Slashdot Mirror
Google Straps Aclima Sensors To Street View Cars To Map Air Pollution
Eloking writes: Google and a San Francisco-based Aclima have equipped Google's Street View cars with environmental sensors in order to map urban air quality. The project aims to create high resolution maps of air quality across cities by measuring carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, Volatile Organic Compounds, and other pollutants. “We have a profound opportunity to understand how cities live and breathe in an entirely new way by integrating Aclima’s mobile sensing platform with Google Maps and Street View cars,” said Davida Herzl, co-founder and CEO of Aclima. “With more than half of the world’s population now living in cities, environmental health is becoming increasingly important to quality of life. Today we’re announcing the success of our integration test with Google, which lays the foundation for generating high resolution maps of air quality in cities.”
further, co2 isnt' an an air pollutant. it doesn't cause ozone, smog, bronchitis, heart disease or cancer.
But increased levels of CO2 actually found in (some relatively extreme) workplaces in the USA do have significant negative health effects! Occupational CO2 exposure limits have been set in the United States at 0.5% (5000 ppm) for an 8-hour period.[88] At this level of CO2, International Space Station crew experienced headaches, lethargy, mental slowness, emotional irritation, and sleep disruption.[89] Studies in animals at 0.5% CO2 have demonstrated kidney calcification and bone loss after 8 weeks of exposure.[90] Another study of humans exposed in 2.5 hour sessions demonstrated significant effects on cognitive abilities at concentrations as low as 0.1% (1000ppm) CO2 likely due to CO2 induced increases in cerebral blood flow.[91] [...] Higher CO2 concentrations are associated with occupant health, comfort and performance degradation. ASHRAE Standard 62.1â"2007 ventilation rates may result in indoor levels up to 2,100 ppm above ambient outdoor conditions. Thus if the outdoor ambient is 400 ppm, indoor concentrations may reach 2,500 ppm with ventilation rates that meet this industry consensus standard. Concentrations in poorly ventilated spaces can be found even higher than this (range of 3,000 or 4,000). Keep in mind that levels under 5,000 ppm can cause negative health effects; that's just the level at which our government says you have to do something about it.
It is highly relevant what CO2 levels are like in our cities, and the things you said are completely irrelevant to that fact.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yes it is. As the NAS explains on page 6 here:
"In nature, CO2 is exchanged continually between the atmosphere, plants and animals through photosynthesis, respiration, and decomposition, and between the atmosphere and ocean through gas exchange. A very small amount of CO2 (roughly 1% of the emission rate from fossil fuel combustion) is also emitted in volcanic eruptions. This is balanced by an equivalent amount that is removed by chemical weathering of rocks."
So natural CO2 emissions are balanced, and our fossil fuel emissions are roughly 100x faster than volcanic emissions. That's why "actual science" shows that our current CO2 emissions rate is unprecedented over the last 300 million years.
And if you read the rest of that NAS document, you'd discover that "actual science" shows that our unprecedentedly rapid CO2 emissions are a cause for concern.