
America’s Air Quality Worsens, Ending Years of Gains, Study Says - luu
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/24/climate/air-pollution-increase.html
======
Vaskerville
I recently moved to Kathmandu, Nepal (I'm a US citizen). The air quality is
debilitating. All the gyms I've looked at (except the American Club which
costs $100/month) have open windows, so you are more or less unable to
exercise unless you have a gym at home and an air purifier. We have an AP but
when the wind blows the right direction our sensor reports sometimes as high
as 200 - it comes in under the door (we are searching for a solution). Let's
hope it never gets this bad in the US.

~~~
randycupertino
Here in California, insanely high levels of mercury have been found in cougars
and mountain lions in the mountains between Santa Cruz and the Bay Area.
Current research shows the fog has been picking up mercury from the ocean and
delivery to our doorstep. I liked the infographic in this article:

[https://www.sfchronicle.com/environment/article/Fog-
brings-p...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/environment/article/Fog-brings-
poison-mercury-to-Santa-Cruz-Mountains-14862445.php)

I think one of the problems is even with tough regulation that we have here in
California, it's hard to control the actions of all individuals.

We have "spare the air days" and half my neighbors houses still have smoke
coming out of their chimneys on those days because they use wood to heat their
homes. You can narc them out and report them however the current workaround is
for them to claim it's backyard pizza ovens as there is a loophole for cooking
food.

When I leave for work in the morning or come home at night and see all the
smoke rising laugh to myself that everyone we live nearby is having a massive
backyard pizza party and we are not invited! :(

There's also this ridiculously persistent anti electric vehicle roll coal
trend happening right now on Tik Tok and platforms where the current fox tag
objective a lot of people play on CB radios is to bag a Tesla - benchmark used
to be to bag a Prius. I only know about this mainly because my old coworker
commuted from Placerville to San Mateo and was obsessed with playing fox tag
on his commutes (which would make sense if you're a mega commuter trying to
stay awake so making up dumb nicknames with your friends and all keeping each
other awake on your CB radios and talking as you drive sounds fun to you).

Anyways... I've just sort of internalized the fact that more and more
nonsmokers here are all going to die of lung cancer and hopefully the research
and cell therapy trials will get there first before I and my family go out. :(

~~~
apta
> There's also this ridiculously persistent anti electric vehicle

I'm all for working toward better air quality, and electric vehicles
definitely reduce greenhouse (and other) gas emissions. At the same time,
pollution from cars is not just from exhaust emissions due to combustion. I
recall reading somewhere that 80% or more of particulate matter pollution from
cars comes from tires and brakes. So the notion of replacing all combustion
engine cars with electric cars will somehow solve the pollution issue is not
realistic. The Tesla Cybertruck might be a great vehicle, but it's heavy
(large tires and lots of break wear). We need better solutions.

~~~
fignews
EVs have regenerative braking. Brake pads last the life of the vehicle.

~~~
thisisnico
EV's are harder on tires though because of the weight, does it balance out?

~~~
ricw
Minutely so. Tesla’s model 3 is 200kg (~400 pounds) heavier than BMWs
equivalent 3 series. Don’t think the tire wear due to that difference will
make much of a difference...

~~~
OnlineGladiator
400 pounds is a lot, that's more than 10%. The degradation is almost certainly
not linear. There is an old study, which admittedly has its flaws, showing
road damage was proportional to the fourth (!!!) power of the weight. I don't
believe it's that bad (there are very specific conditions for that study and
also it does not directly translate to tire wear), but I'd imagine it's at
least to the second power, making a roughly 25% difference using your example
vehicles.

If someone knows more precise math, please share.

~~~
polyomino
[https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/...](https://sci-
hub.tw/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297889793_Non-
exhaust_PM_emissions_from_electric_vehicles)

If you’re this study posted here before, it was just extrapolating based on
weight of ice vehicles and is therefore largely useless in estimating the air
quality impact of regenerative braking vehicles.

~~~
OnlineGladiator
I have no idea about ice, but road degradation is fairly well studied
(admittedly I'm learning about it as I find these):

[https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/IPWEA/c7e19de0-...](https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/IPWEA/c7e19de0-08d5-47b7-ac3f-c198b11cd969/UploadedImages/pdfs/Info%20sheets/IS-06_4th_Power_Law.pdf)

> For example, a vehicle with an axle weight of 1000 kg is considered to cause
> 16 times the damage compared with a vehicle with an axle weight of 500 kg.

It seems the 4th power law might actually be more accurate than I thought. If
the vehicles can damage the road proportional the fourth power of their
weight, surely there is significantly more wear on the wheels (the only part
touching the road) than just a linear increase in weight?

