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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

#121
post #3

Anecdata I was living very close to a busy highway, and my young daughter was wheazing when she had a cold, we had to give her medicine via a nebulizer. When we moved out to the country more, far away from any major roads, these issues all disappeared within a couple months.

My anecdote would be the revesre. Living in the country gave me bad hay fever/asthma in the city much less asthma.

Same. I visit my family in London and my sleep improves because of no hay fever. Though then I get black boogers, horrible chalky hair, a renewed sense of misanthropy etc

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

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tyre pollution is significant regardless of fuel source.

EV's have 100% reduction of NOx/tailpipe VOCs, 100% reduction in soot/tailpipe particulates, 70% reduction in brake pad dust (due to regenerative braking), in exchange for 25% increase in tire wear. Vehicles are capped at emissions of 3mg/mile of particulates and 30mg/mile of VOC's. Something like 1-2mg of tire material actually becomes airborne PM10 particles every mile (and only about 10% of that for PM2.5 particle…

  > EV's have 100% reduction of NOx/tailpipe VOCs, 100% reduction in soot/tailpipe particulates, 70% reduction in brake pad dust (due to regenerative braking), in exchange for 25% increase in tire wear.
I replaced the tires on my Tesla model 3 at 74,000 km and they still had tread above the indicator bars. I'm now at 140,000 km and the tires look great, the back ones look like they're only about halfway done. I might be an outlier but my previous Subaru needed tires every 50,000 to 60,000 km.

Needless to say, the brake pads have never been touched and when I saw the left front one at around 110,000 to 120,000 to patch that tire, it looked like it was just installed. The regen braking almost completely eliminated the brake pad or rotor as a wear item.

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

#123

I use air purifiers mounted on my windows, running continuously except in the deep summer and deep winter. This makes my air contain 50-100x fewer particulates than the outdoor air. In contrast, the best I can achieve with floor air purifiers as people have them is a 5-10x reduction. The window purifiers also keep excess CO2 and VOCs out.

You have activated carbon to filter out the VOCs?

Yes, the filter absolutely has an activated carbon layer in it in addition to a HEPA layer. I understand that activated carbon doesn't last long. I have been changing the filter every two months.

Note that because this purifier is mounted at the window, it filters incoming air from outside, not the indoor VOCs that are already in the residence. The indoor VOCs will simply have to get exhausted from elsewhere due to the air pressure.

What I am suggesting is that my need for activated carbon is slightly less because I am rapidly pushing the VOCs out in the resulting exhaust.

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

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developers build apartments where they can make money from them, in other words where they can rent them for enough that they'll make back their investment. It's very expensive to build housing, so the only way to make the investment back and have low rental prices is to try to make the building costs as low as possible. A big part of those costs is the price of land.

What's even the point of this comment?

The parent and thread seemed to be arguing that low cost housing was intentionally built in places that disadvantaged the people who lived there.

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

#125

Newsflash, living in a healthy environment is healthy!

Pointless anti-intellectualism.

There is a big difference between believing something is true, and demonstrating it is true and measuring the effect. One is a vibe. The other can drive policy.

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

#126

I use air purifiers mounted on my windows, running continuously except in the deep summer and deep winter. This makes my air contain 50-100x fewer particulates than the outdoor air. In contrast, the best I can achieve with floor air purifiers as people have them is a 5-10x reduction. The window purifiers also keep excess CO2 and VOCs out.

Health improvements are not measurable any more if you go below 5 mcg/m2 average level of PM2.5 particulates. For 50x reduction to be beneficial, you need to live in an area where the pollution is 250 mcg/m2, which is an extreme level found only in a few unfortunate places on Earth. 5-10x reduction is reasonable almost everywhere.

I know precisely the subjective difference between a 5x reduction and a 50x reduction. Only the latter feels sufficiently good to me, and my brain operates better with it. You will know it when you experience it. Maybe it's my middle-aged brain that needs the extra support. I live in an urban area near traffic. Lately there intermittently also has been wildfire smoke coming down from Canada.

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

#127
post #113

Scientists stunned healthy living is healthy?

Pointless anti-intellectualism.

There is a big difference between believing something is true, and demonstrating it is true and measuring the effect. One is a vibe. The other can drive policy.

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

#128
post #17

I use air purifiers mounted on my windows, running continuously except in the deep summer and deep winter. This makes my air contain 50-100x fewer particulates than the outdoor air. In contrast, the best I can achieve with floor air purifiers as people have them is a 5-10x reduction. The window purifiers also keep excess CO2 and VOCs out.

> The window purifiers also keep excess CO2 and VOCs out. I assume you mean that the increased air-exchange (purified or not) helps CO2 that originates inside the house to leave promptly? (Equalizing it with the outdoors.) Literally "keeping CO2 out" is a much trickier and more-expensive proposition.

You are quite correct on both counts.

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

#129

Newsflash, living in a healthy environment is healthy!

It was news to me that the lung damage from pollution isn't necessarily permanent in children, if a change in environment happens early enough. Up until reading this, I was under the impression it would be.

We had a lot of construction work in the neighborhood, our house covered in fine dust particles each day. My kid got asthma in the same period, keeps asking when she can stop taking the medicines, and I say "I don't know" thinking "probably never". But maybe now the construction work is over, there is hope? (And if construction starts again, we know that it is better to move, because there is hope.)

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

#130
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. It's annoying though that EV's need that extra Darth Vader on wheels sound to warn pedestrians, I'd prefer them to be as quiet as possible.

You can switch it off, or make it play one of several different ridiculous sounds.

On which vehicles can the humming in reverse gear be switched off? I understand the Tesla (my car) and the BYD (expires car) can not turn that off.
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