Nanoparticles: Toxins in our air too small to see
bbc.com
bbc.com
>Kaur still finds her own habits influenced by her nanoparticle research, over a decade later. “My friends find it hilarious that I’m hugging the building side when I walk along a pavement!” she laughs. “Wherever possible I cut through the park or I take the side roads.”
>In Edinburgh, Raftis goes a step further. “I stopped burning candles in my house. I don’t use or have a log burner at home, even though I like them... I always have the extraction on when I cook food. I don’t go for runs along roads, I always run in a park. I don’t drive and don’t think I consciously could do unless it was an electric car.”
If an article whose message is basically "Toxic particles are everywhere, unavoidable, pragmatically undetectable, and they're killing you" isn't fear mongering, then I don't know what is. I'm just surprised I don't see any ads for air purification systems on the page.
>She cycles, despite the proximity to high particle counts, because “even if you cycle in heavy traffic you are offsetting the exposure to air pollution with exercise.”
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but you can't "offset" pollution with exercise. If toxic nanoparticles in your blood stream is killing your cells, then strengthening your cardiovascular system isn't "cancelling" it out. The content and motivation of this article is very questionable.
It's also time to be radical and energetic now because we are quickly progressing towards conditions that will make it hard to live very soon. No border wall will hold the flood of people escaping these conditions - especially if your own economy is in the gutter. Half of the US is developmentally resembling third world countries at this point.
Interesting times ahead, but we have the power to make a positive impact for humanity and the planet. It's our own habitat after all.
The article suggests that you can reduce exposure by avoiding the busiest roadways. Even stepping a few feet away from the roadway reduced the nanoparticle counts.
> "Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but you can't "offset" pollution with exercise."
Exercise increases your chances of living a long life and remaining healthy. Being exposed to pollution works against those chances, but you're still much better off exercising than not.
She won't run along roads due to high particle counts, but she'll cycle along roads because "exercise offsets it." There is no logic or consistency here. Either its still "good" to moderately exercise in the presence of these particles, or it isn't.
Ideally, we'd cycle on paths away from busy roads to reduce exposure to pollution. But that option isn't available for all cities and all commutes.
But the point is that if you're going to be exposed to pollution anyway, you might as well get some exercise.
>I don’t go for runs along roads, I always run in a park.
>She cycles, despite the proximity to high particle counts, because “even if you cycle in heavy traffic you are offsetting the exposure to air pollution with exercise.”
Run along roads: bad (exercise doesn't offset impact)
Cycle along roads: good (exercise offsets impact)The article is proposing a very clear solution:
"The solution for NOx and nanoparticles are also the same: replacing combustion with electrification. Electric cars still kick up road dust, but they emit no combustion-derived nanoparticles or NOx; and while power stations are needed to take the electricity, we spend far more time standing by roads than we do standing by power station chimneys (although this is all the more reason to rapidly move to 100% renewable energy)."
I don't understand why you think the content of the article being upsetting makes it fear-mongering. Sometimes it's appropriate to be worried about things! It's not as if the article is telling you to buy some miracle cure or make massive changes to your lifestyle.
Poorer people often act similar for everything that touches their livelihood, but can often easily be sold on changing anything else. They have little to lose, and who knows, maybe driving all the Jews out of the country or building a wall over there does help after all. If it didn't help the individual person didn't lose much.
Both behaviours are completely rational for each person, but lead to completely irrational behavior in aggregate.
This particular article is definitely on the sensationalist side, but... no, that's taking it too far. These particles certainly aren't "undetectable", that of course is what the research was about to begin with. They're simply uncounted by current standard metrics. So... we could change the metrics, right?
Likewise, they're only "unavoidable" in the strictest sense of being impossible to fully eliminate. But we know (or have good hypotheses about) the processes that create them and some techniques for mitigation. Maybe we could try those, and if they're a net benefit then maybe sensationalist journalism that motivates it is a social good.
I'm all for citing good science instead of BBC review articles, but let's not throw the baby out too. The science is real, and needs to be discussed. Even by the BBC.
You left off "pragmatically" in "pragmatically undetectable." What I meant by that is that your average everyday person, who I imagine is the BBC's audience, has no practical way of detecting this new invisible, unavoidable, omnipresent "toxic killer." It's why it comes across as fear mongering.
>if they're a net benefit then maybe sensationalist journalism that motivates it is a social good.
Couldn't disagree more, for the same reason that yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater isn't a social good just because it exercises fire evacuation protocols.
