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Comment by jve | Hacker News Reader

Woah, most of Poland looks... bad https://www.google.com/maps/place/Krak%C3%B3w,+Poland/@50.47...

There's an interesting coping mechanism (verging on the conspiracy theory) popular on some Polish forums, namely that the abysmal data comes from abundance of sensors combined with them being placed (by whom and why? here's where the conspiracy part kicks in) in the most polluted spots.

Here's a debunk by a popular Polish fact checking portal (in Polish): https://demagog.org.pl/analizy_i_raporty/smog-nie-taki-zly-j...

Until recently, I've been a smog-skeptic; I figured it must be an overblown issue, as regardless of what the digital sensors and pretty graphs say, having spent almost my entire life in Kraków, I never saw it, never felt it. Still don't. Air in Kraków feels perfectly fine to me. And every time I saw someone complain, it was because of "see the PM2.5 PM10 thru the roof omg zomg!", not any actual health-related issues or discomfort.

What changed my mind about the whole thing was my kids. I may not feel the particulates in the air, but my kids do, especially my eldest daughter (who has early childhood asthma, in remission) - winter comes, particulates go up, they start coughing uncontrollably all day. Particulates go down, suddenly they're healthy again (+/- running nose).

I have limited sympathy for conspiracy theories, and very little for those burning trash in their homes, but I do understand where the smog-skepticism comes from. I still remember when Krakowski Alarm Smogowy became a thing, winter 2012; back then, this felt like a huge fad pushed by young activists on the Internet.

I hear you but let me add that what you feel is not necessarily the good indicator.

PM 2.5 does have the potential to trigger asthma & similar stuff but it also causes cancer and heart disease, neither of which can be felt (until it's too late anyway).

My parents were the same until I forced them to install an air purifier, and showed them the filter after running it for one winter (with windows always closed). It was snow white when new, and turned black after four cold months (not grey or dark grey, but literally black).

I don't mean this in a bad way but, have you visited other countries? I'm Spanish but lived for about half a year in Krakow, and the difference is just so stark I can't imagine skepticism. In winter the air smells burned. Fog is a phenomenon, sure, but what takes place most of winter in Krakow is not fog. It's just smoke.

I didn't know about any of this when I first travelled there, in fact when my boss at the time recommended I got a mask I thought he was paranoid or something. Absolutely not.

> I never saw it, never felt it. Still don't.

I got the same condition for diesel fumes since my military service. Thankfully I remember how dizzy I used to get around fumes but I really have to force myself to avoid fumes now even at the faintest smell since I can endure it ... when people around me start complaining I can't even smell it.

I assume you lived there since childhood and got used to it from that time?

> I assume you lived there since childhood and got used to it from that time?

Yes. Born and raised in Kraków, spent maybe 5 years living elsewhere in total.

To be frank, having a poorly functioning sense of smell is not exactly a great excuse for ignorance. Are you rejecting everything that you can't verify with your (or your relatives') senses?

Actually, if the PM2.5 and PM10 are high, you can see it very easily.

If you can't see it, that means the air isn't polluted. Obviously some people confuse fog with smog, or can't see haze in some situations (failure to see).

But it's always there and always visible. You can't have pollutions at that scale and not see them.

Well, the map obviously does a lot of extrapolation. Look at Norway, for example. The bigger cities pollute the air in a 50km radius? In a country where heating is primarily electric? When Berlin and Paris don't seem to affect the air quality 20km away, despite having ten times the population?

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