Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 426 posts

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

#291

Post by thelastgallon »

thfuran wrote: post #277
thelastgallon wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outdoor pollution ---> Use these for transportation: walk, bicycle, e-scooters, public transit, electric 2 wheeler, EV Indoor pollution ---> Use these for cooking (induction, electric resistance) stove, heatpump waterheater and furnace for HVAC Would also be nice to do: stop using coal, gas power plants. These are usually farther out from cities and probably not the most urgent. (except when Elon Musk or new DCs deci…

>Delhi’s air pollution equivalent to smoking 50 cigarettes Per day, which for some reason the headline didn’t include. Two packs a day is a pretty terrible baseline. At least it’s not addictive.

Thanks for catching that, yes, per day is critical to understand the harm. I edited my post.

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

#292

Post by saidnooneever »

thelastgallon wrote: post #261
thelastgallon wrote: post #212

China has 350 million electric two-wheelers, 20 million EVs. China reduced air pollution from transportation by 80% in a decade. Delhi: 442. Lahore: 334. Beijing: 16. These are the levels of PM 2.5, one of the principle measures for air pollution, on November 19. How China cleaned up its air pollution – and what that meant for the climate: https://theconversation.com/how-china-cleaned-up-its-air-pol...

Outdoor pollution ---> Use these for transportation: walk, bicycle, e-scooters, public transit, electric 2 wheeler, EV Indoor pollution ---> Use these for cooking (induction, electric resistance) stove, heatpump waterheater and furnace for HVAC Would also be nice to do: stop using coal, gas power plants. These are usually farther out from cities and probably not the most urgent. (except when Elon Musk or new DCs deci…

most pollution on my area is a steel refinery larger than my town :'). the air is less healthy than chainsmoking. we have heatpumps and electric everything. costs for civilization is super high, but these major main polluters just get billions given to them for cleaner systems which will never happen.

depending on where you live, its really hard to motivate to take part in generating less polition due to the involved costs and living costs already being too high

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

#293

Post by thelastgallon »

briandear wrote: post #287
thelastgallon wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outdoor pollution ---> Use these for transportation: walk, bicycle, e-scooters, public transit, electric 2 wheeler, EV Indoor pollution ---> Use these for cooking (induction, electric resistance) stove, heatpump waterheater and furnace for HVAC Would also be nice to do: stop using coal, gas power plants. These are usually farther out from cities and probably not the most urgent. (except when Elon Musk or new DCs deci…

So you support nuclear power?

Solar can be deployed in months, produce immediately. Solar is dirt cheap and continues to get cheaper. 21 - 25% efficiency is normal now and most likely we'll have tandem (silicon + peroskvite) with 45% efficiency. With each doubling of production, solar costs continue to go down. In a decade or two, maybe we'll be able to print solar like paper or textile, or spray paint on any surface. Or grow solar from microorganisms (fastest and cheapest).

A nuclear deployment takes 3 - 5 decades, costs continue to skyrocket, actually needs nuclear scientists to design and run.

Which one do you think is a better choice? If you were an investor, would you put your money on a nuclear plant and wait 3 - 5 decades for returns?

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

#294

Post by matthewdgreen »

briandear wrote: post #287
thelastgallon wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outdoor pollution ---> Use these for transportation: walk, bicycle, e-scooters, public transit, electric 2 wheeler, EV Indoor pollution ---> Use these for cooking (induction, electric resistance) stove, heatpump waterheater and furnace for HVAC Would also be nice to do: stop using coal, gas power plants. These are usually farther out from cities and probably not the most urgent. (except when Elon Musk or new DCs deci…

So you support nuclear power?

This particular brand of confrontational nuclear “advocacy” does not help nuclear. Please consider stopping it.

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

#295

Post by bee_rider »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #294
briandear wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you support nuclear power?

This particular brand of confrontational nuclear “advocacy” does not help nuclear. Please consider stopping it.

It isn’t really advocacy (there’s no argument for nuclear here, just a sort of distracting non-sequitur).

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

#296

Post by mr_toad »

Symbiote wrote: post #89
bilekas wrote: post #21

> strongest evidence yet that local clean air zones could help reduce some of the harm caused by pollution during childhood. It's incredible this is even in debate. It's one of those intuitive things well known since the reduction of coal burning and smog during the industrial revolution in London?

The right (Conservative) and far right (Reform) parties both say they will abolish low-emission zones and other measures to reduce pointing traffic. They made it into a culture war topic.

Cultivating a voter base that consistently acts against their own interests seems to be a winning strategy.

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

#297

Post by Lio »

enquirewithin wrote: post #249
nerdsniper wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One might similarly note the awe-inspiring destructive power demonstrated by tanker trucks of fuel catching fire and causing interstate bridges to collapse. https://archive.ph/VadwU : Tanker Truck Fire Collapses Bay Area Overpass https://archive.ph/4INYw : I-95 Overpass Collapses in Philadelphia After a Tanker Fire

Gasoline or diesel fires can be extinguished. Lithium ion battery fires less so. Surly you don’t mean to imply that a sufficiently large lithium ion battery fire couldn’t burn down a bridge?

You're speculating about something that hasn't happened, using something that doesn't exist; no body is driving batteries large enough to destroy a bridge about.

They are driving liquid fuel tankers that can do that around regularly.

Also consider that as battery tech improves new chemistries lower the risk of fire even more. E.g. sodium batteries are very stable right now and solid state will improve that further. There's no way you can make petrol less flammable.

You're going to have to face facts, battery powered vehicles are safer than petrol powered one.

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

#298

Post by II2II »

kakacik wrote: post #279
vincnetas wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what a nice externality example "I recommend anyone in those locations buy an air purifier for their kids' rooms" I drive the car, you buy the purifier.

I drive the car, you buy/rent cheap place because its shitty polluted noisy place, so compensate that with air purifier. There is no free lunch in healthy society, there are good reasons for rent for same amount of m2 do wildly differ across same city and its not just sunset views or distance to work

I got tired of that sort of argument when I realized that a great many of the people who argued that they have the right to tear down the side streets of walkable downtown neighbourhoods lived in unwalkable suburban neighbourhoods. Those unwalkable neighbourhoods were usually designed with a single access road to ensure there was no through traffic, so they would never have to deal with that problem. Then those same people had the audacity to ask everyone to pay for additional access roads when they realized that a single access road was a disaster when their neighbourhood needed emergency services and had to be evacuated (because it was burning to the ground). Of course, those additional access roads had to be designed to discourage through traffic.

Am I bitter about that? Yes. There is nothing wrong with wanting the best for you. There is something dearly wrong with using what's best for you to make life worse for others.

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

#299

Post by anon48293 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #72
anon48293 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “ 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...

No. But that only looks at heavy smokers and duration they stopped, so overselects for old age with higher cancer incidence.

This study looks more broadly, notably also at onset of smoking:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaoncology/fullarticle/27...

And this is the TL;DR:

“ Thus, those who quit smoking at ages 15 to 34, 35 to 44, 45 to 54, and 55 to 64 years avoided an estimated 100%, 89%, 78%, and 56% of the excess cancer mortality risk associated with continued smoking, respectively”

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

#300

Post by AnimalMuppet »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #294
briandear wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you support nuclear power?

This particular brand of confrontational nuclear “advocacy” does not help nuclear. Please consider stopping it.

Stronger: This particular brand of rhetoric ("So you support X?" and little more, in response to a post that was not at all about X) is just a "gotcha" game rather than serious conversation, and doesn't belong on this site. I see it far too often, and not just on nuclear. (Also, it makes the one doing it look like a jerk, at least to me.)
Post reply on HN