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92% of the World's Population Exposed To Unsafe Levels of Air Pollution: WHO (sciencedaily.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Science Daily: A new World Health Organization (WHO) air quality model confirms that 92% of the world's population lives in places where air quality levels exceed WHO limits. "The new WHO model shows countries where the air pollution danger spots are, and provides a baseline for monitoring progress in combatting it," says Dr Flavia Bustreo, Assistant Director General at WHO. It also represents the most detailed outdoor (or ambient) air pollution-related health data, by country, ever reported by WHO. The model is based on data derived from satellite measurements, air transport models and ground station monitors for more than 3000 locations, both rural and urban. It was developed by WHO in collaboration with the University of Bath, United Kingdom. Some 3 million deaths a year are linked to exposure to outdoor air pollution. Indoor air pollution can be just as deadly. In 2012, an estimated 6.5 million deaths (11.6% of all global deaths) were associated with indoor and outdoor air pollution together. Nearly 90% of air-pollution-related deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, with nearly 2 out of 3 occurring in WHO's South-East Asia and Western Pacific regions. Ninety-four per cent are due to noncommunicable diseases -- notably cardiovascular diseases, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer. Air pollution also increases the risks for acute respiratory infections. Major sources of air pollution include inefficient modes of transport, household fuel and waste burning, coal-fired power plants, and industrial activities. However, not all air pollution originates from human activity. For example, air quality can also be influenced by dust storms, particularly in regions close to deserts. The model has carefully calibrated data from satellite and ground stations to maximize reliability. National air pollution exposures were analyzed against population and air pollution levels at a grid resolution of about 10 km x 10 km. The interactive maps provide information on population-weighted exposure to particulate matter of an aerodynamic diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5) for all countries. The map also indicates data on monitoring stations for PM10 and PM2.5 values for about 3000 cities and towns. Quartz's report features a table that highlights the countries with the world's worst air pollution. The table "shows all the median levels of particulate matter in each country where the WHO collected data."
Electric and hydrogen cars have no air polution, except for the plants that assemble and make the parts.
The thing is it is easier to clean the atmosphere and exhaust ducts of such facilities than it is to clean an exhaust pipe. It is done all the time.
Need examples? Look at pictures of Boston, Chicago, Detroit, los Angeles from 1980-1990 and compare them to today.
You can see the air quality change and exactly what the EPA does with their burdensome regulations.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
The US being on the bottom of the list is finally a good thing. Of course we just import the finished goods and let manufacturers (China) worry about the pollution we cause. Maybe we need to buy some carbon credits? /s
i looked at the article and it gave the amount but not duration.
It's funny how the air pollution in northern Mexico just can't manage to make it across the border into southern Texas. There's also pollution in Alaska that seems reluctant to enter Canada. The rest of the map seems much more normal dispersion patterns.
It's also funny how polluted the center of the Amazon basin is. The only explanation I can think of would be forest fires, but I thought the clear-cutting for farming was 100's of miles from there.
Although increases in longevity is slowing, we have more and more geezers every year.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
This has always confused me. Most of the work of a scientist is to reduce or eliminate bias.
The US is the distant third most populous country and 4th largest by land area.
Malthus was right, but has been done a disservice, as most interpretations of his theory focused on the food supply.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
"An anonymous reader quotes a report from Science Daily: A new World Health Organization (WHO) air quality model confirms that 92% of the world's population lives in places where air quality levels exceed WHO limits."
Only data can confirm a hypothesis. That's basic science. The WHO's in Whoville are dreamers, not scientists.
No. Wait..
I took a look at the map and if you exclude the "Modeled annual mean" layer, you'll see all the locations where the samples are from. The US has a bunch, the EU has a zillion, India and China have a number of them but the rest of the world is quite sparse on sensors, especially northern Africa.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
A little real pollution won't hurt much. With CO2 we're talking about the end of the world boys a girls.
Lets keep focused on what's important.
This is a much better way to present to people the reason to cap emissions and regulate automotive and truck efficiency.
People are perfectly capable of governing pollution without big government sticking their noses into everything.
Considering roughly 29% of the world population lives in two countries that are more focused on growth and money than citizen health, this easily shows a scary statistic. Get China and India to clean up their industry and bam, 65% of the world population now lives in in this horrid air quality.
I get it, the poor children who didn't choose to be born in these countries are going to suffer, but really this is not news.
Counting deaths is the wrong measure. The average number of days lost is more typical and informative to evaluate the impact of such problems.
I tried to find the paper for this WHO study, but couldn't find it. Pointers appreciated.
