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Air Pollution Harm To Unborn Babies May Be Global Health Catastrophe, Warn Doctors (theguardian.com)
Air pollution significantly increases the risk of low birth weight in babies, leading to lifelong damage to health, according to a large new study. From a report: The research was conducted in London, UK, but its implications for many millions of women in cities around the world with far worse air pollution are "something approaching a public health catastrophe," the doctors involved said. Globally, two billion children -- 90% of all children -- are exposed to air pollution above World Health Organization guidelines. A Unicef study also published on Wednesday found that 17 million babies suffer air six times more toxic than the guidelines. The team said that there are no reliable ways for women in cities to avoid chronic exposure to air pollution during pregnancy and called for urgent action from governments to cut pollution from vehicles and other sources.
If it wasn't this it would be something else. The realities that we've over procreated and are in the process of wrecking our planet like a runaway viral infection will catch up with us one way or another. People should have fewer babies, period. And if they don't, then this is what happens, and I have no fucking sympathy that they cannot overcome their biological imperative.
If you take it there for 2 weeks and don't drive while you're there, you aren't emitting much in the way of pollutants.
It's not an "unborn baby", it's a "choice".
I think this is just Mother Nature helping clean the pool a bit
We'll see if you feel the same when it's your child that is born with defects.
If it were truly a catastrophe, there should be many large cities where whole generations should have perished. In the US, prior to EPA reforms, many cities had far worse air pollution, yet the maternity wards in their hospitals weren't empty.
The air has never been cleaner. 50 years ago there were noxious fuming automobiles and trucks. Factories spewed coal black smoke into the hazy gray skies. Half the population puffed on cigars and cigarettes, indoors, outdoors, even on airplanes, and in other public places -- even elevators. At least in America the problem has been solved.
So what if China doesn't care. That's their right. It's their country.
That babies born to mother's exposed to air pollution are smaller, but their just as healthy are the other babies. And some women might want a smaller baby.
Let me know if anyone gets the reference.
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That's the problem with these kinds of studies. They take the worst of the worst conditions and then try to apply the conclusions to planet as a whole.
So, what they want to say is that my Power stroke Diesel Pickup should be outlawed because in China or India, pollution is crazy bad in densely populated cities.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
You're only encouraging him. Don't do that.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I don't believe a blastocyst or unformed fetus is a child. It's a triviality to me: personhood laws are ludicrous, insurance should cover birth control, and HSAs and FSAs should cover condoms (to control the spread of STDs).
What's a travesty is that so many children face neglect and abuse in our over-populated foster home system, and in families who didn't want and can't support a child. We treat children like chickens: fight to have them birthed whenever we get a hint that some breeder hen might have found a rooster, and then roll them through the factory farm with no real care toward their emotional needs. A piece of skin scraping which happens to have DNA distinct from those in the human population isn't a person, nor is it a concern; it takes a good while before it starts to change into something more.
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While I commend your use of satire, and sarcasm. Sadly enough, I fear there are groups who believe this type of things. I often fear that I may had caused the Flat Earther movements myself, from a few Sarcastic comments I had made 20 years ago online, making fun of climate deniers, by making up some stupid scientific sounding explanation on why the world was flat. After Trump became president and the rise of the Flat Earther. I fear ever using Satire and Sarcasm publicly without a disclaimer would cause a new sense of horrors on the earth.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Given the weight problems of some people, if this planet is spherical, it will be flat by the time they are finished roaming around,
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You only need to look at the pollution maps in rural areas. Green fields may only be two blocks away from the housing developments along the freeway and main surface roads, but the pollution on those streets is as a bad a major city.
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"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population." - from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol
These were very cold words from a very cold character that has come to epitomize callousness and indifference in the popular mind. Ebenezer Scrooge the money-lending, usury-gouging skinflint stands for everything that is wrong with your kind of comment, but there it is modded up to +3. Shame, Slashdot, shame. If endorsing the villian of a Dickens book doesn't grab you as shameful, rest assured that the "decrease the surplus population" comment is today most frequently applied to Republicans.
"Are there no prisons? Are there no work farms?"
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Anyone who enjoys living there doesn't understand the true meanings of enjoying and living.
