92% of the World's Population Exposed To Unsafe Levels of Air Pollution: WHO (sciencedaily.com) 115
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."
Can't wait for solar power and electric cars takin (Score:1)
Electric and hydrogen cars have no air polution, except for the plants that assemble and make the parts.
Re:Can't wait for solar power and electric cars ta (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Can't wait for solar power and electric cars ta (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Can't wait for solar power and electric cars ta (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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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 hea
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Who's average? (Score:2)
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 [eia.gov]) Even regionally, electricity generation from coal sources exceeded 50% in only one region in 2015 [eia.gov] -- 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,
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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.
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. . .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.
Pretty shocking (Score:3)
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The map is for particulate matter of a certain size and hence the pollution in Australia where there is pretty much nothing, all down to normal dust storms. So pollution data not so much, as it is not a map of different types of more toxic pollution, just particulate matter of what ever type. So you a feeling good about not much at all and really for a proper pollution map, you should add in drinking water as well as contaminants in food. For an accurate annual total toxic load and you will not end up feel
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In most 3rd world countries, the main problem in interior pollution, from cooking fires, candles, etc. The best fix for that is electrification.
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But yes, for once the US is by all measures for one not ranked among 3rd world countries.
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San Francisco has great air quality. All their pollution blows over to kill Sacramentans.
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The US is a huge country with lots of empty areas that has great air quality.
[citation needed]
I live in the county in the USA which allegedly has the best air quality in the country. The area is volcanic which means more soil radioactives and it contains a shitload of dirt roads which means more soil in your lungs. And the fires, oh my lord the fires.
So, where are these empty areas with great air quality? And why do you think they're relevant given that they're empty?
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. . . and of course, it depends what time of year you do the measurements.
Example: Spring in the Mid-Atlantic, where the tree pollen is so thick that you can SEE the yellow layers on cars and windows.
Or late summer, when the ragweed pollen is flying.
Not ALL particulates are pollution.
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The US has better air quality because of fortunate wind conditions, not because it pollutes less, if If I remember the article correctly. Same applies to Europe (and Reading) - where the air is polluted does not necessarily correspond to where the pollution accumulates!
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Of course, 93% of all statistics are fabricated, distorted, meaningless, or outright made up.
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A lot of what they measure are soot particle emissions - older diesel engines can produce a shocking amount of these, I wonder if the equipment is periodically giving the high readings.
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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.
I missed where we were forcing China to run their industry the way they do. If they care so much about the Earth they can institute pollution controls and pass on the costs to their customers (the U.S. and other countries). We can, in turn, pay for the higher cost of goods down the line to the end consumer.
Maybe this will make having Chinese factories build our goods less lucrative for the Companies in California that do it.
Maybe this will reduce the demand for Chinese exports and cause a resurgence in dome
what's the exposure time? (Score:2)
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You should also check _where_ all that air pollution is located. Much of it is apparently in the Sahara, which is an uninhabited desert without people or cars or factories. If the Sahara is suffering from pollution, then I think we can safely say that pollution is a natural feature of our world, and we shouldn't be complaining about it.
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...If the Sahara is suffering from pollution, then I think we can safely say that pollution is a natural feature of our world, and we shouldn't be complaining about it.
I can't tell if your joking... you do realise that air moves, that's why weather is so hard to predict, the atmosphere is one giant system.
If the Sahara has highly polluted air it's unlikely to be a natural source, more likely it is accumulating there due to particular the mechanics of that part of the weather system or localised properties of atmosphere in that region such as differences in temperature, humidity... Also they are measuring for types of particulate matter that is extremely unlikely to have
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Pollution stops at US border (Score:1)
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.
Re:Pollution stops at US border (Score:4, Insightful)
The data is dodgy.
Limitations
Data from different countries are of limited comparability because of
a) Different location of measurement stations;
b) Different measurement methods;
c) Different temporal coverage of certain measurements; if only part of the year was covered,
the measurement may significantly deviate from the annual mean due to seasonal
variability;
d) Possible inclusion of data which were not eligible for this database due to insufficient
information to ensure compliance;
e) Differences in sizes of urban areas covered: for certain countries, only measurements for
larger cities were found, whereas for others also cities with just a few thousand inhabitants
were available. Heterogeneous quality of measurements;
f) Omission of data which are known to exist, but which could not yet be accessed due to
language issues or limited accessibility.
http://www.who.int/phe/health_... [who.int]
If you untick the "Modeled annual mean" you'll get a better picture of where the data points are measured. The middle of Africa where it's entirely red has no data points.
It just happens to be hot and dry with some wind, so you get dust in the air. I guess that's "natural pollution"
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air pollution in northern Mexico just can't manage to make it across the border
That's just the wall...
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And yet... (Score:2)
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I had a similar thought, that these horrible amounts of pollution aren't doing a damned thing to reduce the net birth rate.
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No, the net birthrate seems unaffected by this. It IS, however, affected by wealth. The wealthier societes (Japan, EU, US, places like that) are seeing declines in birthrates, to the point that Japan is already seeing negative population growth, with the EU and USA heading that way rapidly....
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I had a similar thought, that these horrible amounts of pollution aren't doing a damned thing to reduce the net birth rate.
That's because air pollution usually doesn't kill you before breeding age, and you can still fuck while coughing.
Meh. (Score:2)
Malthus [wikipedia.org] was right, but has been done a disservice, as most interpretations of his theory focused on the food supply.
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Except it wouldn't be the fittest, it would be the richest, so it would largely selection by good luck.
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Re:Meh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit. Rich people tend to have far far better health care. The size of your parents' wallet is not genetically heritable, therefore your claim that somehow Darwinism would solve the problem is utter crap. As with all Social Darwinists, you either twist what Darwin was saying, or you just simply don't understand it.
