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

reuters.com

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

#111

Post by MattRix »

rosndo wrote: post #100
MattRix wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This logic is so clearly flawed. It’s much too easy to say we overreacted to Covid while pointing at death numbers that are much lower precisely because of the “fearmongering” measures that were taken. I’ve seen anti-vaxxers and freedom convoy members make this mistake quite often recently.

>This logic is so clearly flawed. I think you are imagining an argument that nobody here is making. > I’ve seen anti-vaxxers and freedom convoy members make this mistake quite often recently. Ah, yep. What possible good could come out of you bringing up these groups? Why would you bring up discredited extremist points of view in this conversation? Are you trying to attack my character by implying that I might be asso…

Yes, words matter. By intentionally using loaded words like “ruined” and “fearmongering”, I think you know exactly what message you’re trying to send.

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

#112

Post by londons_explore »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #69
londons_explore wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I propose a system where deaths are statistically assigned to causes. Eg. if a person dies of lung cancer, then we roll a dice and say "theres a 1 in 6 chance that was due to pm2.5 emissions". If the dice rolls a 1, then we look around the town for sources of pm2.5, and we find that 1/6 comes from a candle factory. We roll another dice, and if that comes out with a 1, then we say "This factory emitted air pollution t…

Trouble is that those statistics are educated guesses. It's not like we have a precise table of fractional causes that could be split up via dice rolls. The first thing the lawyers for the factory would do is challenge the probability estimates.

And let them do that... before the death occurs. But once the death has happened and the dice have been rolled, the cause of death isn't appealable.

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

#113

Post by marcosdumay »

pjc50 wrote: post #39

Meta-discussion, but I think "statistical deaths" - deaths where the causation has to be inferred, rather than being completely obviously monocausal - have been a big feature of quality of life improvement in the 19th and 20th century, but are now running into an informational problem. Namely that you have to believe the statistics in order for the process to work, but it's increasingly common to lie with statistics.…

The problem is not only believing in statistics.

As you fix the high confidence problems, you get into lower and lower confidence ones, until you are in the region where each study gets a completely different answer because of really small changes in methodology.

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

#114

Post by penjelly »

severino wrote: post #87
penjelly wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

our brains are wired to read faces because weve been doing that since we were apes, theres no way masks dont have a negative psychological and social impact on our lives when used longterm

That's interesting. However, it's not like we're not reading faces all the time anyway, even if we use masks like we've been doing lately. Family, friends, internet, videocalls, remote meetings... I suppose the impact could be greater for kids in school ages, but I wonder what effects could the long term use of masks of those last 2 years produce in our lives.

i speculate.. anti social behaviours, insecurity issues, (mis)communication issues.

im not sure i follow, we do read faces daily, even in voice/video chat we do. Body and facial language matter.

Cutting off 50% of that as sibling comment points out... even if it doesnt totally prevent us from reading peoples face via the the eyes, that only highlights how important reading faces is, when we cant see the entire face we exclusively look for cues in the eyes.

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

#115

Post by rosndo »

gjulianm wrote: post #106
rosndo wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because your city isn’t equipped to deal with an unusually high amount of deaths in a pretty way does not mean that the lockdowns saved more quality adjusted life years than they cost. A year of life is worth far more when you’re 20 than when you’re 80. If the people saved by lockdowns were primarily old people with a few years left to live it would be pretty clear that the lockdowns were a net negative.

> Just because your city isn’t equipped to deal with an unusually high amount of deaths Nowhere in the world was equipped to deal with the incredibly high amount of deaths that happened, nor with the incredibly high amount of sick people. > does not mean that the lockdowns saved more quality adjusted life years than they cost. Yes, because the death of loved ones, the sickness and long-term effects of COVID, the coll…

> It's incredibly naive to think that life would have continued as usual without lockdowns.

What a truly bizarre strawman.

> A month of lockdown is worse than an 80 year old (who otherwise might live some years) suffocating to death alone in a hospital?

You are very lucky if you got away with just a month of lockdowns.

It might not seem that way, but this is actually a simple mathematical problem. How many young healthy people traded in a month of the best years of their life in order to extend the life of that 80yo?