FTFY
#DeleteFacebook
Again. Why should there be defective children born in a society where abortion on demand until the very last moment is a viciously defended thing?
My own home environment was terribly polluted. So I am not terribly impressed by this narrative. Been there. Done that.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Actually, I have looked at those pollution map and your statement is complete bullshit. Also, there are very real environmental indicators that you can look to (like the local plant life) to see how polluted your local environment really is (or is not).
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
> I don't believe a blastocyst or unformed fetus is a child.
So no insurance coverage for preemies then?
The line between "child" and "unformed fetus" blurs every day due to advances and technology. Depending on your mood, one lump of cells could either be dumpster fodder or a human child we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to save.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Well, thank goodness polluted air doesn't cross international borders.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Obviously a fetus becomes a human with full rights at some time during pregnancy, but because it's yet another scientific issue that has become politicized, there are only two positions that one may take:
1. Full human rights begin at the moment of conception ("Life");
2. Full human rights begin at the instant of birth ("Choice").
You are not permitted to use any other stage of development as your criterion.
If humans coming out of this environment and are somewhat handicapped, they may be less critical, having to deal with their own issues.
And - does anyone think about fixing it - just look at the current power structure and what the priorities there are.. In particular, a retard on top...
Air pollution in 1st world cities is much, much, much less of a problem than it used to be 20, 50 or even 100 years ago. The main reason is the switch from wood and coal to electricity and gas for cooking and heating (something that hasn't happened in many 3rd world cities, and still a major contributor to pollution there). The decline in power generation from coal has also helped.
As for cars, modern vehicles emit a lot less particulates than old ones. Despite an increase in car ownership and usage, cars aren't even the number one contributor to particulates anymore in many places. If you want to improve air quality, in most cases it isn't cars that should be addressed first. The problem is not flat earthers denying the impact their vehicles have, but environmentalists tilting at the same old windmills instead of tackling actual major sources of air pollution. Though to be fair, in certain cities, older cars and especially 2 stroke mopeds certainly are part of the problem. And I'm speaking of particulate and carcinogenic emissions only of course, not greenhouse gases.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Headline: "Air Pollution Harm To Unborn Babies May Be Global Health Catastrophe, Warn Doctors"
First sentence of TFS: "The research was conducted in London, UK"
From TFA: "The study analysed all live births in Greater London over four years"
Admittedly, London is a fairly dirty city that has been violating EU pollution limits forever. Even so, according to this it's similar to New York and other first world cities.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
When the oil reserves eventually run out homodieselparticulitus won't be able to survive.
Stacking people like cordwood is a lot more environmentally efficient than spreading the same number of people out all over the landscape. I have seen a city of over thirty million that actually works. The trains run on time, up to five subway levels deep plus an elevated level, there's no crime and life is pretty good. Why do cities like that have to be Asian?
You specifically describe Tokyo correct? Do you mean 'Why do cities like that have to be Japanese? A big part of it is cultural and Japanese culture itself tends to manifest in cleanliness, precision, conformity, punctuality, respect and social order. This isn't true for many other cultures of the world many of which are Asian.
Unfortunately, for example, the UK is currently demonstrating that city air pollution causes increased deaths and disability from heart and lung disease that is as high as any "third world" country.
Cars, busses, trucks are the main cause of pollution in the UK (and most cities around the world).
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Your diesel truck should be banned because it is killing you and your neighbors every time you drive it.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Stacking people like cordwood is a lot more environmentally efficient than spreading the same number of people out all over the landscape. I have seen a city of over thirty million that actually works. The trains run on time, up to five subway levels deep plus an elevated level, there's no crime and life is pretty good. Why do cities like that have to be Asian?
Because they require a certain degree of totalitarianism to work, as well as a population who isn't already used to having more space and freedom.
For reference, what would be the WHO measurement of sitting around a campfire and occasionally being directly in the smoke for 5% of the day? I imagine most children who were ever born were raised in a situation similar to this (or better yet raised in a shelter with open fire and burning candles for most of the night). Kind of like sodium intake before the invention of refrigeration - what was that average?
imagine a soft, buttery paw gently pressing down onto a sleeping soldier's face. forever.