This US data is a big dated but useful as order of magnitudes:
Plane crash (200 deaths a year, 1 day lost per average person), house fire (18 days), pesticides (16000, EPA: 27 days), air pollution (50.000, 61 days), crime (26.000 murders, 113 days), driving (43.000, 182 days), smoking (5.5 years lost for average smoker), poverty (7 to 10 years lost).
It is also useful to point out to people who freak out when they read such headlines that air pollution was far worse in the past. From soot to manure particles, not to mention unsanitary housing, there are reasons why life expectancy has increased dramatically (although, water and food sanitation, as well as waste disposal were bigger factors).
These comments are mine; I do not speak for my employer.
Brakes cause particulate air pollution - even with regenerative breaking.
Nos Morituri te salutamus
Where do you think the power for that electric car comes from? 75% of that power on average comes from burning coal. It's tit for tat.
For Solar cars, the energy density for solar panels will need to increase by a factor of 10 before solar hybrids are even a feasible idea.
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
This is so shocking .. I need to go and grab a cigarette
TFA correctly mentions cardiovascular diseases, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer, which often lead to death. It fails to mention the link to dementia, which can be a fate far worse than death.
. . .or the power plants that generate electricity to charge the Electric cars.
And, of course, the toxic waste streams from rare metal mining and refining, and semiconductor manufacture for solar cells.
***EVERYTHING*** pollutes to one degree or another. The trick is, optimizing the maximum yield/minimum pollution level. And it is not an easy problem to solve.
Give it a few generations and mankind will adapt and evolve to handle it...
It's absolutely amazing how the pollution stops exactly at the border between the US and Mexico.
Yep, L.A. was really bad in the sixties and seventies. My family went through there on our way to visit grandparents that lived in Palm Springs. The air was a yellowish brown and was quite difficult for my mother at the time.
I've been there many times since and it has improved dramatically.
I remember seeing a newspaper article years ago that showed air filters from the city monitoring stations from the seventies that were very dark comparing them to ones in the late nineties that were quite clean in comparison.
It can still get quite smoggy, but nothing like when I was a kid. With more population it would of been a lot like modern Beijing. We used to joke "What happens when the smog over Los Angeles clears? UCLA!"
I fear those growing up since that time who want to eliminate EPA regulations fail to realize what it was like before those regulations existed. After all, it's never been that bad for them, so obviously those regulations are just an impediment to business and serve no real purpose. After all, L.A. was never as bad as Beijing is now, so the regulations must be overreaction by the government.
And while some regulations are overreactions, overall, they have helped more than harmed. I rather like breathing.
Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
Where do you think the power for that electric car comes from? 75% of that power on average comes from burning coal.
Who's average? The percentage of electricity generation fueled by coal in 2015 was 38%. (EIA source, with trend) Even regionally, electricity generation from coal sources exceeded 50% in only one region in 2015 -- the Northern Plans, which represent an area defined in the north by North Dakota to Wisconsin, by the south from Kansas to Illinois (excluding Chicago Land), and less than 10% of total generation in tUSA. And even in the Northern Plains, it was less than 75%. Please show up with data and facts, not horse apples.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Yep, L.A. was really bad in the sixties and seventies. My family went through there on our way to visit grandparents that lived in Palm Springs. The air was a yellowish brown and was quite difficult for my mother at the time.
Ironically, much of the improvement in LA actually was due to cleaning exhaust pipes, and not due to cracking down on industrial production. Don't get me wrong, they did do that as well, but Los Angeles has a serious transport problem. Back when cars were more polluting, they had a serious transport pollution problem. But these various laws that people love to hate in California actually made a substantive difference in vehicle emissions. I myself am not very happy with the regulations surrounding equipment restrictions; if a vehicle can pass a tailpipe dyno emissions test then you should be able to mount whatever equipment to it you like. But that's another rant.
I fear those growing up since that time who want to eliminate EPA regulations fail to realize what it was like before those regulations existed.
The EPA regulations are a bad joke. It took the CARB (an entire additional emissions regulation board!) to fix the problems in Los Angeles (and the state as a whole) because the EPA is so pathetic. California has the most vehicles, almost the most road, and the most vehicle-miles traveled, so cleaning up vehicle emissions made a big difference. But the CARB also handles other kinds of emissions, like VOCs and particulates from commercial sources.
