[HN Gopher] Decades of Air Pollution Undermine the Immune System
___________________________________________________________________
Decades of Air Pollution Undermine the Immune System
Author : doener
Score : 127 points
Date : 2022-11-22 21:22 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cuimc.columbia.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cuimc.columbia.edu)
| jxramos wrote:
| I may have missed it, but where's the statement about what those
| black spots are in the micrographs and how that was determined.
| It seems like they're just declared as atmospheric particulates
| but where's that determined exactly? It would be great to purify
| them somehow and run the slurry under an electron microscope.
| Something along these lines of
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-02/the-micro...
| to see how such raw particulates accumulate in some tissue in the
| body.
| acabal wrote:
| The pictures of those lymph nodes are shocking. In the Methods
| section, they state that
|
| > LN tissues were obtained from [...] LiveOnNY, the local organ
| procurement organization for the New York metropolitan area.
|
| which makes it sound like the samples came from residents of NYC.
| NYC air quality probably isn't _great_ , but those lymph nodes
| looked so bad that I assumed they must have come from a
| hyperpolluted megacity like Beijing or New Delhi!
|
| Cars truly are the worst addiction our society has stooped to.
| disantlor wrote:
| Not to mention drivers (in NYC at least) behaving like entitled
| psychopaths, honking like crazy the second they are delayed
| going down a side street at 7am
| macNchz wrote:
| NYC air quality is quite good, especially considering the
| density. I agree in principle re society's addiction to cars
| and I'd love if there were fewer in NYC, but, interestingly,
| the subway system actually has orders of magnitude worse air
| than street level: https://www.curbed.com/2021/02/mta-subway-
| air-quality-pollut....
| photon12 wrote:
| I have a friend who lives in an apartment near a major, major
| artery in Seattle. It's 6 lanes wide looking out from the balcony
| directly down onto the street. It's what they can afford in a
| somewhat close commute to work by bus (they can't afford a car).
| I lived in an apartment a block from I-5 for 6 years. I've made
| enough money to buy a house in a neighborhood away from traffic
| pollution. It was a major part of my purchasing decision.
|
| Zoning often puts more dense and therefore cheaper housing near
| busy roads. I think a lot about who can afford fresh air and who
| can't, and the compounding impacts of that quite often.
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| How much would it cost to lower the PM 2.5 in his house? Even
| cut it in half?
|
| I don't know your friend but for some people they can afford
| air purifiers, running the A/C, and keeping the windows closed,
| but they feel it's not worth it. It's seen as a wasted expense.
| Especially true during Covid when many doctors could have
| retro-fitted their practices with HVAC filters. I think we
| really need an educational campaign.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| "running the A/C," presupposes that the house has A/C. When a
| wildfire is near, I close up the house and run air-filters,
| but it can hit 100F inside in the afternoons.
| jahewson wrote:
| Actually it doesn't have to be A/C. If you have central air
| then you have a HEPA filter so just run the system's fan.
| njarboe wrote:
| It might be a bit because of the density, but housing is mainly
| cheaper near busy roads mainly because most people would prefer
| to live elsewhere, just like you.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I think the unstated premise of that comment was that it's
| _bad_ that we push the worst consequences of our societal
| choices onto the poorest people. Not that the mechanism by
| which we do it is mysterious.
| celtain wrote:
| That would explain a difference in price per square foot, but
| it doesn't explain why there are fewer small homes built
| further from busy roads. If anything you'd expect the
| opposite if it were just a reflection of people's
| preferences.
| Syonyk wrote:
| I'm not surprised. Our modern air is... poor, and that's before
| you get into fire season and such out west.
|
| I've started being far more aggressive with air filtration in the
| house and my office. Get an air quality monitor that shows you
| PM2.5 and PM10, you'll be horrified by how high those levels are
| often enough. I've been using "filter boxes" for the most part (a
| 3-4 furnace filter box around a box fan or similar) and they do a
| great job of pulling the PM out of the air.
|
| I can fairly regularly keep PM in the sub-5 ug/m^3 range, even
| during smoke season - though it's a lot of airflow through the
| filters.
| acidburnNSA wrote:
| I just wish the health costs of air pollution were factored into
| fossil and renewable biofuel combustion power plants. Then people
| might stop saying nuclear was too expensive. Not to even mention
| a carbon tax.
| dagmx wrote:
| Anecdotally, moving from India to North America really helped my
| health. I know this study is about long term effects but I
| believe even short term , it's quite noticeable.
|
| It's why I find it perplexing why so many people in the US want
| to do away with EPA regulations. Not only was pollution rampant
| in many Americans lifetimes, it's completely observable how bad
| pollution is elsewhere in the world for people.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > It's why I find it perplexing why so many people in the US
| want to do away with EPA regulations
|
| I don't think anyone in the US is pro-pollution. There _are_
| people who are _against_ whatever the people they don 't like
| are _for_ , so if one side is _for_ regulations controlling
| pollution, then by gosh they 're _against_ it.