My hunch, and again I want someone to provide a more accurate model, is the
wear would be proportional the third power of weight.

EDIT: I found something, and it is complicated.

[https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/16878140177000...](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1687814017700063)

Figure 6 is what we're interested in, although you won't understand it without
reading everything before it. It's definitely not linear, but it seems to
_roughly_ come out to something like the 3rd power, but it really depends
(honestly you should click that link, there are so many variables).

EDIT EDIT: Here we go!

[https://www.academia.edu/24153619/Tyre_Wear_Model_Validation...](https://www.academia.edu/24153619/Tyre_Wear_Model_Validation_and_Sensitivity_Analysis)

So it seems to be somewhere between the second and third power of weight.

Assuming tire wear is directly proportional to particle emissions (I have no
idea if this is true), that would mean (using the 80% of emissions coming from
tires number cited in an earlier comment, and EVs being roughly 10% heavier on
average) that EVs are actually worse for air quality! This is lumping together
brakes and tires though, which could be wrong. Although I am certain there is
at least a second power effect from braking from vehicle weight. But as
another commenter mentioned, regenerative braking (while not unique to
electric vehicles, I think this is a fair contrast) will benefit the EV
greatly here. Also it's worth mentioning that while EVs lose, it's not by a
huge amount (but it seems to be enough to be measurable).

So like most things, "it's complicated."

~~~
jcl
(For anyone unaware, in this context "ice" most likely refers to "internal
combustion engine" vehicles.)

------
modeless
I found all the existing sites for looking up air quality to be slow, so I
made a faster alternative. I just finished the MVP and I'm interested to hear
if people find it useful: [https://aqi.today](https://aqi.today)

~~~
maccard
My number seems wrong too. I'm in Edinburgh, and it says 86. PurpleAir shows
my closest sensor as about 30 miles away, with a value of 10, and the next
closest one 130 miles away with a value of 2.

~~~
arethuza
There is a dedicated site for Air Quality in Scotland:

[http://www.scottishairquality.scot/latest/?la=city-of-
edinbu...](http://www.scottishairquality.scot/latest/?la=city-of-edinburgh)

Showing pollution in Edinburgh to be Low?

------
ryannevius
AirVisual's global air quality map provides some perspective:
[https://www.airvisual.com/earth?nav](https://www.airvisual.com/earth?nav)

Much of Southeast Asia and Africa are about to enter "burning season," so AQI
will soon spike in these regions.

~~~
polytely
Kind of unrelated to the topic, but does anyone know what the big spot of bad
air quality near Houston is?

~~~
hombre_fatal
The dark red blob in Texas is basically San Antonio.

~~~
bencollier49
Why is San Antonio (and Seattle?!) so bad? Also central Africa.

------
brownbat
There was a great podcast interview with Dr. Karen Clay about this finding and
area of research back on November 7th.[0]

She discusses how they evaluate the effect from wildfires. Also, how they
trace sources by analyzing PM2.5 composition--but how that's becoming much
harder as the mix of these particles is becoming much more ambiguous than it
used to be. Good wonky discussion of the science.

Not in the interview, but another of the surprising things I read about local
pollution from transportation over the last year is that tailpipe emissions
are now a minority of PM2.5 contributions from most cars.

Tailpipes have become cleaner over the last few decades, so braking and tire
wear now contribute as much. The biggest contributor is something called
"resuspension." Vehicles slowly grind up debris or roadway surfaces into finer
and finer dust, then kick it into the air where it just hangs.

The implication is that average vehicle weight, prevalence of regenerative
braking, and frequency of street cleaning can all have much more significant
impacts on local pollution than other measurers you might expect, like fuel
efficiency, emissions check programs, or even electrification.[1][2]

[0]
[https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/neolibpodcast/Karen_Clay_f...](https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/neolibpodcast/Karen_Clay_final.mp3?dest-
id=765425)

Don't be thrown by the podcast name, the discussion of the underlying science
is very apolitical.

[1] Local pollution is obviously not the same as CO2, which requires a
different analysis and is more from tailpipes. But the scientific consensus is
that PM2.5 leads to 200,000 early US deaths a year, and as the above podcast
mentions, we're not just talking about the elderly or infirm. These are
independently important issues.

