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Air Pollution Causes 'Huge' Reduction in Intelligence, Study Reveals (theguardian.com)
Air pollution causes a "huge" reduction in intelligence, according to new research, indicating that the damage to society of toxic air is far deeper than the well-known impacts on physical health. From a report: The research was conducted in China but is relevant across the world, with 95% of the global population breathing unsafe air. It found that high pollution levels led to significant drops in test scores in language and arithmetic, with the average impact equivalent to having lost a year of the person's education. "Polluted air can cause everyone to reduce their level of education by one year, which is huge," said Xi Chen at Yale School of Public Health in the US, a member of the research team. "But we know the effect is worse for the elderly, especially those over 64, and for men, and for those with low education. If we calculate [the loss] for those, it may be a few years of education."
The damage in intelligence was worst for those over 64 years old, with serious consequences, said Chen: "We usually make the most critical financial decisions in old age." Rebecca Daniels, from the UK public health charity Medact, said: "This report's findings are extremely worrying." [...] The new work, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, analysed language and arithmetic tests conducted as part of the China Family Panel Studies on 20,000 people across the nation between 2010 and 2014. The scientists compared the test results with records of nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide pollution.
The damage in intelligence was worst for those over 64 years old, with serious consequences, said Chen: "We usually make the most critical financial decisions in old age." Rebecca Daniels, from the UK public health charity Medact, said: "This report's findings are extremely worrying." [...] The new work, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, analysed language and arithmetic tests conducted as part of the China Family Panel Studies on 20,000 people across the nation between 2010 and 2014. The scientists compared the test results with records of nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide pollution.
It's totally anecdotal, but I lived in Vancouver, BC for 3yrs, and I felt like I had a fog in my head there. The air there isn't terrible, but living in the middle of this bustling city definitely had lower air quality. Moved back to Victoria, BC a year ago (where I came from, and a quiet, less-populated area by the ocean), and felt that go away pretty quick, and haven't felt like that since.
Again, may just be my imagination, but seems plausible.
Kids who grow up near nuclear power plants are healthier/smarter because there is less air pollution.
Leaving the Hillary jokes aside, yeah crappy cities are crappy. There are lot of crappy things about the biggest industrial cities in China. It seems to me you'd have to adjust for so many variables that in the end one couldn't be sure if the correlation was real in just an effect of all the corrections. Especially so if the people running the study wanted to find a particular conclusion.
Circling back around to politics without just making a joke, it does make sense that people who think their life is crappy, perhaps because they live in Detroit, would want "hope and change" without any idea what kind of "change" is being proposed. "Door number two" sounds good compared to Chicago or Detroit. Similarly, with jobs and the economy going so well in Dallas, it makes sense that people would want the government to let us alone and let us enjoy it. No thanks, keep the change. You would expect misery to correlate with progressivist policies, whether socialist democrats cause misery or the other way around.
Actually it's worse than that - lead is a particularly insidious poison: it not only reduces intelligence, it also reduces impulse control while increasing aggression. It's practically tailor-made to create criminals.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Which of these Chinese researched are you accusing of being white boys?
Just tell them you are 1/8 African or 1/8 Native American, they'll let you in. That is so long as you don't claim to be part Asian as well. If you can somehow show you are half African and half native American, a lesbian, Muslim, with a physical disability, and have PTSD, then they'll just hand you a diploma right then and there.
They also never eat food transported on roads from the areas where the food is produced.
Yes, it might explain Los Angeles, Sili Valley, Sacramento, San Fran, NY, DC, Boston, Chicagoland, Miami, Sydney, London... but fortunately, we can hope that global warming, by flooding them out, might cull the herd, so to speak...or not.
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