Item — HN Reader

Clean air, clean water, especially at the most local level, matters a lot more to me than global and theoretical things like CO2, definitely. I think the environment is way too important to be left to people who use "environmentalism" as a religion; it needs to be given reasonable cost/benefit analysis.

Asia has come a long way in converting fleets of vehicles to LPG/CNG (taxis, buses, and other vehicles with really high miles and idle hours in downtown cores), which has improved air quality greatly.

I'd rather have affordable electricity and running water than huge declines in CO2 emissions, too, of course.

1 comments

Clean air, clean water, especially at the most local level, matters a lot more to me than global and theoretical things like CO2, definitely.

Over what time scale? The worst-case scenarios for excess CO2 are situations where the food supply is so disrupted that clean air and water would be low priorities.

That said, I certainly agree that there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit, public-health–wise, in reducing particulates. Climate change amelioration shouldn’t absorb all the money just because it’s the bigger problem in the long term.

Stricter smoking bans would go a long way in the developed world, where smog is not Beijing-like anyway.

The worst case scenarios for c02 emissions are so full of unknown and unknowable variables they are barely more useful than SETI work. They're also over a timeframe beyond everyone here's lifetime. The models have a lot of assumptions in them, and cover variations of the order of 3-400%. It's just not useful information, apart from selling magazines and newspapers. You cannot do anything with vague forecasts from c02 research, apart from scare people.

Conversely, we know exactly what happens when you breathe too many particulates. We know how to fix the problem. You don't even need to redistribute income globally to do anything about it.

Cigarette smoke is literally a drop in the ocean from large scale emissions like diesel engines, coal stacks, car exhausts and the like.

Clean air and water is priority no 1 for all humans. You don't need food until the first two are taken care of.

Strict smoking bans make a big difference for smokers, but not such a big deal for second-hand smoke. (I find it offensive if someone lights up a cigarette or cigar next to me without asking, and in some cases like at a sushi bar, I will cause this behavior to end, but casual infrequent exposure doesn't deliver that much incremental pollution to the lungs.)

I agree Asia is way more affected by this than most of the US; I'm actually looking forward to being in SF or Seattle for air/water quality and not in Asia where I am now. $100 would do more good for more people in the highest-pollution cities, but if someone is donating to charity, it is up to him if he values places he lives/people he is near/places he visits over the rest of the world.

Strict smoking bans make a big difference for smokers, but not such a big deal for second-hand smoke.

On the contrary, the benefits for non-smokers are substantial.

For example, “Using 11 reports from 10 study locations, AMI risk decreased by 17% overall (IRR: 0.83, 95% CI: 0.75 to 0.92), with the greatest effect among younger individuals and nonsmokers.” (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19778665).

Or: “an overall 22% reduction in the AMI incidence within the first year after enactment of the new regulation. This reduction was driven by a significant decrease in the AMI incidence in men, nonsmokers, and individuals with established coronary artery disease” (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20069475).

Or an 18% reduction in hospital admissions for childhood asthma (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20843248).

Et, I think it’s justifiable to say, cetera. Second-hand smoke is a really big problem that smoking bans address effectively. There may be a case that smoking bans are bad for personal liberty, but I think it’s settled that they’re good for pretty much everyone’s health.

Wow. I didn't realize it was that big a risk factor. (I certainly wouldn't want a child care provider smoking around my hypothetical children; that seems like the biggest gain for the lowest loss of liberty.)