La Hague emits about 1/20th of a chernobyl per year.

CO2/NOx/SOx/particulates from coal are still worse.

Re: Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

#132

Post by maeil »

WalterBright wrote: post #130
maeil wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't simply "have a long history of political failure"; it has a history of political failure in certain areas of the United States. In much of the rest of the developed world, e.g. nearly all of Western-Europe, it has a history of success and taxing cars based on fuel consumption and emissions has indeed caused buyers to gravitate towards more fuel-efficient cars.

Do they tax the rate of emissions, or the amount emitted? It's important to tax the latter.

Both. The former directly through taxes on the cars themselves and the latter indirectly through fuel taxes, which while imperfect works well as a proxy.

Re: Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

#133

Post by rgmerk »

maeil wrote: post #127
rgmerk wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by “people” you mean “Americans”, they buy F-150s to go to the grocery store, and they vote out governments that threaten their ability to do so. Taxing pollution, particularly consumer-facing taxes, has a long history of political failure, whereas subsidising clean technology has a long history of political and technical success.

It doesn't simply "have a long history of political failure"; it has a history of political failure in certain areas of the United States. In much of the rest of the developed world, e.g. nearly all of Western-Europe, it has a history of success and taxing cars based on fuel consumption and emissions has indeed caused buyers to gravitate towards more fuel-efficient cars.

Fair point, but the EU ETS took many, many years to have any serious effect as I understand it.

Re: Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

#134

Post by rgmerk »

WalterBright wrote: post #128
rgmerk wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by “people” you mean “Americans”, they buy F-150s to go to the grocery store, and they vote out governments that threaten their ability to do so. Taxing pollution, particularly consumer-facing taxes, has a long history of political failure, whereas subsidising clean technology has a long history of political and technical success.

If we can have a sales tax, we can have pollution taxes.

In the United States, you can't, at least at a federal level, nor across most of the red states.

Re: Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

#135

Post by zeristor »

It’s a common anecdote from med students how black the lungs are from elderly city dwellers, but that doesn’t mean people should accept it.

Is there a way to test this when people are alive rather than waiting until an autopsy.

Is there any way to remove this? I assume this is a hypothesis, should this be conclusive can it be fixed? Yes cleaner air is the better way to go, but there’d be billions of people with a clogged up immune system, perhaps unaware that would benefit from getting this removed?

Are there animals that have mechanisms to overcome this issue? I doubt many live long enough for this to be an evolutionary driver, but some may have an inadvertent mechanism.

How big a role is smoking, or passive smoking in this?

I fear these questions are proffered to a waning post.

Re: Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

#136

Post by Aeolun »

myshpa wrote: post #126
Aeolun wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking about leftover foodstuffs :)

That's exactly the stuff that doesn't belong in the landfill, compost it.

It still needs to be kept in my kitchen until whatever happens to it happens.

Re: Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

#137

Post by baud147258 »

fragmede wrote: post #45
newsclues wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?…

> 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)

I think climate change works better anyway, as global warming caused other changes, not just a rise in average temperatures

Re: Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

#138

Post by chillwaves »

WalterBright wrote: post #129
legulere wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes have a bigger effect on the poor, while pollution is caused overwhelmingly by the rich.

> pollution is caused overwhelmingly by the rich Then they'll be the ones overwhelmingly paying the pollution taxes.

Because the poor have no resources to tax -- it makes no sense to tax them.

And it doesn't mean the rich will be paying a fair share, just that they will be paying more than the poor.

Re: Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

#139

Post by chillwaves »

warmwaffles wrote: post #90
bsder wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming the EPA for an incident that happened at a horribly toxic mine is like blaming your doctor for your gall bladder exploding while it was being removed for being infectious. The EPA is in charge of these horrible mines because the previous owners abandoned them to destroy the environment after the profitable stuff was pulled out of the ground.

Cool, so absolve the EPA of any wrong doing?

This isn't how we talk on HN.

Re: Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

#140

Post by newsclues »

fragmede wrote: post #45
newsclues wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?…

If people are too stupid to understand pollution is bad and should be reduced (most people will agree to this, just talk to them about it in a garage with the door shut and a truck running inside), how are they going to understand climate change, which is a more obscure term without a direct meaning?

If the general public needs to be convinced of a project to save the planet climate change is not good messaging!

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