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Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone

bbc.com

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Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone

#71

Post by jurip »

masklinn wrote: post #58
jimbob45 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn’t solve brake and tire particles. Although…rail might solve those?

> That doesn’t solve brake and tire particles. Regen braking means significantly less brake dust, especially at city speeds and with blended braking. > Although…rail might solve those? Trains still have brakes. Some can regen brake but because they usually don’t have batteries they need the rail or overhead gantry to support inputs. But on a passenger-mile basis, I expect an electric train produces essentially no par…

I believe at least subways tend to have lousy air:

https://engineering.nyu.edu/news/subway-air-pollution-dispro...

But I expect it's much better in open-air rail systems.

Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone

#72

Post by bryanlarsen »

anon48293 wrote: post #35
bryanlarsen wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smokers don't magically undo the damage they did to their lungs after they stop smoking. Stunned might be hyperbole, but it is at least a little bit surprising.

> “ Smokers don't magically undo the damage they did to their lungs after they stop smoking” Except that they do undo the damage. “ After 15 years, your chances of getting lung cancer are almost the same as someone who has never smoked.” https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/lung-cancer/prevention/

4x the rate is "almost the same"???

https://www.verywellhealth.com/risk-of-lung-cancer-in-former...

Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone

#73

Post by karlgkk »

Sha1rholder wrote: post #65
energy123 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good start, but for VOCs and gases you'll need activated carbon. Those 2-in-1 filters do exist but cost more. And many are scams because they don't have enough volume of activated carbon.

Why would they cut corners? Activated carbon isn’t expensive.

But it does cost money and so… corners are cut

Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone

#74

Post by Retric »

Sha1rholder wrote: post #65
energy123 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good start, but for VOCs and gases you'll need activated carbon. Those 2-in-1 filters do exist but cost more. And many are scams because they don't have enough volume of activated carbon.

Why would they cut corners? Activated carbon isn’t expensive.

Because it’s not obvious to most customers that a corner’s been cut. Same reason most new construction in the US sucks.

You can safely put a washer and dryer on the upper floor of a house if you add a proper floor drain, but you’re unlikely to see anyone add a floor drain in new construction because buyers aren’t looking for it. Now multiply that by everything a buyer isn’t looking for and you’re talking real money.

Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone

#75

Post by Gibbon1 »

XorNot wrote: post #5

So punchline, probably a good idea to electrify all the cars yeah?

Electric vehicles are stills cars. But better than gasoline and especially diesel cars.

So yeah.

That said not clear to me about PM2.5 is I've never seen anything legit seeming that tries to characterize the harm based on the type/source. Though it seems agreed diesel is especially bad.

Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone

#76

Post by sublinear »

userbinator wrote: post #38

Short-term gains are likely to produce long-term negative effects. Hormesis and natural selection have been driving factor of evolution for a long time.

Asthma is so common that this is not only easy to test, but has been. That's what the article was about.

Anyway, by your own line of thinking, wouldn't sensitive lungs be an advantage? The incentive to find cleaner air is also breaking away from the pack. Since humans are social creatures, that's more likely to look like new leadership for followers who have their own reasons to break away.

Every civilization in history has started out that way. It takes more than mere brute force to beat the competition. Survival is just as much about picking your battles and working smarter.

Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone

#77

Post by Aurornis »

energy123 wrote: post #61
Aurornis wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living very close to busy highways is known to generate poor air quality. I recommend anyone in those locations buy an air purifier for their kids' rooms. I bought a couple reasonably priced HEPA purifiers and I change the filters on schedule. Replacement HEPA filters are very cheap. Also watch out for things that we do indoors that can generate bad air quality. I had a friend who bought a VOC meter and noticed very…

It's a good start, but for VOCs and gases you'll need activated carbon. Those 2-in-1 filters do exist but cost more. And many are scams because they don't have enough volume of activated carbon.

Getting rid of the VOC source, if possible, is much easier than trying to filter it.

> Those 2-in-1 filters do exist but cost more. And many are scams because they don't have enough volume of activated carbon.

Any filter with a little bit of carbon added is going to be useless after a few days, or maybe even hours.

The only VOC filters that work have multiple pounds of carbon, with the good filters having upwards of 10-20 pounds. It also has to be replaced regularly.

Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone

#78

Post by seanp2k2 »

I've been meaning to do some data mining on how much PM2.5 differs with even a few hundred feet of elevation. I have a theory that even around Silicon Valley, living even up a little bit in the foothills would have you breathing massively cleaner air most of your life vs living in the pits of the valley. I see it all the time when I'm out there for recreation or just driving, the smoggy haze all over that just sits in the valley and the Bay. It's probably not too tough of a data processing challenge to compare the stats on Purple Air AQI sensors in reasonably close geo proximity vs elevation to get some statistically-significant data on this.

Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone

#79

Post by flipbrad »

stuaxo wrote: post #2

I've needed my inhaler way less since the ULEZ came in. Visiting London used to mean blowing your nose to black snot for a week afterwards, these days living in London it's pretty good.

People don't fire their chimneys or have garden bonfires much any more, either.

Re: Children's stunted lungs show recovery in ultra low emission zone

#80

Post by Aurornis »

Sha1rholder wrote: post #65
energy123 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good start, but for VOCs and gases you'll need activated carbon. Those 2-in-1 filters do exist but cost more. And many are scams because they don't have enough volume of activated carbon.

Why would they cut corners? Activated carbon isn’t expensive.

You simply cannot put enough activated carbon in a little foam thing that goes in front of a filter to do anything useful.

The real activated carbon filters have 10s of pounds of carbon. The little black foam thing that comes with those 2-in-1 carbon filters is useless.

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