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Where does air pollution come from?

ourworldindata.org

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Re: Where does air pollution come from?

#51

Post by kasperni »

johnthesecure wrote: post #3

It's interesting to see the number of deaths caused by pollution. But everyone will die of something. Could it be that many of those people whose death was caused by pollution may have been frail and close to death anyway? I wonder if it would be more useful to talk about quality-life-years (QUALYs) lost as a result of pollution. Probably much harder to get that data though.

Try going to a heavy polluted city, something like Delhi in the Winter. You would honestly have no doubt about how bad it is for you health. Because you will feel it within the first 24 hours.

Re: Where does air pollution come from?

#52

Post by csomar »

h1fra wrote: post #48

What's scary is that all significant sources of pollution are going down, except the ones related to agriculture (ammonia and methane) which are showing no signs of slowing down. I feel like you can bend the heavy industry because it's just "a few" people to convince, but you can't change 7B people's eating habits :/

There is also no alternative for the 8B people out there.

Re: Where does air pollution come from?

#53

Post by worldsayshi »

h1fra wrote: post #48

What's scary is that all significant sources of pollution are going down, except the ones related to agriculture (ammonia and methane) which are showing no signs of slowing down. I feel like you can bend the heavy industry because it's just "a few" people to convince, but you can't change 7B people's eating habits :/

Curated meat might eventually make a dent. Hopefully.

Re: Where does air pollution come from?

#54

Post by matsemann »

xlii wrote: post #47

I thought that this article will address an elephant in the room but either it missed it or I missed it. My problem with pollution is that… you need to measure it, and those who pollute don’t do it consciously. Anecdotally I often drive through a small town. You can smell pollution, a plastic smell. In winter you can see column of smoke coming out of chimney. Sometimes it’s milky white, sometimes it thick black. Ther…

That small town might get even more pollution from all the cars driving through it, though. It's counter-intuitive, but columns of smoke from chimneys might often just be water, or be too high to really affect locally (but globally it matters, of course) compared to cars driving and flinging dust where people breathe.

Re: Where does air pollution come from?

#55

Post by PeterStuer »

It is easy to be 'green' and 'net-zero' when all you do is exporting your polluting production elsewhere and importing the goods while leaving the dirt on the manufacturer's books, and trade away your own pollution with nifty 'carbon credit' scams.

Top marks for never curbing your consumption while claiming the superior virtue position.

Extra credits for wagging a damning finger at those 'polluters' that actually make and ship your stuff.

Re: Where does air pollution come from?

#56

Post by aeroman »

alexmccain6 wrote: post #16

One of the most striking aspects of air pollution is how invisible yet pervasive its effects are. Unlike more immediate environmental disasters, air pollution slowly chips away at public health, reducing life expectancy and quality of life, often without dramatic headlines. The comparison to starvation as a "frailty multiplier" is an interesting one; pollution doesn’t always kill directly but makes people more suscep…

I think part of the IMO2020 compliance is that fines have actually been applied for ships that have broken previous similar regulations.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/26/cruise-ship-ca...

It turns out that the previous 2015 regulations around the USA and Canada were also largely followed, even offshore - this is despite there being little monitoring capability away from ports (I worked on this study).

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/201...

I am not an economist, but I suspect part of the compliance is a case of 'as long as everyone is forced to do it', we are okay with it as everyone can/has to raise prices.

Re: Where does air pollution come from?

#58

Post by nohuck13 »

noneeeed wrote: post #42
alexmccain6 wrote: post #16

One of the most striking aspects of air pollution is how invisible yet pervasive its effects are. Unlike more immediate environmental disasters, air pollution slowly chips away at public health, reducing life expectancy and quality of life, often without dramatic headlines. The comparison to starvation as a "frailty multiplier" is an interesting one; pollution doesn’t always kill directly but makes people more suscep…

The other striking aspect for me is how, as has often been the case, those most affected are the poorest. Levels of asthma in London are highest among kids in the vacinity of the docks where cruise and container ships and moor. They sit there running their engines for power, churning out SO2 and other pollutants. These areas are some of the poorest in London. The same was the case in industrial cities during the indu…

> Levels of asthma in London are highest among kids in the vacinity of the docks where cruise and container ships and moor.

Wait, what? There are no container docks in London. The nearest container port serving London is Tilbury, near the coast. Occasionally a single cruise ship moors in the Pool of London against the HMS Belfast, but that's happening only one this month, for 12 hours on April 7, according to the Tower Bridge lift schedule: https://www.towerbridge.org.uk/lift-times

Re: Where does air pollution come from?

#59

Post by alcover »

noneeeed wrote: post #42
alexmccain6 wrote: post #16

One of the most striking aspects of air pollution is how invisible yet pervasive its effects are. Unlike more immediate environmental disasters, air pollution slowly chips away at public health, reducing life expectancy and quality of life, often without dramatic headlines. The comparison to starvation as a "frailty multiplier" is an interesting one; pollution doesn’t always kill directly but makes people more suscep…

The other striking aspect for me is how, as has often been the case, those most affected are the poorest. Levels of asthma in London are highest among kids in the vacinity of the docks where cruise and container ships and moor. They sit there running their engines for power, churning out SO2 and other pollutants. These areas are some of the poorest in London. The same was the case in industrial cities during the indu…

> those most affected are the poorest

Please pardon my pedantry but this is by definition what poor is : having less means to escape material woes. Rich people are the ones that can elect to live in healthy areas.

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