Study Suggests Link Between Air Pollution and Psychiatric Disorders 87
pgmrdlm shares a report from StudyFinds: Could the very air we breathe have an impact on our mental health? That's the suggestion coming out of a new international study conducted in the United States and Denmark. After analyzing long-term data sets from both countries, researchers from the University of Chicago say they have identified a possible link between exposure to environmental pollution, specifically polluted air, and an increase in the onset of psychiatric and mental health problems in a population. According to the findings, air pollution is associated with increased rates of depression and bipolar disorder among both U.S. and Danish populations. That association was actually found to be even greater in Denmark, where poor air quality exposure during the first 10 years of a person's life was found to predict a two-fold increase in the likelihood of developing schizophrenia or a personality disorder.
For the study, researchers analyzed two population data sets. The first was a U.S. health insurance claims database housing 11 years worth of claims across 151 million people. The second data set included all 1.4 million people born in Denmark between 1979-2002 who were still alive, and still living in Denmark by their 10th birthday. Air pollution levels in specific areas were measured using the air quality standards set by both countries, respectively. For example, for the U.S. the EPA's air quality measurements were used. As far as estimating each person's exposure to polluted air, it was a bit easier for researchers to track individual Danes because they had access to each Danish participants' citizen ID number. For Americans, air pollution exposure estimates were limited to county areas. The study has been published in the journal PLOS Biology.
For the study, researchers analyzed two population data sets. The first was a U.S. health insurance claims database housing 11 years worth of claims across 151 million people. The second data set included all 1.4 million people born in Denmark between 1979-2002 who were still alive, and still living in Denmark by their 10th birthday. Air pollution levels in specific areas were measured using the air quality standards set by both countries, respectively. For example, for the U.S. the EPA's air quality measurements were used. As far as estimating each person's exposure to polluted air, it was a bit easier for researchers to track individual Danes because they had access to each Danish participants' citizen ID number. For Americans, air pollution exposure estimates were limited to county areas. The study has been published in the journal PLOS Biology.
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Leaded Gas (Score:4, Informative)
This is why I want the "Green New Deal" (besides the prospect of 20 million middle class jobs). Forget all the Shave the Whales crap I want clean air.
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What is wrong with people like you?
The green new deal? It's nothing but political garbage. You are not smart for using one bad situation to get everyone into an even worse situation. Yes, we should be taking steps to keep the air clean, sequester carbon, and prevent toxic dumping but the green new deal is just not the solution for that. It will only create more problems. The green new deal is just going to give government more power and it will only be squandered and soon just like Trump, AOC will be s
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Ok the ‘green new deal’ is completely unworkable. Im willing to work with you to reduce pollution and increase air quality but that bitch cant do simple math and had no idea how much hazmat she created in her fantasy world. You cant tear down every inefficient building in the US and rebuild it without creating a metric fuck ton of unforeseen problems. As someone who only saw a molehill find asbestos and turn into a hazmat mountain quintuple the price, there isnt enough capitol on the planet to
Why is it unworkable? (Score:2, Insightful)
Indeed, the
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A well laid out plan only if you ignore problems like the land area needed, and the raw materials needed, to implement. The mining will impact the quality of the air and water. The removal of the green space for the solar panels means having fewer trees to clean the air. But, I'm sure someone will point out, we can just put the solar collectors on rooftops and/or in remote deserted areas. That's fine if that is actually what people do. People don't do this because that increases the costs. If solar po
If it's one thing America has (Score:2)
And do you not read
Reliability is fixed with batteries. More mining, more work making the mining safe and more jobs. Remember this is at the end a jobs program.
As for the Dems trying to p
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And do you not read /.? There's been multiple stories here of wind and solar outpacing even natural gas for energy efficiency. Why do you think the oil companies are so nervous?
The oil and gas companies aren't nervous, they are jumping for joy. The more wind and solar deployed means more fuel oil and natural gas for peaking power and backup generation. Take a look: https://powerpastimpossible.or... [powerpastimpossible.org]
Aren't renewables the future of energy?
Renewables certainly are part of a sound energy future. The federal government projects they will supply about 14 percent of our energy in 2050. For renewables such as wind and solar to grow, they need natural gas as a partner -- furnishing a reliable, quick-ramping fuel source when it's cloudy or there's not enough breeze to turn a windmill. Natural gas checks the boxes.
Let's get to your next comment.
As for the Dems trying to power America with wind and solar so long.... dude it's 40 years. That's not a blip in history. Coal was king for 200+ and in a few decades we're talking about changing our entire energy system.
