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Comment by jasonthorsness | Hacker News Reader

What is the air quality like to actually breathe in your experience? I have noticed Jakarta on lists of poor AQI and it doesn't look great [1] but I think the AQI number is kind of an abstraction.

[1] https://www.aqi.in/us/dashboard/indonesia/jakarta/jakarta/hi...

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I found it probably the worst of anywhere I've ever been, you can taste it and just being outside slightly burns the back of your throat. I still really like visiting though.

Air quality is terrible. AQI does not lie. It's even worse when you're sitting on the back of a motorbike 6ft away from 10 other gas powered bikes.

There is slow adoption of electric vehicles, but still very low adoption rate (like less than 10% of motorbikes).

> Air quality is terrible. AQI does not lie.

Heh. To get a sense of what the page's numbers might mean, I checked on Kaohsiung, where you can taste gasoline in the air as you walk down the street.

And hey, reported air quality in Kaohsiung is abysmal, so that checks out. Jakarta even looks good by comparison.

https://www.aqi.in/us/dashboard/taiwan/kaohsiung/kaohsiung

https://www.aqi.in/us/dashboard/indonesia/jakarta/jakarta

AQI appears to have Jakarta pegged at an average "66", which looks pretty respectable for the region. They seem to have much more carbon monoxide than Kaohsiung or Shanghai, but much less fine particulate.

Hmm it's a bit surprising. Usually when I checked, it'll never be under 100. Maybe the current rainy season helps?

I don't feel that AQI in reasonably normal ranges corresponds at all to the subjective experience of how nice the air feels to breathe.

The best breathing I've done was in Mumbai. Felt like a silk blanket both in the lungs and on the skin. I'm sure it would be bad for me if I stayed there a few decades, but it didnt feel bad at all when visiting.

Are you from Mumbai? or a place with notably bad AQI? Do you smoke?

Mumbai is one of the most polluted cities on earth, many people report being unable to perform aerobic exercise or describe breathing the air as being similar to smoking.

I'm from a place with excellent AQI (semi-rural Sweden). I do not smoke. I usually don't mind when other people smoke, but I don't like how they smell just after finishing. :-)

I know that the Mumbai air is not healthy, but my subjective experience of it was very positive.

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