If the weight problems are severe enough, everything will eventually self-shape into a sphere again, due to the laws of physics.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
3. Full human rights begin on the 18th birthday. 75th trimester abortions are legalized for either parent. 'Abortion' right comes with the child support payment, and optionally, ends the payments.
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Because some defects may not be apparent until birth?
But it's so effective on Antifa punks.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I keep wondering when I read things like this: is it really so much worse than it was in the 1970s? OK, some places where economic growth has exploded recently may be much much dirtier now than they were then. But I went to London a few times in the late 1980s, and back then the city stank of exhaust fumes. Nowadays that is not the case anymore. I live in the Netherlands and I saw the big rivers getting cleaner, sensitive animals like salmon and beaver being reintroduced successfully, and the air in Amsterdam definitely improved. So I wonder: how come we hear more and more warnings like this? I can think of a few causes: fearmongery, increased knowledge about the impact of exhaust gases on your health, or maybe the planet as a whole really got a lot dirtier. But what is it really?
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So Chinese coal furnace pollution sneaks across the pacific and helps explain the smog in Los Angeles?
You understand that as pollution travels, it dissipates, right?
Ken
A premature birth is only viable because it contains not only fully-formed organs, but a fully self-supporting system. That system may be insufficient and, depending on who you ask, viability may include viability if hooked up to a support machine rather than just viability to survive without care.
this is a blastocyst.
Generally, abortions occur prior to 9 weeks. Beyond 9 weeks, you need surgical abortion; up to that point, you can have a drug-induced abortion. At about 9 weeks, the heart finishes dividing into chambers; internal organs are roughed-out, but nowhere near developed. Even the neural tube has only just curled up to take the place of the brain and started differentiating into scaffolding, not yet becoming an actual brain.
Viability is generally agreed upon at 24 weeks, although the low-point number is 20 weeks. Interestingly enough, premature infants seem to not have active default-mode neural networks (basic brain function) until around 30 weeks. In simple terms, a fetus isn't capable of being aware until around 25-30 weeks, although we think they can respond to (but possibly not experience) pain around 20-24.
The 20-24 week delineation avoids the upper end of the extreme, landing before the brain is capable of maybe being aware. The 9-week medical abortion limit is well before brain formation.
Remember as well: you're a person, being a sum of your experiences and your ability to think, reason, and engage in self-preservation responses. A fetus doesn't have a stress response and so no display of self-preservation behavior. It's rather conservative to consider an infant a "person" even at birth; yet we have this wonderful option to identify a missed menstrual cycle (at 4 weeks), test for pregnancy, and perform a drug-induced abortion (by 9 weeks), far before one would seriously begin to wonder if it's perhaps a living being and not just a blob of tissue. 24-week abortions may be legal in many places, but they're horrendously-stressful on the mother (surgery) and generally-unpleasant, so it's easy to encourage people to make that decision early.
Depending on your mood, one lump of cells could either be dumpster fodder or a human child we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to save.
Surprisingly, my parents were vocally against abortion until my mom got pregnant again--then they had an abortion a few weeks later. They seem to have forgotten this since then. Mood seems to vary.
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No such thing, they're just disposable discardable spare-parts "fetuses". Right?
I have seen a city of over thirty million that actually works. The trains run on time, up to five subway levels deep plus an elevated level, there's no crime and life is pretty good. Why do cities like that have to be Asian?
Right - how is it Asian people figured out something that we white people couldn't/haven't?
Please define "no crime" and "life is pretty good" - I suspect the former is a lie, and the latter only applies to the folks You personally met, not all 30 Million residents.
Ken
infant mortality has been dropping for the last century. I don't think you understand what real poverty is like. We've sort of forgot because a) the War on Poverty did and continues to do a lot and b) what we couldn't eliminate we moved to China, Mexico and India. Yes, we've mostly cleaned the air here, but in large parts of China, India and some of Mexico it's as bad as it was in the 20s here.
Also even before the EPA was founded there was work being done to clean up the air. Especially in the 30s-60s before private jets were common and telecoms made it so the rich could manage their holdings from afar.
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Learn the distinction between inside a woman's body and outside. It's important.
Here's a helpful guide.