It hasn't been 40 years, it's been thousands of years. There's a lot of money in energy and people have been looking for ways to power our industry for a very long time, with coal indeed being "king" for much of our recent past. Also a "blip in history
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Dude just 1 piece ‘rebuild every building in america’. How many do you think there are? Lets say your average building costs 5 million to build, not tear down, but build. Any building that predates 1985 is going to have asbestos, lead paint, and a dozen other now ‘toxic’ or dangerous materials. So you can pretty much triple that cost right there. This is without cost overruns, which happen at least half the time. For every 100 buildings thats 500 million dollars. This isnt a 30 TRIL
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Bernie has a pretty well laid out plan, involving taxes to pay for most of it with a chunk of it paid for from the increased economic activity. And that's not "increased economic activity we _think_ will happen" that's "The government hired a shit ton of people to build solar panels and wind farms and other Green tech / infrastructure" kind of activity.
It's actually more akin to the broken window fallacy, as they simply replace perfectly functioning - and safe - buildings and such with new buildings and such that offer no economic benefit. Sure, there's activity - but you're wasting money doing something that has a net zero result (and wasting money, to the tune of $16+ trillion dollars).
Sometimes greener solution is to use the old stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
You cant tear down every inefficient building in the US and rebuild it without creating a metric fuck ton of unforeseen problems.
Sometimes the greener solution is to just keep using the old stuff (buildings, cars, etc) you already have. The things that are greener to operate also have a manufacturing cost (raw materials, processing, transportation, construction, etc) with respect to climate change. The operational savings might not offset manufacturing costs. In such a case its greener to keep using the less efficient than to replace it with the more efficient. To delay the replacement until the old stuff wears out and has to be replaced.
That is if you are serious about climate change. If you just want to manufacture a faux hip or faux socially conscious image then by all means ignore such issues and just run out and buy the latest things that claims to be "more efficient".
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I agree. But AOC apparently failed 4th grade math. Rebuild every building in america she says. Cure growing old and dying while your at it.
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As someone who has done this for a living, there are a lot of low hanging fruit in the rebuild every building. For $1000 dollars I can insulate a 1500 sf (139.4m) house and cut the utilities in half. For another $1000 I can install storm windows and cut that by 25%. I can spend another thousand on paint and quality caulk and cut that by another 25%. I have no numbers for labor, but for 3k USD and a weeks worth of work for a crew of 2, you could make most of the houses 50 to 75% more energy efficient. T
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see thats the kind of engineering I am talking about. demolishing buildings and rebuilding them with rain water flushing water and solar light tubes is feel-good measures that are not cost effective. Now when your talking skyscrapers and big commercial structures, those home changes are a tad more complex. That would be called 'ugrade' every building to increase its efficiencies in the most cost effective means possible. But lets be honest, AOC in her social media daydream imagined building all new building
Sometimes? (Score:2)
How about almost always?
REDUCE
REUSE
RECYCLE
Why the three "R" are in that particular order, has anyone ever wondered? Why, because this is order of effectiveness of those activities. Your worst option is recycle.
So, anyone wants berate me for using a fridge for 15 yrs? Or an old car (I don't drive at all, this is an example). Or furniture from the street? Or a washing machine 10yrs old?
I know, I am the worst person on earth because I eat meat. From a cow, can you believe this? Only when I switched to keto die
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" Or furniture from the street?"
If it's upholstered, this is a great way to bring bed bugs, cockroaches, and other vermin into your home.
We almost had the whole bed bug problem eliminated, but the Greenpeace fanatics chanted to ban DDT and the powers to be kow-towed to them. Now we have a huge bed bug problem in the United States.
Maybe people these days are too simpleminded to wash fruits and vegetables before eating them. I grew up when DDT was used, and somehow I managed to survive.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed_bug_control_techniques [wikipedia.org]
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"Sometimes the greener solution is to just keep using the old stuff (buildings, cars, etc) you already have. The things that are greener to operate also have a manufacturing cost (raw materials, processing, transportation, construction, etc) with respect to climate change."
Yes, sometimes that is true. However, that is only true for things worth maintaining, and for things where the initial energy cost is a major portion of the lifetime energy cost.
For instance, California is about to require that all heavy
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If a building is an underinsulated shit shack in a hot or cold climate, then it's horribly inefficient, and at least some kind of retrofit should be done
Yes, an upgrade, not a teardown as suggested above. My grandfather had insulation "blown into" wall voids and over a poorly insulated attic floor (crawlspace, not usable) in a 1960s construction house in oh-f*ck-does-that-thermometer-say-105F california after his first summer there in the 1970s. It made a huge difference.
