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Pollution causing more deaths than Covid, action needed, U.N. expert says

reuters.com

11–20 of 159 posts

Re: Pollution causing more deaths than Covid, action needed, U.N. expert says

#11

Wow 9 million a year die prematurely. The environmental crisis is manifold: we have the destruction of species and habitats, the global warming problem, and now also just trash - overuse of plastics is a huge problem, air pollution is pretty terrible.

Destruction of habitats has been identified as a factor in previous pandemics. Global warming will also result in the destruction of habitats. All this stuff is linked.

Re: Pollution causing more deaths than Covid, action needed, U.N. expert says

#12
post #7
post #4

I'm sorry, but I'm totally over this type of nonsense. "Expert says" just signals bullshit to me at this point. Clickbait. I'm exhausted at this point.

Then maybe stop going to news sites? Give yourself a break and re-engage when you think you can deal with it again.

We've both been on this site for a long time. I've signed off from the typical news for quite some time at this point, but it keeps seeping in. This site used to be full of enthusiasm, but it's changed.

Re: Pollution causing more deaths than Covid, action needed, U.N. expert says

#13
post #6
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lockdown was bliss for pollution here in London. Air smelled totally different. We don’t want more lockdowns but we need to fix society so we don’t have to travel so much on a daily basis.

As a foreign tourist in london, london needs to fix its infrastructure. The amount of fine dust in the tubes is criminal.

Pandemic or no pandemic, wearing a high filtration respirator (N95/FFP2 mask at a minimum) on the tube, where air pollution levels regularly exceed Beijing and Delhi, is advisable. Also sensible on inexplicably still diesel choked busy London streets above ground.

Re: Pollution causing more deaths than Covid, action needed, U.N. expert says

#14
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then maybe stop going to news sites? Give yourself a break and re-engage when you think you can deal with it again.

We've both been on this site for a long time. I've signed off from the typical news for quite some time at this point, but it keeps seeping in. This site used to be full of enthusiasm, but it's changed.

It is what we make it. And yes, it has changed, this has been observed many times now in the last couple of months, but that's no reason why it can't change back.

Re: Pollution causing more deaths than Covid, action needed, U.N. expert says

#16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've both been on this site for a long time. I've signed off from the typical news for quite some time at this point, but it keeps seeping in. This site used to be full of enthusiasm, but it's changed.

It is what we make it. And yes, it has changed, this has been observed many times now in the last couple of months, but that's no reason why it can't change back.

How do we get it back?

Re: Pollution causing more deaths than Covid, action needed, U.N. expert says

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is what we make it. And yes, it has changed, this has been observed many times now in the last couple of months, but that's no reason why it can't change back.

How do we get it back?

Use your voting power, submit good articles, upvote good articles on the new page and message hn@ycombinator.com about behavior that crosses the guidelines.

Also: the 'New' page has a 'more' link at the bottom, this really should be used more often, the new pages moves ever faster as more stuff gets submitted to HN so plenty of good items scroll off the new page before they catch enough upvotes to make it to the homepage, so you can have a disproportionally high impact by voting for something that is at 3 or 4 upvotes on page 2 or 3. (The 'new' page only gets a fraction of the traffic that the homepage gets.)

Re: Pollution causing more deaths than Covid, action needed, U.N. expert says

#18

Another lockdown possibly ? /s

'Climate lockdowns' are already an established conspiracy theory among the nuttier end of society, I really think the news industry has a moral responsibility to avoid alarmism because of its inherently destabilising effect on society.

Of course, alarmism is excellent at driving engagement and ad revenue so I might as well have asked for someone to write a program that solves the halting problem. I don't know how inventives can be put in place so that the news industry is an asset to society rather than a liability but I wish I did.

Re: Pollution causing more deaths than Covid, action needed, U.N. expert says

#19
post #4

I'm sorry, but I'm totally over this type of nonsense. "Expert says" just signals bullshit to me at this point. Clickbait. I'm exhausted at this point.

I feel your pain, but let me ask you: how should we manage this as a society?

The fact that air pollution kills massively is not 'new'. Should we stop reporting on it? Should we continue, but use other headlines?

Because the solution can't be "keep chugging along as if nothing were".

I'm heading up infosec in our company, and it's a similar "inconvenient truth" type of situation. My approach so far is to appeal to "coherence". You can pretend that disk encryption isn't necessary, but only if we all agree that leaking data is not an existential threat.

That's what this type of article does: put in context the number of Covid deaths, and ask "is that coherent?"

Re: Pollution causing more deaths than Covid, action needed, U.N. expert says

#20
post #7
post #4

I'm sorry, but I'm totally over this type of nonsense. "Expert says" just signals bullshit to me at this point. Clickbait. I'm exhausted at this point.

Then maybe stop going to news sites? Give yourself a break and re-engage when you think you can deal with it again.

No, he shouldn't "deal with it"; that's a waste of time. This is just garbage news; it should be avoided.
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