Where does air pollution come from? • Hacker News Board

Re: Where does air pollution come from?

#141

Post by wswope » Wed, Apr 02, 2025, 9:40 PM UTC

aucisson_masque wrote: post #63

noneeeed wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> There was a bit of an uproar a few years back about how many premiership football players were using asthma medication, a higher rate than the general population. The implication being that they were using them as performance enhacning drugs. But if you take into account that they disproportionately come from poor inner-city areas (not all, but many more), the proportion with asthma looks much more in line with the…

Lest anyone take this seriously, these assertions are confidently-misinformed, conspiracy-minded thinking.

No asthma medications whatsoever have utility as a chemical masking agent, nor are there any plausible mechanisms for that to happen.

Beta agonists (mostly clenbuterol) have been abused independently in the past as a way to cut weight in weightlifting/cycling/etc., since they theoretically provide a marginal boost to overall metabolism - but the effects are marginal. They're de facto useless as a general PED.

Widespread doping in high-level sports is absolutely commonplace, and it's very easy to not get caught - but asthma medications have absolutely nothing to do with that.

See WADA masking agent list here: https://www.wada-ama.org/en/prohibited-list

Well-informed paper about real evasion strategies available here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03037...

Re: Where does air pollution come from?

#142

Post by aucisson_masque » Wed, Apr 02, 2025, 11:03 PM UTC

wswope wrote: post #141

aucisson_masque wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was a bit of an uproar a few years back about how many premiership football players were using asthma medication, a higher rate than the general population. The implication being that they were using them as performance enhacning drugs. But if you take into account that they disproportionately come from poor inner-city areas (not all, but many more), the proportion with asthma looks much more in line with the…

Lest anyone take this seriously, these assertions are confidently-misinformed, conspiracy-minded thinking. No asthma medications whatsoever have utility as a chemical masking agent, nor are there any plausible mechanisms for that to happen. Beta agonists (mostly clenbuterol) have been abused independently in the past as a way to cut weight in weightlifting/cycling/etc., since they theoretically provide a marginal boo…

Took me quite some time to find back where I read about that.

Check that out :

https://inrng.com/2017/12/chris-froomes-salbutamol-case/

https://sportsscientists.com/2017/12/brief-thoughts-froomes-...

The article you gave, they only state the principle of PEDS evasion tactics, some used a fake dick when it's time to urinate, some used compound modified, but it can't possibly tell every single way that scientists found to avoid detection.

Froom is an actual athlete that got caught, that speak louder.

Beside i heard it too in completely unrelated sport circle, running (sprint) and boxing from athlètes competing.

Re: Where does air pollution come from?

#143

Post by stephen_g » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 12:55 AM UTC

xnx wrote: post #138

cassepipe wrote: post #121

For those who are worried about indoor air pollution like me, I found out thanks to this [dynomight post]( https://dynomight.net/ikea-purifier/ ) that having an efficient air purifier is a low bar and is actually quite accessible to poor people like me !

Air there any air filtration systems that use water (maybe by bubbling air through water or a fine mist) to remove particulates? Like a canister vacuum cleaner, I'd love to be able to see the dirt/dust/particulates/gunk that is being removed from the air.

It's a pretty common method in industry (a wet scrubber) but I don't know of any indoor-scale, self-contained units - it sounds like a recipe for mould because a misting one would basically be a humidifier too, and they are hard to maintain because bacteria like legionella can grow in the water and then you're dispersing it inside your house!

Re: Where does air pollution come from?

#144

Post by Aeolun » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 1:08 AM UTC

jajko wrote: post #97

Aeolun wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that this isn’t terrible, but those numbers look really low. Surely malnutrition and violence must be a hundred times more likely to kill them? Not trying to say we shouldn’t consider this, but it seems like there’s bigger fish to fry first (assuming we can’t fry them all at the same time).

Take Nigeria - capital is cca 6 million. That means, that every year around 1150 children die from just air pollution alone, every year. That is properly fucked up for children under 5. They start with absolutely clean lungs and the damage compounds so much they die from it. Think about all the other age groups that have some other horrific numbers.

In 2022, the all-cause mortality under-5 was 117 per 1000 in Nigeria.

Not per 100k, per 1000.

That means that for every child that dies from air pollution, ~600 more die from some other cause.

To be fair, most causes seem related to terrible living conditions, so everything probably improves or degrades together.

Re: Where does air pollution come from?

#145

Post by ajolly » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 1:10 AM UTC

passwordoops wrote: post #123

cassepipe wrote: post #121

For those who are worried about indoor air pollution like me, I found out thanks to this [dynomight post]( https://dynomight.net/ikea-purifier/ ) that having an efficient air purifier is a low bar and is actually quite accessible to poor people like me !

Even cheaper is the DIY Corsi-Rosenthal box. We make a couple every few months and it does make a huge difference! Worked wonders during the wildfires a couple of years ago https://cleanaircrew.org/box-fan-filters/

Even better is a computer fan based cr box. Quieter, lower TCO etc.

Re: Where does air pollution come from?

#146

Post by Sam6late » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 8:02 PM UTC

The surprising 2 aspect to me are: first, how the healthcare community mute down the causes of diseases such as hypertension. A former colleague told me how his doctor whispered to him that his stay in that big city is not long enough to have cause hypertension, which can be caused or exacerbated by air pollution. Studies have demonstrated a link between exposure to air pollutants and elevated blood pressure, which is a key risk factor for hypertension. Long-term exposure to particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) was associated with increased blood pressure and a higher prevalence of hypertension. For every 1 μg/m³ increase in these pollutants, the odds of hypertension rose significantly, with NO2 showing the strongest association.

Second,the big role of tires in air pollution. Tyres shed particles as they wear down during braking, acceleration, and cornering, contributing approximately 6.1 million metric tons of tire dust annually to the atmosphere and waterways