Posted by kamaraju 4/2/2025
Second,the big role of tires in air pollution. Tyres shed particles as they wear down during braking, acceleration, and cornering, contributing approximately 6.1 million metric tons of tire dust annually to the atmosphere and waterways
Most asthmatics can live a long, healthy life - certainly not die at the age of 9 https://apnews.com/article/asthma-europe-london-air-pollutio...
I, along with other asthmatics, did notice a marked improvement in symptoms during the Covid 19 lockdowns as there was less traffic on the roads - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8011425/
This is the problem with "Well, these people are frail, and you have to die of something" assertions. See also, Covid 19 and "most people who died weren't healthy, they had other conditions!".
I'm not asthmatic, but last summer I had an eye-opening moment about pollution. I live in a very dense city, and I regularly go for short runs in a local park. Last summer I spent a few weeks at my parents' house, who live in the suburbs of the same city, only farther away, in a small town surrounded by fields and forests.
When I went running in the forest, I couldn't believe how easier it felt to breathe and how all-round easier my session felt, event though I ran faster and longer. I don't usually run so fast that I'm out of breath, but that particular time I felt a marked difference in how easy breathing felt. It was as if I needed to breathe in "less air" to get the oxygen I needed.
I had already felt a similar thing after the first covid lockdowns coming back to the city. I had sensation of something "rough" in my throat and had short bouts of coughing. This was a few days after the lockdowns lifted, and people were still weary of public transit so everyone on their dog were sitting in gridlocked cars on the roads.
I think it's the same thing with ambient noise. After some point, we just don't notice it any longer, but it does take its toll in stress and all-round irritability.
But from my understanding most deaths attributed to pollution, specially indoors, relate to fireplaces, cooking, oil lighting or other "I'm making smoke indoors" activities which will cause lung issues later on. Even having candles on all the time isn't good for you.
The rest as far as I understand is all estimated by putting a finger in the air and subdividing lung cancer deaths into what they feel like the causes were.
Health effects include:
- Respiratory diseases developing in otherwise healthy people
- Cardiovascular damage at an early age affecting long-term health
- Developmental impacts on children with lifelong consequences
- Cancer and other conditions with substantial life-shortening effects
Exposure to air pollutants increases our risk of developing a range of diseases. These diseases fall into three major categories: cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases, and cancers.
It makes sense to think of these estimates as ‘avoidable deaths’ – they are the number of deaths that would be avoided if air pollution was reduced to levels that would not increase the risk of developing these lethal diseases.What point are you trying to make? I mean, you don't seem to dispute that pollution can and does kill people.
Which is why QALYs are such a good metric.
What leads you to believe that's the case? And again what's the point of ignoring health risks because some victims might possibly have lower life expectancies?
QALYs really shine when measuring a one-off risk, such as an operation or cancer treatment that might add lifespan but decrease healthspan. If QALY data exists for pollution that’s great, but I think we can easily extrapolate the impact in healthspan from the toll in lifespan.
You don't see a lot of people arguing that starvation doesn't mean much because the deaths of starving people are more directly caused by disease or injury.
People can die because they don't have access to energy or agricultural products.
I wonder what would be the word population now had we not used fire, coal oil, haf we not grew rice and cereals, had we not raised cows and sheep.
Some would consider raising cows and sheep to be bad idea too, given how inefficient it is in terms of input resources for output calories -- not to mention it has very detrimental effects on ecosystems.
[0] https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/27/climate/un-food-waste-one-bil...
I wish we'd bite the bullet and go all in on vegetarian and vegan foods but we need to invest a ton in them to make them more palatable and easily accessible, including to poor people.
Could be that one needs way fewer cows to produce diary equivalent to beef, that would invalidate above sentence. Anybody knows this?
I've lived for maybe 6 months in cca vegan diet when backpacking in India and Nepal (apart from infrequent paneer cheese, their meat in cheap dhabas was not great to be polite - either chicken bits chock full of bones or very chewy mutton), but I wouldn't consider it the best idea for everybody alive. Also those indian spices helped mentally to feel like eating great, but I know very few (specifically) men in Europe who would find it acceptable replacement (women seems more reasonable in this).
I can't speak for everyone, but there could also be plain old biological reasons for why spicy food isn't for everyone.
Just to give an example, spicy food is spicy throughout the entire digestive tract. It's much easier to control your reaction to spiciness at some points in your digestive tract than at others...
Even in Europe its at least 10x but probably more compared to my childhood where I lived (east & west). My parents used to play as kids on the roads next to their places, those few cars per hour were slow and easy to spot and hear. Now its a car every few seconds at least.
We also found plenty more way to pollute and more types of materials to burn. Also all is now permeated with micro and nano plastics.