|
| At one point in the early to mid-1900s most of the working
| class was united politically in one party against the ownership
| class. Sometime around the Civil Rights Era, the two party
| system in the US executed a maneuver which split the working
| class vote against itself by pitting working class prejudices
| against working class self-interest. One party is the party of
| the ownership class, and this party throws red meat to the
| working class prejudices, while the other party espouses
| policies that benefit the working class economically while
| supporting socially progressive policies that the broad
| sections of the working class hold in disdain.
|
| As a result we have big chunks of the working class
| enthusiastically voting against things that obviously serve
| them, like the right to clean air.
| ergonaught wrote:
| I think most people haven't directly experienced the problems
| so they've forgotten the justifications, and other assorted
| cognitive biases/distortions.
|
| The city where I live was ranked the most polluted city in the
| USA a few decades ago, but people forget what it was like, and
| newer residents never knew what it was like, so they get very
| upset about Their Freedoms being encroached upon by EPA
| regulations and such.
| milesskorpen wrote:
| I think it is in large part because people don't appreciate how
| much worse it could be. The EPA has been so successful we've
| become complacent.
| warmwaffles wrote:
| The other problem is, the EPA isn't also all sunshine and
| rainbows https://www.cnn.com/2015/08/09/us/colorado-epa-mine-
| river-sp...
| mikeyouse wrote:
| To be clear - in that example, a river was polluted by
| waste that a negligent private company had gathered for
| decades and then abandoned in an uncapped gold mine -- the
| EPA was only involved because they were cleaning up what
| was already a nightmare of pollution. The spill which
| accidentally released 100k tons of acidic water mixed with
| mining tails into the river was proceeded by the owners of
| that mine intentionally releasing over four million tons of
| actual tailings as part of their regular operating
| procedures.
|
| The EPA and other orgs are responsible for the cleanup of
| thousands of polluted areas and superfund sites created by
| negligent businesses who wantonly polluted and then
| abandoned their responsibilities leaving it up to their
| kids and their kids' kids to clean it up.
|
| It's like blaming the dentist for scratching your gums
| while repairing a cavity. A big dose of, "Well sure, but if
| you had listened to them in the first place.. "
| bwb wrote:
| Nothing humans do is perfect. The EPA does a vast amount of
| good.
|
| Do you agree?
|
| I wish we treated people and government like baseball hit
| stats. Hitting above 600 is a win...
| njarboe wrote:
| Other would say, "The EPA has been so successful, to keep
| their budget growing, they have become overzealous."
| twojacobtwo wrote:
| Are you able to provide an example that would support the
| claims of these others?
| VancouverMan wrote:
| We too often see environmental regulations becoming pointless
| and costly burdens, or them even being used as bureaucratic
| weapons, rather than something that brings a net benefit to
| society.
|
| Even minor construction and infrastructure projects can end up
| needing costly environmental assessments or studies prepared by
| "qualified experts", for example, even when the environmental
| impact is obviously negligible.
|
| Activists and others opposed to development projects will
| sometimes raise specious environmental "concerns" to try to
| derail those developments by getting them tied up with red
| tape.
|
| Even something as simple as trimming or cutting down a tree on
| private property can become a huge hassle in some
| municipalities, requiring permits and other bureaucratic
| headaches.
|
| Of course reasonable people will push back against such
| regulation. The economic costs that are imposed often far
| outweigh the environmental benefits, if any benefits even
| actually exist.
| defrost wrote:
| There's always someone cool with rolling coal and Love Canal
| (as long as they're not forced to drink the water).
|
| Today that person is you.
| VancouverMan wrote:
| I'm merely pointing out the way that many average
| Westerners directly experience environmental regulations,
| and why they may become opposed to the idea, even if such
| regulation may be beneficial in some cases.
|
| Having to go through a costly and time-consuming permit
| process merely to trim or remove a tree in one's front yard
| will leave a sour taste in one's mouth when it comes to
| environmental regulations in general.
|
| Sometimes the regulation process itself actually causes
| more environmental harm than it prevents.
|
| For example, somebody I know was telling me about how the
| environmental assessment process significantly delayed the
| replacement of a small, old, and poorly-maintained road
| bridge over a creek near the end of the rural road he lives
| on.
|
| That project, which could have been (and eventually was)
| easily finished within a week with minimal environmental
| disruption turned into a multi-year debacle thanks to
| environmental assessments.
|
| The bridge was closed to traffic the entire time, causing
| him and his neighbors to have to drive multiple additional
| miles each day to backtrack and detour around it, emitting
| far more vehicle exhaust and causing far more unnecessary
| wear-and-tear (including oil changes) than if the bridge
| has just been replaced without the delays that were imposed
| by environmental regulation bureaucracy.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| ... they commented on a thread about an article proving
| exactly that benefit... :|
| superseeplus wrote:
| There was an interesting article in the NYT about how how very
| few people in India care about air quality enough to vote
| specifically for it even though poor air quality is a major
| contributor to mortality in India.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/22/world/asia/india-china-ai...
| ldh0011 wrote:
| On a tangentially related note, it confuses me why so many
| people seem to think that the only reason to do away with
| fossil fuels as much as possible is climate change. Millions
| die prematurely from air pollution every year. Even if climate
| change _was_ fake we should still be trying to use cleaner
| energy.
| jrussino wrote:
| "What if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for
| nothing?"