A few points:
1. Cooperation is as much a result of Darwinian selection as competition. Humans are social animals, not solitary hunters. Even Neanderthals appeared to take care of their infirm, for chrissake.
2. You can legally inherit money, but it confers no genetic advantage. A moron can just as easily have a trust fund as a genius.
2a. There is an at least partial caveat to that, in that poor nutrition during the key developmental years that is often found in the poorest societies can in fact stunt cognitive development. But again, that still doesn't mean rich people are genetically superior, it just means good nutrition and health care allows them to reach a sort of maximum of cognitive development that members of poor societies are often deprived of. The same would happen to a baby born in a rich society if it is deprived of protein and calories necessary for development.
3. There may be a genetic component to earning lots of money; in that either intelligence or risk taking behaviors can likely influence a person's ability to earn money, but high intellect and risk taking can also be associated with some potentially deleterious behaviors as well (i.e. links to depression or, in the case of risk takers, to physically or legally dangerous exploits).
4. The wealthier society, the lower the fertility rate, which generally means it isn't the poor societies who are going to be wiped out, but rather the wealthier ones, which is why they end up having to build big walls which they then are forced to open the gates to because to remain economically viable you need to have some way of generating the required 2.1 children per female to at least maintain a stable population over time.
5. As one can see from poorer societies, women can produce a number of offspring even if their average lifespans are considerably less than your average citizen of an industrialized country, so the idea that "Darwinism" (whatever you mean by that) is just going to leave all the nice rich people in place, and all the poor people will drop dead doesn't even make any bloody sense.
6. Social Darwinism has about as much to do with Darwinism/evolutionary biology as horoscopes have to do with astronomy. It was long ago debunked, but remains oddly popular among Libertarians in wealthy countries who either directly or indirectly benefit greatly from the labour of people in poor societies, and who seem to feel that it somehow justifies that pecking order. If Social Darwinism resembles any kind of evolution, it is the Lamarckian evolution that Darwin set about strongly critiquing in his theory.
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It takes a lot to actually wipe out a human population. It has happened, but in general, a lack of local resources, while leading to high mortality, also leads to migrations. The fact remains, however, that the developing world has far higher birth rates than the developed world, and that many nations in the developed world are actually in a net population decline, where immigration is discounted. Among the worst are Japan and Spain, but most industrialized nations have birth rates below 2.1.
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Among the worst are Japan and Spain, but most industrialized nations have birth rates below 2.1.
Japan needs a low birth rate right now. They have massive suicide and make-work employment. I've never understood why a crowded country like that would want to keep their birth rate up. Let it slack for a while and take some of the pressure off.
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Your best hope is that it isn't based on being able to write proper, logical, and understandable English.
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The real issue is global overpopulation, and until we're ready to let natural Darwinism supersede political correctness, it's not going to change
We're doomed! Doomed I tells ya! Run away population growth [census.gov]
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A model can't confirm any hypothesis (Score:2)
Only data can confirm a hypothesis. That's basic science. The WHO's in Whoville are dreamers, not scientists.
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Where is it that it says the model isn't based on data? Maybe it's you who has no idea how science works.
Re: A model can't confirm any hypothesis (Score:2)
With data.
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So you have a specific critique of this model?
Re: A model can't confirm any hypothesis (Score:2)
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A model based upon data and able to predict future observations is, well, by definition a demonstration of the validity of a hypothesis.
It strikes me that you may be committing an etymological fallacy, using a definition of the word "model" that doesn't really fit with how scientists use the word.
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A model based upon data and able to predict future observations is, well, by definition a demonstration of the validity of a hypothesis
That's a bold assertion. I can find no support for it in the literature. Since you're making the assertion, you have the burden of proof. Prove away, preferably by citing a simulation model that satisfies your assertion.
Here are some requirements you should make sure your candidate model meets:
* How do you know the model makes accurate predictions for all possible valid inputs? Hint: This is a subset of the general problem of proving software correctness, which is currently unsolved.
* How do you kn
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You are trusting that the summary is correct and directly quoting the paper. If you read the article (I know, I know), you'd see the "confirms" part is not from the WHO.
Re: A model can't confirm any hypothesis (Score:2)
But that does raise a good point: Slashdot, you need to fix the summary/headline!
Solution: Move to Tibet (Score:1)
No. Wait..
Needs more monitoring stations! (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
CO2 is all that matters (Score:1)
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.
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CO2 atmosphere is the original state of the Earth but life (plants) polluted the planet by shitting O2 all over it. Don't blame us. We are just returning the planet to its pre-genesis state.
People understand air pollution (Score:1)
Get rid of the EPA (Score:2, Troll)
Way to sensationalize (Score:1)
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.
Wrong measure (Score:3, Interesting)
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).
This is so shocking (Score:2)
Link of particulate matter to dementia (Score:1)
Meh (Score:2)
Give it a few generations and mankind will adapt and evolve to handle it...
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Or we could, you know, reduce pollutants and emissions, rather than hoping that somehow in a just a few generations an immunity develops (hint, it would take a lot more than a few generations to develop communities to pollutants, and in some cases, like say mercury or carbon monoxide, it's hard to imagine any evolutionary pathway that would lead to immunity).
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Here's a hint, on Earth we have this thing called "SARCASM"
US/Mexico border (Score:2)
It's absolutely amazing how the pollution stops exactly at the border between the US and Mexico.
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It's the thousand foot high border wall doing its job.
Please Ignore the Fluoride in your water..... (Score:1)
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 Fluo
This is what I get for reading the article (Score:2)
"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.
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There is no "Safe" level of air pollution (Score:1)
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