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Comment by adamch | Hacker News Reader

A few weeks ago there was another story about air pollution and cognitive decline that made it onto the frontpage. I noticed that most of the comments on that story were people discussing air filters, respirators, etc.

I wanna get ahead of that crowd this time and say: this doesn't make much sense as a problem for individuals to solve. We should instead be focused on measuring the problem (where is most of the pollution coming from) and passing legislation to drive it down.

Air pollution is localized and therefore easier to legislate around (because the people polluting and the people suffering are in the same legislature). Local and state-level laws can help here in a way that they can't for climate change (which requires more international coordination).

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Meanwhile, you can get air filters, respirators, etc. which work today while legislation could be decades away.

And when there is no personal action in favor of a thing, consider how difficult it will be to pass legislation in favor of that thing?

Imagine if all EVs, all good hybrid cars (e.g. Toyota), all vegetarianism for environmental reasons, rooftop solar, and all other "individual actions" were eliminated and carbon emissions doubled, and nobody seemingly cared about climate change. Just imagine how much harder it would be to get a carbon tax. The timeline would go from someday to never.

Just as a general statement, some of the people who tell you "oh no, don't engage in individual action!" aren't actually supportive of the legislative approaches they suggest. They are scared that people taking a visible, meaningful personal stand against something will move the needle in favor of changes they oppose, in ways that online statements can't. Not everyone for sure, but those people are there, pretending to be allies.

I've lived in 2 places with persistent (~365 days per year) bad air pollution (France and Taiwan), and 1 place with seasonal air pollution, and the idea of not taking individual action to protect myself is just stupid. I support legislative approaches where sensible (or even possible), but:

> Meanwhile, you can get air filters, respirators, etc. which work today

Pollution comes from individual activity and consumption almost entirely (since industries are more or less directly producing for people). So solutions against pollution are individual actions (lower footprint, it's possible to live well with 5% of the average person's footprint) and global ones (green cities)

It's a bit ironic to think about buying air purifier/conditioners/filters.. which maybe lower very locally the pollution, but increase the global pollution (for making, delivering, maintaining, powering, recycling those devices)

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