[2] EVs have many advantages, but, counterintuitively, removing the tailpipe
only marginally reduces PM2.5 from roadways: [https://www.ridef2.com/blog-del-
direttore-ridef/will-electri...](https://www.ridef2.com/blog-del-direttore-
ridef/will-electric-vehicles-contribute-less-particulate-matter-pm10-and-
pm25-to-our-air-recent-analysis-and-meta-analysis-conclude-negligibly-and-
policies-to-reduce-number-and-weight-of-vehicles-are-needed4720595)

I don't take from that that EVs are bad-- just that we need to combine it with
other efforts and technologies to reduce local pollution.

~~~
wasdfff
This is why I hate the street sweepers in LA. In any other city, street
sweepers leave a wet trail like a slug. In LA, they are basically a dry broom
that kicks up dust. They are designed to pick up trash from the gutter, not
clean the road of particulates and oils like in other cities.

~~~
dawnerd
I used to live down in Oxnard and they’d literally have industrial sized
blowers on a trailer and just blow the dirt in the road towards houses. Of
course I happened to have all my windows opened when they came but once. But
at least the road is clean?

------
gshubert17
The Denver-Boulder area used to have "brown cloud" pollution caused by
temperature inversions trapping auto exhaust, back in the 70s and 80s. These
went away with better national auto emissions standards and with state
regulations testing car emissions. Recently, however, I've noticed more ozone
and particulate pollution, but it's coming from the northeast, not Denver.
This appears to be caused by fracking operations. Colorado now produces more
oil than California or Alaska:

[https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/production/](https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/production/)

~~~
BurningFrog
How does fracking produce ozone and particulate pollution?

~~~
tstegart
Sometimes the oil is collected but the gas is burned off because it is not
economically feasible to collect it. Kind of like in this picture:
[https://www.alamy.com/an-oil-well-pump-jack-natural-gas-
flar...](https://www.alamy.com/an-oil-well-pump-jack-natural-gas-flare-tower-
image278802428.html)

~~~
DanCarvajal
If only there was some sort of pipe that could be used to divert this gas over
long distances to more economic processing facilities.

~~~
mikestew
If only there were regulations that said you had to use that pipe even if it
is not economically feasible. But there aren't, so it gets burned.

~~~
BurningFrog
You could imagine some kind of small portable power station that burns the
excess gas and...

Well, there is typically no electrical grid by an oil well, so what to do with
it might be the biggest problem

------
stretchwithme
It's probably a lot due to the California fires. Last November we had the
worst air quality I've seen since I moved here in 93.

~~~
archgoon
This would seem to be consistent with the presented data; the bulk of the
increase is in the West and Midwest (which I believe picked up a fair amount
of the smoke from the fires). The Northeast and South are mostly the same.

The article suggests increases in driving as a contributing factor; but does
not explain why that would be concentrated in the West and Midwest, and not
the South or Northeast. Likewise with EPA regulation changes: why would they
dominate in the West and Midwest? There may be reasons, it's unfortunate the
article doesn't explore them.

~~~
frankharv
Yes I agree and feel the whole article is skewed by averaging.

West Coast and Midwest rose by ~10 percent while East Coast and the South is
still falling by almost 1 percent.

I wonder how much particulate matter is coming across the Pacific from Asia in
addition to the fires causing a raise.

I also question how we could have dropped to Zero particulate matter. That
seems wrong to me.

------
dmix
Anyone recommend a good air quality detector for use in an apartment?

I live close to a highway and would be interested to compare it to the city
average.

Amazon is showing most of the decent ones are in the $150-200 range...

~~~
PeterStuer
Open Source if you do not mind some DIY. While this is part of a public
outdoor air quality monitoring project, the device is perfectly usable for
indoor measurement as well. [https://luftdaten.info/en/construction-
manual/](https://luftdaten.info/en/construction-manual/)

------
neonate
[http://archive.is/aJ9xm](http://archive.is/aJ9xm)

------
bencollier49
Is this Donald Trump succeeding at bringing industry back to America? Because
the West had been outsourcing its pollution for quite some time...

~~~
stretchwithme
We've not been as successful at outsourcing the pollution as you might think.

[https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/environmental-
issues/abou...](https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/environmental-
issues/about-29-of-san-franciscos-pollution-comes-from-china-42334/)

------
mrfusion
As bad as this is, keep in mind it’s small potatoes compared to co2.

------
CraigJPerry
Dropping air pollution so significantly seems like something to celebrate- yet
the first mention is when, presumably forest fires, have caused regression.

People are surviving longer and it’s not news worthy?

~~~
DarthGhandi
> People are surviving longer

Like expectancy in the US is dropping.

[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/09/us-life-expectancy-has-
been-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/09/us-life-expectancy-has-been-
declining-heres-why.html)

~~~
DanCarvajal
Still though as explained in that article it's more a factor of a increase in
younger people dying young vs. the elderly not living as long.