How is that not true for PM2.5 pollution also? Or mercury, lead, sulfates, CFCs, hydrocarbons... Almost every regulated pollutant has significant health or environment effects at a level undetectable by an "average everyday person". Are you arguing that we shouldn't be reporting on any of this stuff?
I mean, what's the scenario you want to see? People never hear about nanoparticles from their general media until a bunch of elite scientists have already effected a mitigation plan? If these things have health effects people have a right to know, and it has to be someone's job to tell them, right?
The scenario I want to see is less fear mongering in general. It's a vague and subjective desire, but to me, based on the content, the writing, the contradictions, the lack of research, this article lands firmly as mainly fear mongering. To me, it is irresponsible.
I can see you have a different opinion, and I'm fairly sure I grasp it: that journalism like this serves as a motivator to pursuing/researching and correcting truly harmful conditions. I just disagree with you on the method's overall impact, all things considered. I don't think science should be driven by whatever collective hysteria (justified, or not justified) has been whipped up by sensationalist journalism. There are always exceptions and gray area of course, but that's where I stand on this particular example.
So sit away from the exhaust pipe of a bus, walk on the inside of the sidewalk, etc
Your initial comment is quite dismissive, on the reasoning that we can't see the particles, or detect them with consumer grade devices. Have you considered that you might be the sort of person who would have shouted down Germ Theory? It was quite unpopular for decades when introduced. We couldn't see or measure the germs.
Also, avoid being inside public transit buses, or carpool cars, because, according to the article, the highest levels are actually inside the vehicles. Just don't travel anywhere, really, or you're killing yourself.
>Have you considered that you might be the sort of person who would have shouted down Germ Theory? It was quite unpopular for decades when introduced. We couldn't see or measure the germs.
This as a bad faith accusation because it's based on the wrong assumption that I am denying the science.
Maybe you used the wrong word, but fearmongering means a thing is not true or not worth concerning ourselves with as it is groundless.
I know of no definition of fear mongering that includes whether we can control a phenomenon. And unlike the home invader example, nanoparticles are real and do have bad effects.
You're also conveniently ignoring that you can avoid them by going further from their sources. And this info is relevant to urban planners, building designers, researchers, etc
You're missing the point entirely but that's fine.
>You're also conveniently ignoring that you can avoid them by going further from their sources
Do you recognize how much privilege you're speaking from here? The biggest concentrations were inside buses and cars...you know, the vehicles that the lower classes of society routinely have take to work? They should just buy a Tesla, obviously. Or just not live by highways. Or just live within casual walking distance, through wooded parks, of their job. I ignored it because it's asinine for everyday people.
Yes, you can. See this study:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297712056_Can_air_p...
The article is to inspire the move to clean and renewable energy.
> The study was also the first to investigate the filtering of very small nanocluster particles down to 1.3 nanometres in size. These are close to being gas molecules, but their filtration properties are different. All of the air filters that were tested effectively removed nanocluster particles smaller than 3 nanometres, which means that particles of this size are unlikely to enter indoor areas.
With HEPA filters being the most effective ones removing "100% of root nanoparticles"
Because, clearly, cars don't emit gold. Cars do emit platinum and palladium from degrading catalysts, but these don't condense from a gas phase, as the article implies. The article also mentions particles formed from NO2, but these particles would be nitrate salts, which dissolve in blood and therefore aren't particles anymore. The same is true for much "kicked up dust"; calcium, magnesium, iron compounds would dissolve, too. All of these ions are present in blood anyway, so a tiny bit more makes no difference.
So what are we really talking about? Soot? Anything else?
Larger particles (50-100nm) are typically soot.
Indoor Sources: cooking (frying especially), burning candles/incense, heating elements on stove tops and toasters, chemical reactions between lemon/pine scented cleaners with ozone.
Source: PhD in exposure to ultrafine particles.
For example, stopping with all the unnecessary things like cosmetic products, eat much less https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/jul/19/climatec..., use non-polluant transports, reuse, repair all the things, and so many more things that have big impact on one's environmental footprint. If people reduce by 2 their environmental footprint, it's virtually cutting by a half the world population, and the world production that just serves consumption
I've been living the "minimalist"/non-consumerist and happy lifestyle since I'm a student, I'm likely polluting less than 10% of the average adult in my country (France), at this rate out planet would sustain 10 billion people without our current environmental damages
It's not an either-or thing.