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First clean water, now clean air

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Re: First clean water, now clean air

#131

Post by bolangi »

bsenftner wrote: post #23
isp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if we want to do something, I think the first step is really to get visibility to the problem A sensible first step would be to very visibly display CO₂ monitors in buildings (e.g., throughout office buildings, schools, etc) Once the CO₂ levels become visible, this in itself creates an incentive to improve. Related from UK (2021): "All schools to receive carbon dioxide monitors" - https://www.gov.uk/government/n…

In Japan, it is common to see CO₂ monitor displays outside contained meeting spaces, such as theaters. My wife purchased an Aronet CO₂ monitor, and I took it with me on a business trip last week. The CO₂ while on the flight was in the 3000's range. The CO₂ at my client's office was in the mid 2000's range, as well as the hotel. Opening the hotel window the allowed 2 inches reduces CO₂ to the 600 range in 10 minutes,…

About air safety: the pilots cabin has much better quality air than the passenger section.

Re: First clean water, now clean air

#132

Post by robocat »

aidenn0 wrote: post #120
anonyfox wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

… and people make joke about us Germans need to do „stosslüften“ (opening all windows in parallel to get fresh air in fast). also, are there really people that can (or even prefer!) to sleep with closed windows?! Only with AC blasting, right?

Aside from urban noise, I don't sleep well if an open window is too close to my bed because I end up with congested sinuses.

> I end up with congested sinuses

Always? I am fine if the air is fresh (e.g. sea breeze onto shore), but tend to get sniffles in city or countryside environments.

Re: First clean water, now clean air

#133

Post by aidenn0 »

robocat wrote: post #132
aidenn0 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from urban noise, I don't sleep well if an open window is too close to my bed because I end up with congested sinuses.

> I end up with congested sinuses Always? I am fine if the air is fresh (e.g. sea breeze onto shore), but tend to get sniffles in city or countryside environments.

When it's humid I don't, but dry air invariably does it to me.

Re: First clean water, now clean air

#134

Post by Nition »

dylan604 wrote: post #85
bsenftner wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Japan, it is common to see CO₂ monitor displays outside contained meeting spaces, such as theaters. My wife purchased an Aronet CO₂ monitor, and I took it with me on a business trip last week. The CO₂ while on the flight was in the 3000's range. The CO₂ at my client's office was in the mid 2000's range, as well as the hotel. Opening the hotel window the allowed 2 inches reduces CO₂ to the 600 range in 10 minutes,…

>if the CO₂ is above 1500 I get drowsy, so the degree it is no longer responsible driving a car. so the old adage of rolling down the window when driving might actually have some factual logic to it. of course, people are only considering that when at the extreme end of trying to stay awake from already driving past safe limits, but it could easily make a long haul trip more bearable by remembering to crack the windo…

Also useful is having the fans set to fresh air rather than recirculate.

Re: First clean water, now clean air

#135

Post by sumek83 »

isp wrote: post #4
sergioisidoro wrote: post #2

I bought a CO2 monitor, and although the effects of CO2 in cognition and energy levels are debatable[1], it shocked me and raised awareness to how poor my indoor ventilation is. We live in a small apartment, and just being 30 min with 2 people in the room raises the CO2 ppm from 400 to >1000. Opening a window quickly lowers it. Never-mind doing some light activity like yoga or similar. So if we want to do something,…

> So if we want to do something, I think the first step is really to get visibility to the problem A sensible first step would be to very visibly display CO₂ monitors in buildings (e.g., throughout office buildings, schools, etc) Once the CO₂ levels become visible, this in itself creates an incentive to improve. Related from UK (2021): "All schools to receive carbon dioxide monitors" - https://www.gov.uk/government/n…

Belgium is making it obligatory from later this year, including gyms, restaurants, bars, etc

Re: First clean water, now clean air

#136

Post by schiffern »

Retric wrote: post #129
schiffern wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carbon monoxide comes from vehicle exhaust, so the levels are still lower outside cities and off high-traffic roads. I'd rather recirculate my "stored up" clean air vs. pull in CO from the line of cars stopped ahead of me. I just involves being aware of the surroundings. Ideally a controller would monitor the outside CO/PM and inside CO2 to control the recirculate door.

Location is generally less important than wind direction here, which you aren’t tracking. Having a few internal and external sensors for various gasses could work, but it’s a surprisingly difficult problem.

> Location is generally less important than wind direction here

My experience (and my nose) strongly disagrees with this assertion. YMMV.

The urban-vs-rural divide in my area is shockingly detectable just by the smell of combustion byproducts alone.

> you aren’t tracking [wind direction]

Who says I'm not? Tall flagpoles make for nice, ubiquitous windsocks. I wouldn't use it to land a plane, but for this purpose it works just fine.