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_if_it%27s_a_big_hoax_an.
| ..
| soperj wrote:
| I honestly feel that people have got away with one with
| this type of thinking. In my province (British Columbia),
| there's a few major issues that have all been attributed to
| climate change; forest fires, flooding & decline of the
| salmon populations. Since there's this big boogeyman that
| they can't solve themselves (climate change), they don't
| even have to look into their forest management practices
| (spraying round-up to kill Aspen - a firebreak species - to
| plant mono-culture round-up ready pine stands - a
| serotineous species), or their off-shore fish farms that
| are located at the mouth of some of the most important
| rivers for salmon (spread sea lice and disease) or power
| generation (almost exclusively hydro dams), or that they've
| drained lakes for farm land and when the levees can't keep
| up the land floods again.
|
| Great Barrier Reef is another prime example, pollution is
| causing a lot of issues, but you only hear of coral
| bleaching because of climate change.
| borissk wrote:
| "You mean like clean coal" - every Trump supporter probably.
| Syonyk wrote:
| In other words, you've not talked to many (any?) Trump
| supporters, and are just speculating about what evilly evil
| things they might evilly support for their own evil ends.
| Or something of the sort.
|
| The conservative end of the spectrum is generally more
| concerned with things like "a stable power grid with enough
| power _at all times_ " than carbon emissions, though I know
| quite a few pretty hard conservatives with solar, hybrids,
| EVs, etc. And a good case can be made for all that stuff
| without bothering with carbon emissions at all.
|
| And then you see things like California, within a week or
| so, deciding to ban ICE car sales in some fairly near
| future, and having to send out power announcements about
| "Please don't charge your EV during these hours." It
| doesn't take a genius to do the math that, hey, more EVs
| charging while coal power plants are turned down, that
| might be a problem. I think it's a solvable one, but
| "shouting down anyone who points it down as a fossil fuel
| shill" (as happens in some circles of the internet - not
| here, but I've certainly been accused it for some nuanced
| arguments about power systems) doesn't help solve it.
|
| If coal with carbon capture has a future in the power
| grid... so be it.
| [deleted]
| LARGE_RUMP wrote:
| newsclues wrote:
| As a bike riding hippie in the age of video meetings and
| streaming, explain to me why the world elite need to fly all
| over the world in private jets to discuss climate change?
|
| Can you tell me why my grocery store stopped giving out free
| plastic bags by charging for them, and now phasing them out
| for paper, but they still sell plastic garbage bags and I
| can't reuse the grocery store bag for my garbage bag now?
|
| Can you tell me why bunker fuel for cargo ships which is a
| major driver for pollution isn't being stopped? Seems like
| there are a limited number of large ships creating a massive
| amount of emissions that would be go after.
|
| Can you explain why the phrase "Climate Change" is a better
| mission that "reduce pollution", which seems easier to
| understand and get behind for everyone?
| nowyouknow444 wrote:
| This is a map showing particulate pollution. Especially when fire
| season is on. The US is blanketed with a smoke layer.
| https://fire.airnow.gov/
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| I have a friend who has this idea that because he grew up in a
| polluted environment that he is exempt from these things
| happening. There is no escape from air pollution.
|
| While my friend is used to it, I have an acute response. I try
| not to visit places with even moderately high AQI.
| pharmakom wrote:
| Future generations will look back in horror at our air quality in
| the same way that we look back at medieval sewer systems
| borissk wrote:
| You're an optimist - if we end up with a nuclear war (which was
| avoided a few times by pure accident) or runaway global
| warming, future generations, if any, may think of current times
| as a golden age...
| Syonyk wrote:
| That's not how history typically works. The group that
| destroys the place is not regarded as heroes, they're
| regarded as a warning of things to be avoided.
|
| If any of those things happen, there will be very strong
| taboos against anything that would begin to lead down the
| same roads again.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Exactly. If we experience global nuclear warfare or runaway
| climate change, the generation that caused it will be a
| cautionary tale, not "the golden age"
| mjamesaustin wrote:
| That is so spot on. We look back in abject horror at people
| dumping their waste into the streets, yet we do the very same
| with our air.
| Syonyk wrote:
| I expect their reactions to basically all of our modern society
| to be "disgust." Our air, our water, our environment, our
| attention ecosystems. All quite human-toxic.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-11-22 23:00 UTC)