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Comment by siliconunit | Hacker News Reader

As far as anecdotes go, since I moved to London I noticed a sharp decrease in memory performance, heavy hair loss, and a general feeling of unhealthiness, developed a random persistent cough as well. The fact that you can always see a heavy haze even in short tube tunnels tells a lot on the air quality, the last underground cleaning train stopped working in the eighties...very unhealthy place to live/work in my opinion.

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I’ve lived in London the past decade and had problems with air pollution (got bronchitis a number of times in the last few years).

Just today my GP suggested getting an inhaler. And I just found out a guy I work with got an inhaler last week.

It’s insane how bad the air pollution is, estimated to cause 40k premature deaths each year.

Meanwhile the government hardly does anything (though see below). People feel it’s their divine right to drive old dirty diesel vehicles and how dare the government impose any restriction on this polluting behaviour.

Luckily London just set up the ULEZ (ultra low emission zone) in a small part of central London, making older dirty cars pay a fee if they enter. But they’re not extending the ULEZ to Greater London for another two and a half years. Or another 100k premature deaths.

You could say the same thing about driving at all. People think it's their divine right to drive, even though driving at all reports 165,000 casualties of all levels in the UK, per year: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua...

And the government does nothing. Except speed bumps, which people complain about, mandatory car maintenance, which people complain about, traffic lights everywhere, which people complain about, speed cameras, which people complain about, regulate emissions, which people complain about.

Hopefully non autonomous driving becomes illegal. Its a lethal weapon and we shouldnt be trusting humans with cars

But then you'd be trusting software developers with cars. What if a botnet of cars activates and tries to mow down everybody around?

You must have read Seeker by Douglas E Richards :)

The UK government permits new cars to be sold with tailpipe emissions which are VASTLY higher than those of comparable vehicles in the USA. The Dieselgate scandal never ended outside USA. It's just business as usual in Europe. The UK government is complicit in knowingly allowing manufacturers to sell extremely polluting diesels. The green initiatives in the UK are hilariously inadequate because so many brand new cars are diesels with extreme emissions levels compared to comparable cars sold in the United States. American market diesels do not pollute anywhere as much as UK market diesels.

Source?

> The UK government permits new cars to be sold with tailpipe emissions which are VASTLY higher than those of comparable vehicles in the USA.

What I could find about the latest standards does not seem to support your claim. But maybe I'm looking at wrong numbers or misinterpreting them, so I wouldn't mind looking at your own sources if you have them.

EURO 6d standards for diesel passenger cars [1]:

- CO: 0.5 g/km

- NOx: 0.080 g/km

- PM: 0.0045 g/km

California LEV standards for passenger cars <50K miles/5 years [2]. (Not the same as EPA, but I assume California is more strict):

- CO: 3.4 g/mi = 2.1 g/km

- NOx: 0.2 g/mi = 0.12 g/km

- PM: 0.08 g/mi = 0.05 g/km

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards

[2] https://www.dieselnet.com/standards/us/ld_ca.php

For improved lung health I recommend daily magnesium (200mg+) and iodine (1mg+). Cured my asthma. No more inhalers!

Are you not worried about hypothydroism from the iodine?

http://www.thyroid.org/iodine-deficiency/

This page indicates hypothyroidism is a result of iodine deficiency, rather than excess. Hyperthyroidism may be caused by excess iodine.

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/02/...

It can be both. Also, too much iodine can cause thyroid inflammation and cancer.

https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Iodine-Consumer/

Do you not eat salt?

There are 45 μg / gram of salt. That means if you consume the recommended amount (1.5-2.3 grams a day) you're getting 1/10 of the supplement dose indicated above. Even a famously salty big mac would get you 100 μg of iodine.

The environmental externality must be internalized strongly and consistently throughout the "developed" and developing economies [1]. Participation from the two groups is a necessary condition for addressing the air pollution issue.

Meanwhile, the situation in London is similar in South Korea [2]. Most likely, worse: South Korean government is afraid of further regulating the domestic industry, when it should. Over the past decade or so, Chinese government has moved a lot of their factories to the East coast which faces SK in the West. Both SK and Chinese citizens must acknowledge this is a mutually-interested issue and take concrete steps to collaborate while minimizing finger pointing. I am convinced this is a tractable scientific and social/diplomatic problem. One proposal is to set up a joint government-backed venture/think tank that incrementally tackles this issue at a tech/policy level. Such a small step but no where near it...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/13/social-d...

I think you get used to it after some time, and even get, how should I formulate that, "addicted"?