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

#116

Post by maxerickson »

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #82
pjc50 wrote: post #39

Meta-discussion, but I think "statistical deaths" - deaths where the causation has to be inferred, rather than being completely obviously monocausal - have been a big feature of quality of life improvement in the 19th and 20th century, but are now running into an informational problem. Namely that you have to believe the statistics in order for the process to work, but it's increasingly common to lie with statistics.…

Might seem meta but by bringing this up you nailed it. This uncovers the pattern in use. The favorite trick for population behavior design. If social engineers exists, then this is the technique they are advising the ones in power to use the most.

I mean, there are real things that are harmful where the impact can pretty much only be demonstrated in a statistical sense.

Balancing harms like those against other outcomes is why we have politics.

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

#117

Post by BoxOfRain »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #35
severino wrote: post #10

Maybe we can keep using masks? Now that we already got used to them, we may reduce the effects of pollution with good filtering masks. Of course this doesn't mean we shouldn't address what's causing the pollution in the first place.

This is really the reason why masks were common in Asia. Except Japan. But their pollution is a lot higher than ours. Pollution here in Barcelona is not high enough that I'd consider wearing a mask for it. And the upcoming bans of old diesels and two stroke scooters will make things even better. I'll never get used to masks anyway. They'll always be an extreme annoyance. I wear them because it's mandatory and I agree…

>I'll never get used to masks anyway. They'll always be an extreme annoyance.

I'm definitely in this category, I can't stand the things and haven't worn one since the mandate in England ended. Something about blocking my mouth and nose is just a really unpleasant sensation, it's not the type of mask or the fit rather the essential nature of having something stuck to my face. I think a lot of people really downplayed just how unpleasant mask-wearing actually is for many, charitably this was for the greater good but now I think we have to be open about the downsides too. The pollution from plastic masks is a big issue too, lots of very long-lived litter that's pretty gross in the streets and bad for the marine environment where they eventually wash up into as well.

I too would accept the greater risk of death than wear them for the rest of my days. I'm glad that in my country at least we're not letting this turn into the same kind of ritualistic safety theatre we've seen at airports for the last two decades.

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

#118

Post by hoseja »

londons_explore wrote: post #50
pjc50 wrote: post #39

Meta-discussion, but I think "statistical deaths" - deaths where the causation has to be inferred, rather than being completely obviously monocausal - have been a big feature of quality of life improvement in the 19th and 20th century, but are now running into an informational problem. Namely that you have to believe the statistics in order for the process to work, but it's increasingly common to lie with statistics.…

I propose a system where deaths are statistically assigned to causes. Eg. if a person dies of lung cancer, then we roll a dice and say "theres a 1 in 6 chance that was due to pm2.5 emissions". If the dice rolls a 1, then we look around the town for sources of pm2.5, and we find that 1/6 comes from a candle factory. We roll another dice, and if that comes out with a 1, then we say "This factory emitted air pollution t…

Did you take the idea from stochastic rounding?

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

#119

Post by hughrr »

tim333 wrote: post #107
hughrr wrote: 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.

While I'm skeptical of the UK govts 2030 ban on selling combustion engine vehicles, I think going electric may the answer to London air quality.

Correct but only because people won’t be able to afford to replace their old cars with electric ones.

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

#120

Post by i_love_limes »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #71
yosito wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a problem with statistical deaths is that deaths can be double counted. If you did a meta-study and added up all the claimed deaths, wouldn't there be more statistical deaths than actual deaths? I also suspect that it's fairly likely that statistical deaths are based on comparing actual deaths to a hypothetical model in which the statistical cause of death is removed, but if the assumptions of the model are w…

> think a problem with statistical deaths is that deaths can be double counted. Anyone worth a crap uses some sort of time based metric for loss of life. Wheezing into the grave at 80 instead of 81 is very different than dropping dead a 20 and these sorts of metrics are meant to reflect that. But those metrics don't get you big numbers with lots of digits in front of the decimal that get your article publishes, poste…

So, there are quite a few well known metrics for this in the public health world

* Years of Life Lost (YLL) * Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) * Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY)

They are calculated in an interesting way that is open for arguing and interpretation, but it provides a good baseline for the ability to compare them.

As for the double counting, this is in fact a real problem, as a lot of health problems are interlinked, and having multiple health problems have a multiplying affect on health in general.

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