And yes, it's absolutely a hard problem. Just look at all the ink I've spilled...

The human nose (especially mine) is still a remarkable chemical sensor, with only a few blind spots. In practice the major blind spots, namely CO, correlate well with detectable combustion byproducts. I appreciate your concern, but you worry for no good reason!

---

I'll share one final trick, which should be pretty obvious: avoid sucking in the packet of air a bunch of cars (or one diesel truck) just accelerated through. In practice, usually this means turning on recirculate when stopping behind a line of cars, and then waiting to turn off recirculate until a short distance after going through the light.

Just to preempt the seemingly-inevitable negativity reflex: if you don't believe such hyper-local variations in pollution make a big difference, I guess you've never cycled before. ;)

To good air and good health! Cheers

Re: First clean water, now clean air

#137

Post by Retric »

schiffern wrote: post #136
Retric wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Location is generally less important than wind direction here, which you aren’t tracking. Having a few internal and external sensors for various gasses could work, but it’s a surprisingly difficult problem.

> Location is generally less important than wind direction here My experience (and my nose) strongly disagrees with this assertion. YMMV. The urban-vs-rural divide in my area is shockingly detectable just by the smell of combustion byproducts alone. > you aren’t tracking [wind direction] Who says I'm not? Tall flagpoles make for nice, ubiquitous windsocks. I wouldn't use it to land a plane, but for this purpose it wo…

Your nose is really really bad chemical sensor because it caress more about novelty than absolute levels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olfactory_fatigue

Urban/suburban areas provide a different variety of smells which is easy to confuse with overall toxicity levels. Chemical sensors will sometimes line up with your expectations and other times be very different.

Re: First clean water, now clean air

#138

Post by clairity »

sergioisidoro wrote: post #115
clairity wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you look at the paper, you see no such conclusive evidence, but rather weak correlative assertions in noisy and complex environments. also notice the incentives and implicit bias of the involved. unbiased studies from the past several decades have so far shown cognitive effects require 10× that level of CO₂ to show any conclusive effects. even the pm2.5 effects attempt to make a short-term correlation, which is du…

See, they are debatable after all - we are debating them. There is data, there are some correlations that are statistically significant, and some raise even more questions — like why performance lowers at 1200ppm, but goes back up at higher concentrations in this article published on Nature in a very controlled environment - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41526-019-0071-6 I don't think this topic distracts from any…

the CO₂ levels we see day-to-day (as long as you don't work in certain very specific industries) cannot have the effects that are fashionable to discuss. it's bullshit, an intentional disconcern for truth. bullshit by definition is distracting, as it literally takes attention away from truth-seeking and effective policy-making.

Re: First clean water, now clean air

#139

Post by schiffern »

Retric wrote: post #137
schiffern wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Location is generally less important than wind direction here My experience (and my nose) strongly disagrees with this assertion. YMMV. The urban-vs-rural divide in my area is shockingly detectable just by the smell of combustion byproducts alone. > you aren’t tracking [wind direction] Who says I'm not? Tall flagpoles make for nice, ubiquitous windsocks. I wouldn't use it to land a plane, but for this purpose it wo…

Your nose is really really bad chemical sensor because it caress more about novelty than absolute levels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olfactory_fatigue Urban/suburban areas provide a different variety of smells which is easy to confuse with overall toxicity levels. Chemical sensors will sometimes line up with your expectations and other times be very different.

Trust me, I know what vehicle exhaust smells like. ;)

Living outside the city, I'm not constantly fatigued to its odors. So that's not a factor.

But more to my original point, it disproves the "wind > location" idea (in my geography), since odor acts as a tracer for packets of air coming from the city.

I wish I could calm your anxiety, but on the bright side I am truly touched by your outpouring of concern for my respiratory well-being! Thank you, kind stranger.

Re: First clean water, now clean air

#140

Post by Retric »

schiffern wrote: post #139
Retric wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your nose is really really bad chemical sensor because it caress more about novelty than absolute levels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olfactory_fatigue Urban/suburban areas provide a different variety of smells which is easy to confuse with overall toxicity levels. Chemical sensors will sometimes line up with your expectations and other times be very different.

Trust me, I know what vehicle exhaust smells like. ;) Living outside the city, I'm not constantly fatigued to its odors. So that's not a factor. But more to my original point, it disproves the "wind > location" idea (in my geography), since odor acts as a tracer for packets of air coming from the city. I wish I could calm your anxiety, but on the bright side I am truly touched by your outpouring of concern for my res…

You seem to misunderstand, Olfactory fatigue is very fast. When people fart for example the perception of smell goes away vastly sooner than the actual smell.

If you’re trying to judge air concentrations based on how intense the smell, it simply doesn’t work.

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