
New Map Offers a Global View of Health-Sapping Air Pollution - icey
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/health-sapping.html
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brc
It's airborne pollution that the brains of the world should be working on.
It's an immediate, proven, visible problem right in front of us. But the focus
has been shifted to c02 pollution and climate change, a field with no proven
deaths, an uncertain set of effects and a far-off problem horizon.

Even the development of electric cars is now done at the behest of 'zero
carbon' instead of 'zero emission'. Instead of electric cars in LA to reduce
smog, it's now to stop global warming.

I think this is the wrong way around. Changes should be made to decrease
airborne pollution now. This is already proven to effect billions of people
around the world, now, today. It already leads to premature deaths around the
world, now, today. People are more likely to respond to a cause that effects
their local lives than the globe as a whole, and it's a whole lot easier to
bring in political solutions that affect a single area than global solutions.

It's my belief that changes in the transportation and electricity generation
sectors should be concentrated on reducing air pollution. This has synergies
with the reduce-co2 brigade, so there should be no problems there. But taxing
and trading bits of paper should be scrapped in favour of increasingly
stringent emissions control. If the CARB plan had been stuck to, how much
cleaner would the world's air be today? We could be 10 years further along the
path to the widespread use of zero emissions vehicles in large urban centres,
with real and measurable positive health effects.

~~~
rdl
Clean air, clean water, especially at the most local level, matters a lot more
to me than global and theoretical things like CO2, definitely. I think the
environment is way too important to be left to people who use
"environmentalism" as a religion; it needs to be given reasonable cost/benefit
analysis.

Asia has come a long way in converting fleets of vehicles to LPG/CNG (taxis,
buses, and other vehicles with really high miles and idle hours in downtown
cores), which has improved air quality greatly.

I'd rather have affordable electricity and running water than huge declines in
CO2 emissions, too, of course.

~~~
celoyd
_Clean air, clean water, especially at the most local level, matters a lot
more to me than global and theoretical things like CO2, definitely._

Over what time scale? The worst-case scenarios for excess CO2 are situations
where the food supply is so disrupted that clean air and water would be low
priorities.

That said, I certainly agree that there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit, public-
health–wise, in reducing particulates. Climate change amelioration shouldn’t
absorb all the money just because it’s the bigger problem in the long term.

Stricter smoking bans would go a long way in the developed world, where smog
is not Beijing-like anyway.

~~~
rdl
Strict smoking bans make a big difference for smokers, but not such a big deal
for second-hand smoke. (I find it offensive if someone lights up a cigarette
or cigar next to me without asking, and in some cases like at a sushi bar, I
will cause this behavior to end, but casual infrequent exposure doesn't
deliver that much incremental pollution to the lungs.)

I agree Asia is way more affected by this than most of the US; I'm actually
looking forward to being in SF or Seattle for air/water quality and not in
Asia where I am now. $100 would do more good for more people in the highest-
pollution cities, but if someone is donating to charity, it is up to him if he
values places he lives/people he is near/places he visits over the rest of the
world.

~~~
celoyd
_Strict smoking bans make a big difference for smokers, but not such a big
deal for second-hand smoke._

On the contrary, the benefits for non-smokers are substantial.

For example, “Using 11 reports from 10 study locations, AMI risk decreased by
17% overall (IRR: 0.83, 95% CI: 0.75 to 0.92), with the greatest effect among
younger individuals and nonsmokers.”
(<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19778665>).

Or: “an overall 22% reduction in the AMI incidence within the first year after
enactment of the new regulation. This reduction was driven by a significant
decrease in the AMI incidence in men, nonsmokers, and individuals with
established coronary artery disease”
(<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20069475>).

Or an 18% reduction in hospital admissions for childhood asthma
(<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20843248>).

Et, I think it’s justifiable to say, cetera. Second-hand smoke is a really big
problem that smoking bans address effectively. There may be a case that
smoking bans are bad for personal liberty, but I think it’s settled that
they’re good for pretty much everyone’s health.

~~~
rdl
Wow. I didn't realize it was that big a risk factor. (I certainly wouldn't
want a child care provider smoking around my hypothetical children; that seems
like the biggest gain for the lowest loss of liberty.)