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You are welcome on my lawn.
In the past year, Iâ(TM)ve read stories about while towns in China getting cancer due to pollution, toxic foam floating around in India, and serious birth defects in humans and animals in both of those countries. The problem is orders of magnitude larger there than in the US. Because of this, China and India are great test beds for human evolution because those are the places with the highest levels of environmental pressures. We could see species adaptions there that donâ(TM)t exist anywhere else.
That's only half true. To summarize, the major cause of air pollution in many cities is when ammonia from farms combines with pollution from vehicles to form PM 2.5.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
China and the US don't share an international border.
No problem then.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I mean the pollution is something that we know exists. In cases these doctors discuss the pollution is in fact so bad that one can see its undesirable effects on oneself which for any reasonable individual would mean to move away at least for pregnancy or avoid pregnancy in the first place. I agree avoiding pollution may not be within the reach of people but condoms should be. We try hard to get pollution in already relatively clean western cities down whereas the actual problem is overpopulation elsewhere.
Are there statistics that separate pollution figures of heavy traffic (busses and trucks) from personal transportation (cars)? Because it's usually cars that get targetted by "green" measures.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Even an AC should understand such a simple argument.
It's not about personal responsibility here unless you want to walk that line. Either we can cover the costs of condoms and other forms of birth control (up to and including abortions), or we can down the line cover the cost of a child that grew up in terrible conditions, probably without a dad, to drain public education resources (school isn't cheap), government support and welfare resources (those aren't cheap either), and of course tying up courts and police resources (those aren't cheap), and then costing the state even more in prison resources.
If the child was involved in anything violent it also means covering healthcare for all participants. So, even at 10 abortions per person, it's still a hell of a lot cheaper than paying for the child.
Now, guess which option is better for *you* and your hard earned tax money?
"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population." - from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol
These were very cold words from a very cold character that has come to epitomize callousness and indifference in the popular mind. Ebenezer Scrooge the money-lending, usury-gouging skinflint stands for everything that is wrong with your kind of comment, but there it is modded up to +3.
Fair enough, but let's not forget that Dickens made Scrooge a villain who was redeemed by the spirits of Christmas. He changed his ways dramatically and become very charitable for the rest of his life.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Or is the current tendency to coddle kids in cotton batting, never letting them run free outside and play un-supervised that is causing atrophied kids. Or maybe it's the trend to city living in more and more cramped un-natural environments. Or maybe it's just the trend to spending more time inside, where the air is much less healthy than even outdoor city air. Or maybe it's the trend to feeding them more over-procssed factory-supermarket junk masquerading as food because after working multiple jobs the parents don't have time ( and were never taught in school how ) to prepare nuticious meals.
You live and learn, or you don't learn much.
Got to be fake news, since the overlords with stock in Planned Parenthood have informed us that the unborn aren't people, and thus, can't be harmed by pollution or abortion.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Actually the study was done in London on babies born there. The harm was local.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Exactly right. Because of course, to malthusian eugenicists, if you aren't blond haired blue eyed with white skin, it's a birth defect.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I'm not seeing any sign of redemption here. Or any realization that anything cold-hearted was said. Just "let them suffer and die, it's good for the environment to have fewer humans alive." Sick, sick stuff.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Lots more cars than trucks or busses. Lots more pollution from cars.
Here's a good one:
Diesel cars 10x more toxic than trucks and busses.
https://www.theguardian.com/en...
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I can only report what I saw: subways where everyone was well behaved no matter where in the city I was going, even if I got off in a neighborhood of what we would call project housing for the poor: plain concrete high-rises with small neighborhood parks where old people watched over flocks of grandchildren at play. No violence, no graffiti, no fear.
Again. Why should there be defective children born in a society where abortion on demand until the very last moment is a viciously defended thing?
Anti-abortion activists are the vicious ones killing real human beings. Pro-choice activists are the ones peacefully trying to maintain their medical autonomy.
Further, arguments about eugenics are a red-herring. Most reasonable people accept abortion as the only ethical choice if an embryo has a severe lung defect and can only possibly be born to suffocate seconds after the cord is cut. But the main argument is "it's my medical decision, not the state's, and certainly not the decision of a bunch of people who worship a virgin-born zombie who may have said something that if you take it out of context means 'yay unborn fetuses.'"