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Yeah, you can put foam insulation on under exterior siding as well. But for newer-ish construction from the era after houses became flimsy but before foam insulation became ubiquitous, sometimes the best solution is to tear it down. If you're willing to rip out the interior surfaces (which sometimes has to be done anyway for one reason or another) then you can spray foam into the walls properly, and that's actually quite good.
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Existing tech can be upgraded too. For example, in the UK many buildings were built with cavity walls, that is two layers with an air gap. Turns out you can just fill that gap with cheap insulation and make them much more energy efficient.
Converting cars to electric is possible... If someone could make it more attractive and drive the cost down with mass production it might be feasible on some popular models.
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Existing tech can be upgraded too. For example, in the UK many buildings were built with cavity walls, that is two layers with an air gap. Turns out you can just fill that gap with cheap insulation and make them much more energy efficient.
My grandfather did that to his 1960s construction house in oh-f*ck-does-that-thermometer-say-105F california after his first summer there. It made a huge difference.
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I thought 'reusing older stuff' was called 'Recycling'. Isn't that a green enough concept for people to get?
Now if we REALLY wanted to be good for the environment we could start by requiring any further construction to be UNDERGROUND or at least mounded where possible to allow for forest and plants to grow overtop our structures and house various animals. We could also, ban the sale of internal combustion engines for new vehicles, which would certainly see a cottage business of conversion kits for existin
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I thought 'reusing older stuff' was called 'Recycling'.
Yes, but I am referring more to "continue using" rather than "reusing", two different things (don't replace vs replace) but related in the sense that a new thing is not constructed. The only thing I am arguing against is that "teardown" is necessarily part of making thing better.
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What you really want to say is, screw changing anything, I want more money now, more, more, more. I hate pollution 'BUT' I am richer when poor shit heads live in it, so screw them. The corrupt establishment, the corporate psychopaths, they are your champions.
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You cant namecall your way out of this hole you dug for yourself. There isnt 500 TRILLION dollars on the planet.
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*A* green New Deal is an excellent idea. Not everything called a green New Deal really is one, but at least debating the concept is a movement in the right direction.
There's no question that pollution is bad, and the more we learn about how bad and how to quantify it, the better we can make decisions about reducing it. A plan doesn't have to be the perfect solution for global warming for it to be a good idea.
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I too have no problem with the Green. As for the Green New Deal, I would have supported it but then I saw Sen. Markey loaded it down with the Communist Manifesto. Keep the Green, whack the Marx.
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*A* green New Deal is an excellent idea. Not everything called a green New Deal really is one, but at least debating the concept is a movement in the right direction.
Sure, let's have a debate. This debate will have to include why the Democrats oppose nuclear power.
There's no question that pollution is bad, and the more we learn about how bad and how to quantify it, the better we can make decisions about reducing it. A plan doesn't have to be the perfect solution for global warming for it to be a good idea.
Yes, pollution is bad. That's by definition since what is bad is considered pollution. Studies that quantify the problem can certainly provide guidance on reducing it. These studies should include the means on dealing with our current and future production of radioactive waste. Even though this is a known problem, with known solutions for the most part, the Democrats have not been funding the research int
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This debate will have to include why the Democrats oppose nuclear power.
When you start with a lie, it's pretty tough to get me to listen to you after that.
Let me ask you this though (at the risk of falling in the "what about" trap): Why don't Republicans – and one orange utan in particular – like solar, wind, and other renewables?
One reason is clearly because he thinks lying to West Virginians about how he was going to save their coal mines and their mining jobs gets him more votes. Now go ask those miners in WV how things are 2+ years later.
Because accor
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Good thing we don't need your ignorant bullshiting to still drag your pedantic mutant ass into the 21st century whether you like it or not.
-A Democrat, who's coming for your guns next
You already have clear air in the US and EU (Score:2)
We already know lead in gas caused a ton of mental health problems. It wouldn't be surprising at all if other pollutants have similar effects. This is why I want the "Green New Deal" (besides the prospect of 20 million middle class jobs). Forget all the Shave the Whales crap I want clean air.
Are you in China? Because you already have clean air in the US and EU. The air today is far far clearer today than say in the 1970s when the study Is identifying a problem.
The gases that the Green New Deal theoretically addresses (CO2, methane, etc) are not really the pollutants the study is dealing with.
Nice try at bait and switch though.
Yepp, I read that too. Sounded very plausible. (Score:2)
https://www.motherjones.com/en... [motherjones.com]
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Shave? (Score:2)
That is a weird one!
Probably population density (Score:3)
This study result happily pulled out of my ass for approximately $0.0 federal dollars spent.
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Quite wrong. In rural areas where there are factories that cause local air pollution, people suffer the same issues. But you haven't been right, ever. You have a nice streak going.
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Id like to see this explored. Ive always insisted that this crowding is making us feel like we deal with too many people and need alone time. I dont mean alone on Facefuck. I mean sitting outside, in nature, with no distractions. No traffic. No horns blaring followed by ‘fuck you asshole!’ Just silence. Hours of silence. We need this.
Your right. Maybe humans just cant deal with being crammed so tight. Esp Americans. We are born from explorers. Pretty sure Lewis & Clark did not live life in
Nature Journal Study (Score:1)
Breathing poison causes problems. (Score:4, Funny)
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Breathing poison causes problems.
The polite euphemism for that these days is vaping.
That explains... (Score:2)
....the expression "Something is rotten in Denmark"
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....the expression "Something is rotten in Denmark"
Scandinavians love their rotten fish:
Surströmming [wikipedia.org]
Hákarl [wikipedia.org]
Rakfisk [wikipedia.org]
Yum, yum!
I can't remember which one, but one of them bloats out the can into the size of a hand grenade!
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Controlled fermentation != rotting, food regulations are strict and rotten food can't even be sold to animals. Surströmming cans can be quite enlarged but they are larger than a hand grenade even before such "enhancement"...
Believable (Score:2)
With the amount of whack jobs coming out of NY, LA, Chicago, etc... this is totally believable.
Don't forget farms are big air polluters too (Score:2)
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Even where they aren't spraying toxics they tend to be turning topsoil into an aerosol and I assure you that you don't want to breathe soil, either. Modern agriculture is a particularly messy rape.
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Modern agriculture, e.g. no-till farming with cover crops and glycophosphate herbicides is in incredibly clean way to farm. It has far less runoff and topsoil loss than conventional farming. Add in Bt GMO crops for no pesticides and it'the cleanest farming in the last hundred years.
The Farms that started doing this in the 90s now have soil carbon and microbiome population levels higher than undisturbed lands surrounding them.
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Modern agriculture, e.g. no-till farming with cover crops and glycophosphate herbicides is in incredibly clean way to farm.
Zero tilth is overwhelmingly NOT how the bulk of modern farming is done. Consequently, the farming creates hardpan which in turn leads to anaerobic soil conditions. Glyphosate persists in such conditions, which is why it has managed to get into the environment — you can find it pretty much everywhere now.
It's also not a new idea, so calling it "modern" is dumb. No-till is a historical farming method, and it is severely underused today. Most food is produced with full mechanization, and it costs.
Look at China, Not the US & Denmark (Score:3)
Re:Look at China, Not the US & Denmark (Score:4, Insightful)
You ask, if I may paraphrase a bit, why look to Denmark and the USA for this study instead of far more polluted places like China? My guess is because a place like China would not allow such a study to take place. Another guess is because that there is little doubt that extreme pollution causes stress on the body, which would manifest as illnesses in physical and mental forms, the study in places with less pollution would better reveal how sensitive the human body is to pollution.
China is in obvious need to clean its air. The damage seen to eyes and lungs is quite apparent and so the need for cleaner air is also quite apparent. By looking for correlations between far milder levels of pollution and mental health we can see just how clean the air must be before we see a measurable difference in mental health. This gives us an idea on just how clean the air must be before measures need to be in place to reduce these effects.
What concerns me is the possible problem of confounding factors. Did they control for every other factor that is known to affect mental health? There's all kinds of genetic and environmental factors known to contribute to mental health. Factors like nutrition and education can correlate to income. Income correlates to where one can afford to live. More expensive places to live tend to be those that are further from pollution producing elements like industrial areas.
People are looking at China. I recall hearing somewhere that 1/3rd of the air pollution in California can be traced to China. Perhaps the USA should consider limiting trade with China until they can stop polluting the air over the USA.
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The problem is that China doesn't have a modern, universal healthcare system where such data is collected and can be compared internationally. Also China probably isn't that keen on sharing mental health data even if it did exist.
City life in general is associated with mental ill (Score:2)
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One reason is the far greater need for raw materials. This means more mining, refining, and other industrial activity, which will mean more air pollution.
Because the raw materials fairy delivers to wind, hydro and nuclear plants.
Here's some sources:
Hey look! It's outdated sources using assumptions that turned out to be bad. Clearly we must use those forever and not change the analysis when it turns out things like accelerated wear studies weren't accurate in predicting real-life wear.
Solar thermal power is quite expensive, as is offshore wind...when nuclear power would be cheaper.
Oh really? let's see the numbers then....
Here's an article discussing the costs of energy from various sources as found by the US Department of Energy: http://www.renewable-energysou... [www.renewa...ergysou...] [renewable-...ources.com]
"Renewable energy sources"? Why did you link to someone's blog instead of actual sources? Oh, because the actual sources don't back up your argument.
Fo
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Because the raw materials fairy delivers to wind, hydro and nuclear plants.
But solar takes more raw materials than any of them. There's also the matter of taking more land. Here's more sources:
https://www.withouthotair.com/ [withouthotair.com]
http://www.roadmaptonowhere.co... [roadmaptonowhere.com]
https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
Hey look! It's outdated sources using assumptions that turned out to be bad.
Hey look! This person calls my sources "bad" without providing any sources giving "good" data! If you have better data then provide links. Until then what I linked to is the best I could find.
"Renewable energy sources"? Why did you link to someone's blog instead of actual sources? Oh, because the actual sources don't back up your argument.
Fortunately, the Wikipedia page on the subject has links to lots of sources for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Your link shows nuclear, hydro, and onshore wind cheaper than solar and offshore wind, which is exac
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But solar takes more raw materials than any of them
You are literally talking about building tens of thousands of massive concrete structures to hold nuclear reactors, their support infrastructure, cooling towers, and so on.
Making quadrillions of tons of concrete just might have a wee bit of an effect on the atmosphere, since concrete production is the most CO2-intensive raw material production we regularly do. It is literally driving the CO2 out of stone and dumping it into the atmosphere.
Also, pointing to the exact same outdated studies that don't include
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You are literally talking about building tens of thousands of massive concrete structures to hold nuclear reactors, their support infrastructure, cooling towers, and so on.
Yes, I am.
Making quadrillions of tons of concrete just might have a wee bit of an effect on the atmosphere, since concrete production is the most CO2-intensive raw material production we regularly do. It is literally driving the CO2 out of stone and dumping it into the atmosphere.
That is true but because of the nearly incredible amount of energy produced the CO2 from nuclear power is still lower than that from wind, solar, and hydro.
Also, pointing to the exact same outdated studies that don't include current efficiency gains nor real-world wear patterns of solar just might have an effect on the required raw materials in those studies. Which is why pointing to outdated data is a problem, and pointing to it again is a fantastic indication of just how much you actually want to have a discussion.
If you don't like my sources then provide your own. It's not like I cited sources from 30 years ago, most of what I have is at most 5 years old. Just how quickly has solar PV technology advanced since? Also, how much has nuclear power technology advanced? It's quite possible newer data makes nuclear power look even better.
I'm willing to hav
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It seems the solar power fanatics can't handle the truth and moderated my parent post to zero. The future is not solar powered no matter how you moderate my posts. Why is that? Because solar power is shit for energy return on investment. I'll quote myself, links backing up my claims are in the parent post.
Solar EROI is maybe 10, perhaps as high as 15 in ideal situations. Wind gets an EROI higher than this in less than ideal places, and as high as 50 in ideal locations. Hydro does similarly. Nuclear averages about 75 for EROI, with an EROI of above 40 in older nuclear power plants. America's current mix of energy sources gets an EROI of about 40, lowering that for a significant amount of time will have a negative impact on our lives.
If you want solar PV panels on your roof then that's fine by me. Just understand that this is not cheap energy, that it is not "saving the planet", and it's worthless in replacing natural gas for our
So, people with psychiatric problems pollute more? (Score:2)
Smokers (+5, Informative) (Score:1)
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Nicotine lifts mood, when you get the dosage in a rather narrow window. This is a large part of why smoking remains common, it's easier to hit that exact right dose than with blunt weapons like gum and patches.
Maybe (Score:2)
I don't understand (Score:2)
I don't understand a key point. Air quality in the US is the cleanest it's been in 50 years nationwide and at the macro level in cities. (Thanks, Clean Air act.) How does that square with the significantly increased prevalence of psychiatric disorders in the same time period?
Asking more specifically, how many and what other parameters are they using to get the downward slope pollution density curve to match the upward slope psychiatric disorder curve?
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Because this study is not measuring the rate of diagnosis, it's measuring a raw count. So the lower frequency of diagnosis in the past is assumed to not particularly color the results.
For example, if 50% of patients in the past were just considered "odd" instead of being diagnosed, the assumption is that 50% is equally distributed.
Cats (Score:1)
I've read in the past where a lot of problems show up in the record when humans brought cats inside. The protozoan, etc.
Seems like a hell of a coincidence.