I live in a heavily polluted city -- a couple of chemical plants, a coal power station, and the central heating system burning a few (dozen) tons of coal every day to combat -40°C winters. A lot of my friends/acquaintances (in fact, most of them) have moved to other cities and many of them report having trouble adjusting to less polluted atmosphere: trouble sleeping (after moving within the same timezone), constant headaches, rashes, the list goes on.

Also, you hear a lot of stories of older people (third world definition of "older", i.e. around 60), never having a single complaint about their health, moving to cleaner cities and dying in a couple of weeks of strokes and cardiac arrest.

It sounds like old wive's tale, but not when you hear it for the twentieth time from the relatives of yet another person affected.

In my experience, pollution has been inversely correlated with outbreak of pollen allergies. However, that could just be caused by polluted environments simply having fewer trees.

Well, if you're exposed to higher concentrations of oxygen, you can have exciting amounts of stress getting used to the lower amounts again after, so the converse effect wouldn't be incredibly surprising.

> sharp decrease in memory performance, heavy hair loss, and a general feeling of unhealthiness

Are you in your thirties?

Touché. Or should I say toupee?

Have you thought about setting up a cheap 20x20 box fan with a HEPA filter in your home/apartment (California Wildfire Setup), air quality can be worse inside. It may be able to create an environment where you can recover a little everyday.

Here is a demonstration

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A8Yink0czc

I myself run one in my home but just place the filter behind and against the fan allowing the airflow to keep it in place.

Works wonders and I can see a noticeable difference in air quality and sleep (allergens, odors, etc)

A 20x20 fan DIY was actually on my todo list. This is the first time I've seen a box with multiple filters on it, however -- all the ones I saw before just taped a single filter to the fan. Are the multiple filters a big practical improvement?

(I used to own an expensive air filter that was top-rated by Consumer Reports at the time, but sold it during a minimalism phase. Now I want to try a filter again, this pollen season, but more frugally.)

I suggest you to move to other city / country as fast as possible. For me the same thing started in my late 20s, and now in my 30s all my life is about finding places where the air pollution is very low, as for my body it became impossible to detoxify even a small amount of air pollution. You're getting a chronic disease, and there's no way back for now.

I experienced patchy hair loss after moving to Los Angeles. This "childhood disease" does not run in my family, and I've never had it before. I'm 38 and moved here two years ago.

I have come to suspect systemic inflation from the rampant pollution in LA caused my new autoimmune disease, or at worst exacerbated a condition I never experienced symptoms of before.

I lived in LA for 20 years (moved about 2 years ago -- hope I didn't sell you my condo!) -- and was right by LAX with a view of departing planes over the ocean, right from my balcony. Never had any health issues, still have all of my hair.

My mother was just diagnosed with dementia, and her mother had it before she died. Despite my "anecdata", I am keeping a close eye on these sort of findings, to see if my brain is going to go the same way. I've certainly had a higher pollution load in my life to date than either of them. :/

Are you sure it's an autoimmune disease? For me when I went to uninhabited islands for example, the symptoms of my illness went away completely.

I believe the problem is that my body is not able to metabolize the toxic air molecules that gets to my bloodstream through my lungs.

How do you go to an inhabited island for a prolonged period of time? Any anecdotes?

It was diagnosed autoimmune. I have pictures of white blood cells attacking my hair follicles.

Where in LA do you live? LAX spews pollution due east all summer, and south all winter when the winds switch. The valleys get terrible pollution from agriculture as well.

What kind of pollution from agriculture? Tractor / other farm machinery emissions? Burning agricultural waste like stubble, dry leaves/stalks, etc.?

Personal data point. Used to be I had to cut my hair because of split ends. I stopped getting split ends when I moved out of San Jose.

You're sure it's not just stress from living in London?

I remember once years ago coming into Heathrow on a flight and when the flight circled over central London there was a distinct brown layer of cloud - it looked disgusting!

A feature of modern cities? As a child I'd very rarely join my father on his commute into Manhattan from southern Brooklyn. When the car topped a ridge about halfway there the island appeared to be perfectly capped by some futuristic but dirty thick brown dome.

When you were a child environmental protections were not nearly what they are today

Fun fact: London fog doesn't exist. It's always been pollution, not a weather phenomenon.

> since I moved to London I noticed a sharp decrease in memory performance, heavy hair loss, and a general feeling of unhealthiness, developed a random persistent cough as well.

I developed a persistent cough after moving from Shanghai to Santa Cruz, California, but it would be hard to blame that on air pollution.

And it turns out it was probably infection with Heliobacter Pylori.

I highly recommend watching The Crown episode on the London Fog. It is amazing to hear the story of London pollution.

I use a 3M room filter for white noise generation for my kids. Has worked very well for 7 years! (I believe I got asthma growing up around dust).

i wonder how nyc pollution compares.

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