California could probably do without the EPA, because we could replace it by expanding the CARB's mandate. The rest of the country would go immediately to shit. Well, more shit than it is now. Enjoy your lead, America.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Alas, the car still has rubber tires, and some of the rubber is worn away during braking, and some of it is actually turned into a gas. Most of what is worn away during braking becomes rubber dust, which is both made of and coated with petroleum products. Some of it is transferred to the road, and some of that will be liberated later by other vehicles passing over it.
Cars are lame. Really, really lame. I really enjoy driving, I adore the sound of a V8 with an open exhaust at full song- hell, I thrill to hear the little growl that my W126 300SD makes during a full-throttle change-up, and that's a diesel with 120HP. I really love cars. But they are a really, really crap way to move people around. We should be replacing them with a combination of PRT and rail, and relegating cars to motorsport — where they should be run on carbon-neutral fuels or electricity, and run on biodegradable, carbon-neutral tires. That sounds like a bunch of hippie bullshit, but every tire manufacturer is actually working on such things in expectation of future environmental protection regulations which will effectively outlaw the compounds they are using today, and carbon taxes which will make them unprofitable in any case. And of course, we already have some electric racing series. We have carbon-neutral or even carbon-negative replacements for both diesel and gasoline (green diesel or biodiesel and butanol, respectively) so all of the pieces are there. As usual, the only thing missing is the will.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Where do you think the power for that electric car comes from? 75% of that power on average comes from burning coal. It's tit for tat.
Just using existing scrubber technology well within typical effectiveness norms delivers something like a 15% improvement in emissions per mile when you use coal power to drive EVs instead of burning gasoline (which is itself a refined product with its own energy input.) Of course, you would need an EPA with both a spine and teeth in order to keep coal plants running within the legal limits; we can find out-of-spec emissions as fast as we can come up with money and personnel to sample smokestacks.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There is a huge plan, Fluoride is part of it. How about Fluoride, Mercury fillings, Lead in most water in cities, roundup in all your food, and aspertame to help fix what that other stuff did to you. Hydrogenated oil anyone?
Now who wants all this crap in your food/water/Body? Your childrens IQ 20 points or more lower then it should be for inner city people? Early deaths, cancer, etc. etc.. Who would want this?
Think of this question as a quiz. The Rabbit Hole goes deep.... You better leave your Fluoride lobotomy at the door folks. This isnt' for the faint of heart or people that worry about how others view them.
"Click to enlarge"
*Clicks on image of heat map, causing a modal to pop up with a -smaller- image of the map.*
Come on, guys. This isn't rocket science.
Alas, the car still has rubber tires, and some of the rubber is worn away during braking,
Unless you are constantly locking up the wheels during braking, I'm not sure how braking would wear the tires more than driving.
Unless you are constantly locking up the wheels during braking, I'm not sure how braking would wear the tires more than driving.
It puts more force through the tires than cruising. But yes, just driving does the same thing, just not as rapidly as accelerating or braking.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There is a more detailed pdf available to this:
http://apps.who.int/iris/bitst...
Interactive Pollution Map shows Harbin, Changchun, Shenyang, Beijing among a multitude of others:
http://maps.who.int/airpolluti...
Perhaps the wind and precipitation levels and disrupt the ability to measure the actual emitted pollutions in the regions, but my personal experience going to China varied. I was able to live happily there for 3 years and my immune system slowly deteriorated to the point had coughs, sore throats, ear aches and ultimately constant sinus congestion. The locals that live there adapted by eating various foods and intaking known remedies to allow them to cope, but everyone would agree there are overcast(low stratus cloud) days we all feel like zombies and everyone is suffering. I recently returned to China for a two-week vacation in Changchun, for roughly half the trip I was bed-ridden because of pollution-related and jetlag. Perhaps it's just because I'm getting older and my body can't take it as much, but as soon as I returned back to Canada, everything cleared up in a week or so and I was healthy again.
I appreciate all this research about those polluted cities. It's certainly progress to help these polluted cities in order for everyone to not cope, but to enjoy healthy lives. I believe a great number of people don't have the courage to speak up about this issue mainly because many believe "that's life...live with it" and don't try to fix it. People are more productive when they have their good health; it's in their interest to fix this problem.
Hats off for mentioning this issue on Slashdot.
The problems with mass rapid transport and rail are that they seldom go exactly where you want them to go.
That's why PRT is good. It's cheap, small and light enough to go places that rail won't go. Then you can use the ordinary rail for long hauls. You can load PRT vehicles onto railcars if you like.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Any air pollution, from cigarettes to coal-fired power plants, shortens lives. Here's a video of Dr. C. Arden Pope telling the story of how we found out that there is a linear relationship to pollution and health impacts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...