My own home environment was terribly polluted.
We can tell :-P
insurance should cover birth control, and HSAs and FSAs should cover condoms (to control the spread of STDs).
Should car insurance cover oil changes, tires, and fuel? That's a serious question.
Health insurance, at least at one time, was to cover unexpected health costs that are too expensive for a person to cover out of pocket with ease. I remember someone commenting that treating a broken arm used to cost maybe $200. The poor kid would be driven to a hospital by a parent, school nurse, or other responsible adult, the visit with the physician would be about $50, maybe an x-ray would be taken for $50, $50 for the cast, and the rest of the $200 for any medications and to pay for the nurses' time.
Now treating a broken arm can cost $2000, a tenfold increase. Treating a broken bone on a dog still costs about $200. The x-ray equipment is really no different. The training of the people doing the treatment isn't really all that different. The medications are also pretty much the same. So what's different? The difference is that people would not tolerate $2000 to treat a broken bone on an animal. People tolerate $2000 to treat a broken arm on their child because they aren't paying for it, insurance is. Well, they are still paying for it in through their insurance costs but the cost of any single incident is invisible to them.
Would I have been able to get my brakes fixed for $80 if insurance was paying for it? Would a new set of tires still cost $400? Not likely. With insurance there's a new overhead on having to manage the paperwork. It's not just me, the shop owner, and the mechanic now making a deal any more. Now we have an insurance company involved, staff at the auto shop filling out paperwork, more government oversight, and so much more.
Go pay for your own damned condoms, I hear you can get them for a dollar at a truck stop. If that's too much then just hop into the lobby of any college health clinic, I hear they just keep them in a bowl by the door for horny students to grab. Someone might give you a funny look for doing it but I doubt anyone would stop you. If you make this a habit then invest in a t-shirt with the college mascot on it to blend in a little, it will pay for itself in time.
If you make insurance pay for condoms then you'll have to follow new rules. There's likely going to be requirements on visiting a physician, so they can tell you how they are used and to check for any STD you might have. Then you'll get a prescription. Now a pharmacist has to check the prescription, get you your condoms and file the proper paperwork with the insurance company. Oh, wait, are you allergic to latex? I'm sure the insurance company will want to check for that too. Maybe they'll just buy the more expensive vinyl ones just in case, why should they care? They aren't paying for the condoms in the end, you are, I am, and so is everyone else that have insurance.
Now you have people that can't afford insurance, or condoms. Pregnancies and STDs rise and treating a broken arm now costs $20,000.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Should car insurance cover oil changes, tires, and fuel? That's a serious question.
Car insurance actually doesn't cover damage done to your car by lack of maintenance: if you don't change the oil and the engine dies, your insurer won't replace it (or even total out your vehicle!).
Health insurance, on the other hand, covers all of the costs of pregnancy. As such, the insurer has a risk stake in helping to avoid unwanted pregnancy. This is the same reason insurers now 100% cover wellness and surcharge you if you don't get physicals.
If you make insurance pay for condoms then you'll have to follow new rules.
HSAs and FSAs are paid out of your own pocket. You have to contribute to both, although FSAs fill your account for the year up-front. You don't pay taxes on purchases, though.
The rest of your argument is dubious, although I've only addressed the parts where you display clear and total ignorance.
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A large contributor to that is, that the Asian folks live in very homogeneous societies.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Let me define "choice" for you. It's when you can decide between more than one thing. Lots of pregnant women don't want to get a late-term abortion.
Nor do I see viciousness on the part of those defending abortion rights, only on the part of those attacking them. Let me know when abortion-rights activist form cordons around places where anti-abortion groups are meeting, and yell and show disgusting pictures at every person entering. Let me know when radical abortion-rights protesters talk about assassinating anti-abortion people.
So anybody who gets into a situation you think you came out of OK doesn't have a problem worth mentioning. Right.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
We have a nominal date of conception. It isn't perfect, but it's usable.
Therefore, we can set a specific time after the nominal date of conception as the limit.
I really don't have any respect for people trying to force their frames of reference on me.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes