[HN Gopher] Cancer breakthrough is a 'wake-up' call on danger of...
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Cancer breakthrough is a 'wake-up' call on danger of air pollution
Author : hammock
Score : 179 points
Date : 2022-09-12 12:57 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| randcraw wrote:
| I know essentially nothing about this topic, but it seems likely
| that some particles are more dangerous than others (though I've
| seen no suggestion of that). I'd prefer to go after the elephants
| in the room before the hamsters.
|
| There are MULTITUDES of particles in circulation everywhere
| everyday. If the impact of only _some_ these are especially dire,
| we should be able to triage each particle simply by: 1) looking
| at who suffers most from 'lung cancer of unknown etiology' and
| what environmental particles they were exposed to, and to a
| lesser extent, 2) looking at who is exposed to each type of
| particle and whether they suffer from it.
|
| It'd be nice if we had some clear hypotheses in mind before
| charging off in all directions.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| One thing that shocked me about cancer treatment is how little
| they asked me about environmental factors. I assumed there
| would be questionnaires asking about all kinds of specific
| products and foods, maybe even asking for soil and water
| samples from my home. But there was none of that, and this was
| a major research hospital. The only thing was that they asked
| permission to use my biopsy for additional research.
|
| I know the data would be messy, and if released to the wild it
| could lead to sensational news stories that affect the sock
| market, but surely there is some value in collecting up all
| this data? How long did it take for glyphosate to be linked to
| cancer? How much sooner could it have been caught?
| ashtonbaker wrote:
| There is the NHANES dataset, which has a ton of blood/urine
| test data for various environmental contaminants, along with
| tons of other data columns like cancer diagnoses, age of
| onset, etc.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| Didn't we know this in the 1970's?
| hammock wrote:
| Yes. At some point though we stopped caring, and moved onto
| different "pollutants"
| dennis_jeeves1 wrote:
| Yes, but only the older people who have good memory, or the
| young people who bothered to keep themselves informed by
| reading some 'history' or talking to smart older people.
| the_af wrote:
| The news here is not that air pollution is linked to cancer,
| but about what the underlying mechanism could be:
|
| > _" However, the biological basis for how air pollution causes
| cancer has remained unclear. Unlike smoking or sun exposure,
| which directly cause DNA mutations linked to lung and skin
| cancer, air pollution does not cause cancer by triggering such
| genetic changes."_
| Gatsky wrote:
| Yeah, PM2.5 is listed as a known carcinogen, and there is
| strong epidemiological data supporting the link between
| respiratory tract cancers and pollution.
|
| This work provides a mechanism for how this happens, where air
| pollution promotes the transition of cells into a malignant
| state, without directly damaging DNA.
| hammock wrote:
| I wanted to find an account of what the biggest sources of PM2.5
| are in the US. This article discusses traffic fumes (24% of
| PM2.5), but I was surprised to learn that by far, the largest
| source of PM2.5 - 45% - is "unspecified sources of human origin."
|
| Where does that stuff come from? Well, it's created in the
| atmosphere via secondary reactions between agricultural NH3
| emissions, SO2 and NOx emissions from shipping and industrial
| activities and power generation, and NMVOCs from industrial
| processes and consumption of solvents.[1]
|
| Those reactions seem like an interesting area of study and those
| chemicals involved are far less-often discussed as sources of air
| pollution even though they seem to combine to form the biggest
| source
|
| [1]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135223101..
| .
| rufius wrote:
| The other thing people don't often talk of is PM2.5 inside
| their home while cooking. Lot of people have poor ventilation
| or insufficient air movement capacity in their kitchens.
| tristor wrote:
| Unfortunately, this is not simple to rectify. My previous
| house was expensive and difficult to retrofit to have an
| externally vented range hood, and I'm renting now, where
| basically nothing has externally vented range hoods, and
| looking to buy a place that does. This is a hard non-
| negotiable requirement for my next house, but the pickings
| are very slim. This is a severe issue (in the US anyway), and
| it's difficult to retrofit for most kitchens since most
| houses in the US are designed with the stove on the interior
| wall rather than the exterior wall.
|
| Cooking fumes are the primary pollutant in my life, and
| honestly is one that I struggle with since I have severe
| asthma but love to cook. I do what I can, but this is
| something I wish was taken more seriously in society because
| there's a huge economic hill to climb to solve it yourself vs
| having to deal with what's available on market.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I mean, one solution would be to minimize or eliminate the
| ignition of fossil fuels in the kitchen itself. Electric
| and induction stoves exist.
| jfim wrote:
| I have an induction cook plate and the AQI indoors still
| goes in the hundreds when cooking on it. It takes about
| fifteen to thirty minutes of the air purifiers running at
| full blast to get down to single digits AQI.
| tristor wrote:
| While it's true that gas stoves are a significant source
| of kitchen fumes, they are not the only source, just the
| act of cooking food produces fumes. As an example, when
| searing meats, significant amounts of fumes are released,
| as is also the case when bringing anything beyond the
| boiling point, steam is given off, and steam can contain
| other particulates. Just using an electric stove (which I
| use currently in my rental) alone does not solve the
| issue, and is not even that large of a reduction. Most of
| the fumes from cooking are from the act of cooking, not
| from the heat source.
| mavhc wrote:
| From the food, or the fuel?
| clairity wrote:
| combustion (burning) byproducts are the primary harmful
| particulate matter created by cooking, whether that be from
| gas or food. like most issues, incidental contact isn't
| enough to worry about, but if you're a cook (commercial or
| home), then you're likely getting meaningful exposure. it's
| not an issue for kids unless they're doing the cooking
| every day. the range hood should either be vented to the
| outside or sufficiently filtered (or both), but most
| filters are inadequate, so venting to the outside is the
| more foolproof strategy.
|
| but this is likely a very small factor for nearly all
| people. cars (oil) and electricity generation (coal and
| gas) create most of the harmful particulate matter in the
| air (and water and ground), so that's where we should focus
| our anti-pollution efforts first and foremost.
| epistasis wrote:
| A lot of it is from the natural gas combustion, but the
| food itself also contributes. The day I got an air quality
| sensor (to assess risk from wildfire smoke), I realized
| that my kitchen is basically an asthma factory for the
| kids. (I haven't actually assessed the risk from that, as
| its different from wildfires smoke, but j just keep the
| kids out of the kitchen now until the air clears)
| jwineinger wrote:
| I have some air filters with air quality sensors on them,
| and we have an electric range so there's no natural gas
| combustion happening. Often when cooking (pan frying
| especially), those sensors will max out and send the air
| filters into turbo mode for a good while.
| epistasis wrote:
| Yes, hot oils trigger the formaldehyde sensor every time
| for me. For doing wok frying, I got an outdoor propane
| burner so that it's far more dilute, and that delicious
| cancer-causing wok hei is delivered only to our stomachs
| rather than lungs and stomachs. The outdoor wok burner is
| also far superior to any indoor residential gas stove too
| for this purpose.
| krallja wrote:
| The actors at Conner Prairie, an 1836 "living museum" in
| central Indiana, explain that some of the nicer houses
| have a separate out-building just for cooking, to keep
| the heat away from the main living space, and reduce the
| risk of burning down the whole house too. Maybe we'll
| move back to that design, to keep the pollution in the
| main space down.
| ParksNet wrote:
| The typical American kitchen doesn't exhaust cooking fumes
| out of the house - the rangehood (typically part of the
| microwave) just sucks the fumes up and blows them over the
| head of the cooker, distributing food particles and steam
| around the entire house (perfect for mold growth!).
|
| It blew my mind seeing this as an Australian, where
| externally venting fans are standard.
| galdosdi wrote:
| You're not quite wrong nor quite right.... I've lived in
| the USA all my life, in perhaps 20 or so different houses
| or apartments over the years, in half a dozen states
| through both the northeast and midsouth and in my
| experience.... both ways are common in the USA,
| unfortunately. I'm not sure why, but I agree kitchen vent
| fans that don't actually vent outside are terrible
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Getting an air quality monitor during covid really blew my
| mind when I saw the amount cooking pollution and how long it
| can linger. No one should be cooking inside without a vent
| running or a window open.
| timr wrote:
| > No one should be cooking inside without a vent running or
| a window open.
|
| ...or perhaps, it doesn't matter that much in the grand
| scheme of things, and you're worried about it because you
| bought a measurement device and started measuring something
| you hadn't measured before.
|
| This isn't a minor point. It's a recurring theme in
| biological and medical science where researchers start to
| measure things for the first time, discover a previously
| unknown level, declare it significant or "alarming", and
| ignore that there's no causative link to any known harm.
|
| When you measure things, you find things, but most things
| you find are uninteresting.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| Except here there is a causative link of combustion
| byproducts of that size causing real harm. I've also
| lived in lots of apartments that don't have external-
| venting range hoods, so all that PM you generate while
| cooking is just in your living space until you filter it
| or breathe it. Introducing a PM counter, better filters,
| and enhanced ventilation practices (such as running the
| upstairs bathroom fan while cooking) dramatically reduced
| the eye irritation and stuffy nose I tended to wake up
| with.
|
| For what it's worth, the same particulate counter will
| also spike off the charts when anyone takes a shower, but
| as far as we can tell those salt pm's aren't dangerous.
| timr wrote:
| No, here is a link between _car fumes_ and lung cancer in
| mice. Unless you routinely have a car running in your
| kitchen while cooking (for mice), it 's not related.
|
| PM2.5 particles are not all the same, nor are periodic
| exposure levels in a household kitchen in any way
| comparable to those used in a laboratory animal study.
|
| > For what it's worth, the same particulate counter will
| also spike off the charts when anyone takes a shower, but
| as far as we can tell those salt pm's aren't dangerous.
|
| Yes, _exactly._ You are perfectly illustrating my point.
| You have just as much evidence for this claim as for the
| kitchen one (i.e. none), but you assume one is fine and
| the other is not.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| You're not wrong... but running a vent or opening a
| window while you're cooking to mitigate PM2.5 exposure,
| which we know _can_ be carcinogenic, seems like
| incredibly minimal intervention. I 'd rather change my
| behavior slightly than wait for more conclusive data in
| this specific case.
| timr wrote:
| Yes, of course. I'm not reacting to the idea, so much as
| the "everyone MUST do this" implication.
|
| It's probably not a _bad_ idea to open a window or run a
| vent (depends on where you live, I guess), but I wouldn
| 't panic or deploy a particle meter, or stop cooking if I
| couldn't do it, either.
| zibby8 wrote:
| I wonder how important the raw amount of emissions is. Density
| should decrease at a cubic rate of distance, so being close to
| a small source of emissions might be worse than being somewhat
| far from a heavier source.
| projectramo wrote:
| See for yourself.
|
| Propublica plotted a "cancer map" of elevated cancer risks,
| and you can see how it drops off as you go away from certain
| points.
|
| https://projects.propublica.org/toxmap/
| dylan604 wrote:
| Interesting. One question totally non-sequiter to the
| toxicity conversation, but why do people that use maps
| orient the image in a direction other than North being up
| so that they have to add a label to the image indicating
| the direction of North?
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| For local navigation (e.g. your phone screen, laying a
| map on a table, etc) it's generally considered best
| practice to orient the map so that North is North. For
| abstract purposes North is up is the standard. I can't
| think of a good reason to do otherwise unless you're
| trying to illustrate a point specifically about local
| navigation (e.g. orienting a map so that the headwaters
| of a navigable river are at the top).
| treis wrote:
| It's pretty hard to separate correlation from causation.
| There's way more sources of carcinogens than just car
| generated pollution. And lots of them will tend to correlate
| with poverty/working class which will tend to correlate with
| living next to highways.
| killjoywashere wrote:
| Before getting too excited about the experimental prevention they
| used, IL-1B blockade, let me say that blocking the innate immune
| system to prevent cancer seems ill-advised. The innate immune
| system is with us for very good reasons. This would be roughly
| equivalent to preventing table saw accidents by prophylactically
| removing all fingers.
|
| Yes, table saw accidents are terrible, but there is a
| straightforward electromechanical solution (SawStop), and fingers
| are useful for many other things.
|
| Yes, lung cancer is terrible, but there is a straightforward
| electromechanical solution (energy from renewables + nuclear),
| and the innate immune system is useful for many other things.
| marricks wrote:
| Yeah, it feels like society loves coming up with ways to
| "handle" problems but never actual solve them.
|
| The future will likely be upper middle class folks walking
| around in habitat bubbles with VR suits across a toxic desert
| of miasma.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Well I read the article and got excited about eliminating
| internal combustion engines...
| capitainenemo wrote:
| https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/business/145130/fine-
| part...
|
| That won't necessarily solve this problem.
|
| [edit] One more source. There are tons though.
| https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/4a4dc6ca-
| en/index.html?i...
| CalRobert wrote:
| All the more reason to design cities where cars are only
| needed occasionally and walking, cycling, and public
| transport serve most people's needs.
| Sayrus wrote:
| The Brussels Times uses this exact report from the OECD
| iLibrary as a source.
| epistasis wrote:
| Exactly right, tire and brake dust are still awful with
| EVs, though contra the slight implication in the headline,
| it's no worse than the current situation with ICE vehicles.
| And the brake dust aspect may slightly reduce due to
| regenerative braking.
| abraae wrote:
| > And the brake dust aspect may slightly reduce due to
| regenerative braking.
|
| This might be underselling it. I hardly use the brakes on
| our EV at all. In a journey yesterday of 180km, I only
| touched the brakes at the end, when pulling into a car
| park.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| Slightly? I barely use the brakes ever. Whoever is out
| braking in their EV all the time should have their DL
| revoked
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Where I live residential neighborhoods have 4-way stops
| at every intersection so preferably everyone would be
| braking all the time, yes.
|
| They obviously are not and cruising through stop signs
| (and sometimes killing children!) is the norm. If EVs
| encourage this driving style that is another strong point
| in favor of "electric cars can't solve the problem of
| cars."
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >They obviously are not and cruising through stop signs
| (and sometimes killing children!) is the norm. If EVs
| encourage this driving style that is another strong point
| in favor of "electric cars can't solve the problem of
| cars."
|
| You reap what you sow. A grid of 4-way stops where the
| traffic flow is not appropriate for them is a textbook
| perfect way to train drivers to habitually roll stop
| signs.
|
| I swear sometimes it seems like urban planners are
| hellbent on re-learning everything they learned in the
| 1920s.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I mean, the real issue is that American traffic
| engineering is usually loathe to put anything other than
| a 4-way stop. Americans do not properly yield at yield
| signs, roundabouts take too much room, and we haven't
| figured out how to routinely build speed bumps or raised
| crosswalks for less than six figures.
|
| Also, it is a stretch to call some of that planning
| "learning" or "science." As a general example, parking
| regulations for uses tend to be arbitrary, oversized and
| wildly out of date; most US retail parking lots are not
| full even on major shopping days like Black Friday before
| the advent of online, and now online is making all that
| space even more wasted.
| cjrp wrote:
| Roundabouts don't have to take up more room than a stop-
| signed junction. We call them mini-roundabouts, and
| they're often just painted on the ground and slightly
| raised so that you can still drive over them.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Unfortunately, US civil engineering is very dogmatic, so
| if it isn't approved by AASHTO it won't be done.
|
| The civil engineers also like absurdly wide turn radii to
| accommodate 53 feet trailers and large fire trucks even
| in residential streets, so you end up with comically wide
| roads even for dead end suburban streets.
| https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/suburban-
| street-2779407.jpg
| josephcsible wrote:
| EVs can regenerate almost all the way to a stop, and only
| need to apply the brakes to hold the vehicle stopped.
| epistasis wrote:
| I would like to see the numbers on this to quantify it.
| Because the places where EVs still do use brake pads is
| when they come to full stops at lights and stop signs,
| which tend to be far closer to people.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Brakes aren't necessary to stop an EV nor to hold a car
| at a stop on an incline.
|
| The only time a Tesla needs to use brake pads are for
| emergency stops and for the parking brake.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| That may be the case for a Tesla (never driven one) but
| the ride-share Smart EVs we have around Paris absolutely
| need brakes to come to a stand-still. They will
| decelerate fairly quickly to 20-25 kmph, but after that,
| the deceleration rate slows down, and it actually will
| never stop by itself.
|
| For some reason I can't understand, they tried to imitate
| ICE automatics that don't stand still if you don't have
| your foot on the brake pedal.
| mikestew wrote:
| _For some reason I can 't understand, they tried to
| imitate ICE automatics that don't stand still if you
| don't have your foot on the brake pedal._
|
| Even more annoying, as an owner of a Nissan Leaf that
| does this, is that the behavior is what I consider to be
| a bug in automatic transmissions. Manual transmissions
| don't do that, and there's no good reason for automatics
| to do that (and a hundred really good reasons for them
| not to). It's an artifact of the viscosity of the fluid
| it turns in, and it annoys me that my EV is bug-for-bug
| compatible with a device the car doesn't even have (a
| transmission).
| zelos wrote:
| Pressing the brake pedal doesn't mean the physical brakes
| are being used, though.
| buran77 wrote:
| Some drivers rely too much on one pedal driving only to
| brake in a panic when they realize it will not stop the
| car in time. This creates a very uncertain environment
| for other participants in traffic and I can't tell you
| how many times I had to step back from a crossing because
| a driver clearly misjudged the breaking distance of their
| car using regen braking. It creates a bit of complacency
| where the expectation is that "the car will take care of
| it" and one pedal driving does not give the same control
| over braking as it does over acceleration (or as the
| regular brake pedal does).
|
| Other drivers assume max regen settings will bring max
| benefits and end up taking more out of the battery to
| accelerate only to get far less back (regen braking is
| ~70% efficient in any EV) when the car regen-brakes, when
| braking was not really required. Many times coasting is
| far more efficient than regenerating regardless of what
| pedals you're using.
|
| Last but not least, _all_ regenerative braking systems
| are combined with hydraulic braking at low speeds because
| the torque applied to decelerate is not enough in any of
| them. So at low speeds the car will actually combine it
| with friction braking and eventually not regen at all.
| Take the Zoe where there 's no regen at all below 15km/h
| (9 mph). Emergency braking from high speed is the same.
| City driving will see a lot of those situations.
|
| So whether you realize it or not, when you are coming to
| a standstill you use the hydraulic brakes. There may be
| options to break at low speed with no friction at all but
| they will not be called regenerative because they will
| inevitably use energy to do it.
| josephcsible wrote:
| EVs hardly generate any brake dust due to regenerative
| braking. It's not just a "slight" reduction and certainly
| not "awful" with them.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| The source says 5-19% reduction which is solid but pretty
| far off from "hardly any" in my view.
| josephcsible wrote:
| Isn't that number for the total particle emissions,
| rather than just for emissions from the brakes?
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| No, "PM10 for non-exhaust sources per km" and then the
| following line has more info about about pm2.5. Please
| just go read the thing it's not our duty to quote it at
| you piece by piece to disprove your assumptions about how
| good EVs are especially when the article is right there
| and not even long or very technical.
|
| If you have trouble reading or understanding english then
| I apologize and of course please continue to get the
| information this way if that is best for you. I mean this
| seriously and not as an insult. I had a TBI once and had
| a hard time parsing information like this for a couple
| years after.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Go back and actually read your parent comment and then
| tell us who (still) really has the reading comprehension
| problem...
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Well I have autism and brain damage what's their excuse?
| robertlagrant wrote:
| They weren't saying that. They were just saying go read
| it for yourself and decide.
| treis wrote:
| You should be less snarky when you're wrong. Non-exhaust
| sources also include tires and roads.
| capitainenemo wrote:
| "Electric vehicles are estimated to emit 5-19% less PM10
| from non-exhaust sources per kilometre than internal
| combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) across vehicle
| classes. However, EVs do not necessarily emit less PM2.5
| than ICEVs. Although lightweight EVs emit an estimated
| 11-13% less PM2.5 than ICEV equivalents, heavier weight
| EVs emit an estimated 3-8% more PM2.5 than ICEVs"
|
| So. It depends. It's sometimes slightly better, sometimes
| slightly worse. But it doesn't really solve the issue.
| epistasis wrote:
| True, but these are all less than 20%, a change which is
| likely indistinguishable for any sort of risk factors,
| and likely well within the measurement error for
| something difficult to measure like this.
|
| The true change we need to make is drastically reduce car
| use, to a tiny fraction of its current use. This is a
| hard social problem, however, particularly for the older
| generations who tend to wield power in most governments.
| Younger folks seem pretty excited to allow more biking
| and walking and rolling, though.
| cptcobalt wrote:
| Willingness over your lifespan to reduce car use is not
| merely "because they're getting old", but rather directly
| correlated with a city's existing transit infrastructure.
| I've been able to spend a few weeks here and there in
| London or other transit-dense cities, and I just about
| never desire a car there, but I do in the states.
|
| Government leaders in the states can't imagine this
| reality or, if so, can't imagine it changing sufficiently
| in their lifetimes to invest the political capital in.
| The US will never change.
| epistasis wrote:
| Well many government officials (especially those in the
| planning departments) can imagine that future, as can
| many younger elected officials.
|
| And honestly, I take it back, there are nearly as many
| older folks punching for changes to city design to allow
| waking and bikes as young people. But in genera the older
| generations have the time and money needed for local
| political involvement in a way that younger generations
| do not, so we tend to get a future shaped by those who do
| not want change from the status quo (which is a radical
| departure from the eta of urban growth focused on cars).
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Younger folks seem pretty excited to allow more biking
| and walking and rolling, though.
|
| The difference may not be age; it may be having kids and
| dealing with the practicalities of that.
| epistasis wrote:
| The opposition is coming from people past child rearing
| years. Other parents like me are one of the strongest
| contingencies for getting rid of car-dependency. Cars are
| one of the greatest threats to kids in terms of death,
| disability, and maiming. And building cities around cars
| makes having kids a huge huge hassle, you have to drive
| them everywhere and they have zero autonomy.
|
| Cars and kids are an absolute terrible combo.
|
| I'm not sure if you've seen the huge rise of cargo bikes
| that I have seen, but they are nearly all parents with
| kid seating on the back in my town. We are trying to make
| do with terrible infrastructure and city planning, but it
| wouldn't take much change to make it all very much
| better.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Yep; we live where we do to maximise cycling. Here are
| the problems with that as a general rule:
|
| - it's desirable, so property prices in places that
| enable this are higher, if there is even a location that
| could fulfill this
|
| - expensive bikes aren't affordable by most people who
| also need a car
|
| - there's a large window where kids are too big for a
| cargo bike, and still too young to go off freely
| epistasis wrote:
| I don't view any of these as a problem in the least. And
| sorry if it comes across as as a strong critique, I don't
| mean any of it personally, but have heard people say
| these same things but never from people that actually
| bicycle with their family.
|
| We do all sorts of things that increase property value,
| why is it suddenly only a problem when bikes are
| involved? And the problem is only because we do a little
| amount of transition and not a lot? This is a completely
| fabricated concern in my estimation, the type of thing
| that people come up with instead of simply saying "I
| don't like this and don't want it."
|
| Similarly, the concern about the cost of bikes is
| completely invalid, as bikes are always cheaper than a
| car, even brand new cargo e-bikes are only a few months
| of car expenses _at most_.
|
| And I haven't seen that window where kids can't bike on
| their own or ride with another parent, and I know
| families that bike with kids of all sizes and ages.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Okay. It appears that you haven't read what I wrote. I'll
| try just one more time:
|
| > And sorry if it comes across as as a strong critique, I
| don't mean any of it personally, but have heard people
| say these same things but never from people that actually
| bicycle with their family.
|
| As I already said, we have built cycling into our lives.
| Our kids (4 and 6) cycle to school with one of us. I
| cycle to work. And I am saying this.
|
| > We do all sorts of things that increase property value,
| why is it suddenly only a problem when bikes are
| involved?
|
| That is nothing to do with what I was saying. Property is
| finite; schools, clubs, and employers are too. A car is
| one of the few levellers that allows people to live
| somewhere cheaper and access places they need to get to.
| Places that are close enough to schools to cycle them to
| school and then cycle to work are expensive.
|
| > Similarly, the concern about the cost of bikes is
| completely invalid, as bikes are always cheaper than a
| car,
|
| That only works if you don't need a car. If you need
| both, which, see previous point, is extremely likely,
| then it's an extra expense, not an alternative one.
|
| > even brand new cargo e-bikes are only a few months of
| car expenses at most.
|
| An admittedly quick Google and I'm not seeing any for
| less than PS2.5k. That's years' worth of car services,
| tax and MOT. On top of the cost of the car they almost
| certainly need.
|
| > And I haven't seen that window where kids can't bike on
| their own or ride with another parent, and I know
| families that bike with kids of all sizes and ages.
|
| Here's an example of what I mean: nursery is in one
| direction; school is another. How do we get our 4 year
| old to nursery and 8 year old to school? Should the 8
| year old cycle on his own? Or is he in the window where
| he can't cycle far enough by himself, but too heavy to be
| safely steered on a cargo bike?
|
| Broadly: if Facebook's taught us anything, it's the power
| of being in a social circle and thinking that must
| generalise to everyone, or even most people. Having a job
| where we can work from home, or rock up 20 minutes late,
| where we can afford to live in a nice location that has
| good access, and where we can afford expensive secondary
| transport, is all great. Wonderful, even. But having
| grown up in a reasonably deprived area, I believe that's
| not most people's experience.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Hear hear - I want for my kids to be independent and for
| me to not be their damn taxi for 18 years. A car-
| dependent home is a prison for kids. If my 10 year old
| says "I want to go to the movies" I want to say "Awesome!
| Have fun! Who's going with you?" not "ugg I'm busy with
| work and can't drive you".
| capitainenemo wrote:
| Interestingly the first article flagged ebikes as
| particularly problematic, which are a pretty common way
| to extend bike range. Although, they must surely be
| better than cars just due to mass.
|
| Anyway. Cautiously in agreement with you, but it depends
| a lot on where you live. Western Europe, at least at
| present, is blessed with a fairly mild climate. Less so
| than North America which seems to alternate between harsh
| winters and hot and humid summers. And it's a bit much to
| ask everyone to move somewhere nice. We probably need to
| figure out how to make braking systems and wheels less
| polluting.
|
| Quoted this Douglas Adams once on New York when this came
| up... "In the summer it's too darn hot. It's one thing to
| be the sort of life form that thrives on heat and finds,
| as the Frastrans do, that the temperature range between
| 40,000 and 40,004 is very equable, but it's quite another
| to be the sort of animal that has to wrap itself up in
| lots of other animals at one point in your planet's
| orbit, and then find, half an orbit later, that your
| skin's bubbling." [edit] (aside, my theory is the
| Frastrans live on an aging neutron star like in "Dragon's
| Egg" ;) )
|
| And really the situation gets worse a few states down. :)
| To say nothing of Texas or Arizona.
| jfim wrote:
| > Interestingly the first article flagged ebikes as
| particularly problematic, which are a pretty common way
| to extend bike range. Although, they must surely be
| better than cars just due to mass.
|
| Only tangentially related, but I'd assume that most of
| the emissions from ebikes would be related to brakes, as
| stopping from higher velocity would wear down brake pads
| faster.
|
| One interesting thing that hybrid and electric vehicles
| do is that they do regenerative braking, which ends up
| with less wear on brake pads (and emissions) from slowing
| down. Justin from Grin Technologies (an ebike part shop
| focusing on DIYers) has done a presentation on how that
| works on ebikes, and mentions that he's barely using
| brake pads now that he's using regenerative braking:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYCj4asp9pE&t=970s
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Looking at the OECD report (possibly the wrong one?) I
| couldn't find any mention of bicycles except as an
| alternative to cars to mitigate the problem... Given the
| faaaar lower mass even of heavy bicycles, I would want to
| see the actual evidence before worrying too much about
| the bike contribution to particulate pollution.
|
| (rider mass / vehicle mass is a lovely shorthand for
| vehicle efficiency, as it says a lot about how much
| acceleration you're 'wasting' on the vehicle. Braking, of
| course, produces a negative acceleration, so lower mass
| ratio ~> better efficiency. Aim for a ratio of < 1.0...)
|
| https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/4a4dc6ca-
| en/1/3/2/index....
| Tade0 wrote:
| I'm having trouble believing such findings because even in
| the most congested of cities PM counts are generally low as
| long as other sources (like heating) are kept in check.
|
| NOx emissions kick in as the main pollutant much earlier in
| such places.
| viktorcode wrote:
| > "The risk of lung cancer from air pollution is lower than from
| smoking, but we have no control over what we all breathe,"
|
| We do, to a degree. If you have air purifiers at home that does
| help. I can't recommend them enough.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| > If you have air purifiers at home that does help.
|
| Does it? Or does merely having them make you feel more
| comfortable. Anyway it also means that I would have to live in
| a tightly sealed building, but I rather like having the window
| open.
| viktorcode wrote:
| They do clean harmful particles from the air, thus providing
| benefit. Just turn it on after you closed the window.
| EricE wrote:
| Is it really the cars that are the problem - or just a high
| concentration of particles in the air from having so many people
| and things jammed in a tight space?
|
| Dense cities themselves are the real problem. I have started
| carrying portable air sensors around (they are surprisingly cheap
| and measure a wide variety of things from particles to VOCs and
| CO2) and simply not being in or near a large city dramatically
| improves air quality. But hey, lump everything in and bash cars
| while you are at it - double bonus :p
| hackerlight wrote:
| Will wearing N95 masks when near busy roads help at all?
| hammock wrote:
| Yes. When I lived in a drafty street level apartment in SF on
| Oak St (busy artery) I would have to wipe my inside window
| sills 1-2x a week of the brake dust and black rubber particles
| that would accumulate
| hellohowareu wrote:
| Same here-- in the east bay (Milpitas). I was alarmed by how
| much silt built up on any outdoor surface. I assumed it was
| due to nearby highways and busy roads. Left that living
| situation after 2-3 months due to the concern.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Similar things happen in the country, but it's dust from
| gravel roads, and/or from farming (discers, plows, combines,
| and so on). House can be 100 meters from the road and you
| still get tons of gravel road dust. Though, perhaps, that's
| not as bad for you as brake dust. In some corn towns it
| "snows" crap from the processing plants for part of the year.
| Can't imagine that's good for the lungs.
| briefcomment wrote:
| Wow. Did you feel any ill effects? Did you recover when you
| moved?
| ajnin wrote:
| Are all PM2.5 equal ? It seems weird to me to lump into one
| category various things like car exhaust, wood fires or
| agricultural emissions.
| HereIGoAgain wrote:
| Yeah, it would be much better if we focused on actually curing
| and treating it... at least in terms of whether we need to
| redesign our entire society.
|
| Also put another way:
|
| Oh yay.. more anti-car/mobility propaganda.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| We seem to be getting a lot of "wake up calls" but no one ever
| seems to answer the god damn phone.
| [deleted]
| dylan604 wrote:
| Seeing how a large portion of the population have never used a
| wake up call as a service, they just think it is some rude
| telemarketer calling that just gets added to the block list.
| Problem solved
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