US air pollution deaths nearly halved between 1990 and 2010:
Air pollution in the U.S. has decreased since about 1990, and a new study conducted at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill now shows that this air quality improvement has brought substantial public health benefits. The study, published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, found that deaths related to air pollution were nearly halved between 1990 and 2010.
The team's analyses showed that deaths related to air pollution exposure in the U.S. decreased by about 47 percent, dropping from about 135,000 deaths in 1990 to 71,000 in 2010.
These improvements in air quality and public health in the U.S. coincided with increased federal air quality regulations, and have taken place despite increases in population, energy and electricity use, and vehicle miles traveled between 1990 and 2010.
"We've invested a lot of resources as a society to clean up our air," said Jason West, professor of environmental sciences and engineering at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and study co-author. "This study demonstrates that those changes have had a real impact with fewer people dying each year due to exposure to outdoor air pollution."
[...] Still, despite clear improvements, air pollution remains an important public health issue in the U.S. The estimated 71,000 deaths in 2010 translates to 1 of every 35 deaths in the U.S. -- that's as many deaths as we see from all traffic accidents and all gun shootings combined.
[...] "New federal policies curtailing air pollution regulations likely will slow the improvement in air quality or possibly make air quality worse."
Journal Reference: Yuqiang Zhang, et. al. Long-term trends in the ambient PM2.5- and O3-related mortality burdens in the United States under emission reductions from 1990 to 2010. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 2018; 18 (20): 15003 DOI: 10.5194/acp-18-15003-2018
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 22 2018, @12:26PM (2 children)
I remember someone showed imre lakatos some psychology and sociology (basically nhst) journal articles and he quipped that this intellectual pollution may destroy civilization before air pollution could destroy the physical environment. And that was in the the 1960s.
http://alisonvoneberstein.blogspot.com/2005/03/what-is-science.html?m=1 [blogspot.com]
Seems like this pollution has only increased since then, spreading to medical research and so on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 22 2018, @01:51PM (1 child)
aka, postmodernism
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday October 22 2018, @03:14PM
One word: copywrongs.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Zinho on Monday October 22 2018, @12:28PM (8 children)
Anyone objecting to clean air/clean water regulation needs to ask themselves when was the last time their river caught fire. [clevelandhistorical.org] That used to be a common occurrence, and I don't recall it ever happening in my lifetime.
We have a choice, slightly higher cost of goods made in American factories, or city waterways that are unfit for human contact (let alone drinking*).
*as a side note, homes near the rivers where I live are permitted to dump their sewer line directly into the river, so we still have a long way to go before federal regulations would make me comfortable drinking or swimming in the local river water.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday October 22 2018, @02:28PM (7 children)
> homes near the rivers where I live are permitted to dump their sewer line directly into the river
Damn. Shocking what huge loopholes there still are in our regulations, and the shit people are willing to live with as long as it's out of sight. That practice should have been ended a century or more ago. It's not rocket science to build a freaking septic tank into a house system.
It's such a basic sanitation measure, not to dump loads of shit directly in rivers, and most especially not to dump human shit, not even a little bit. Apart from polluting the waterways, you're just begging for a cholera epidemic. And there are all these intestinal parasites and other fun diseases such as amoebic dysentery. The cities downstream must hate having to deal with it. They may have to find other water, can't use the river water. Or at least, it's cheaper to use another source than clean up that river water.
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Monday October 22 2018, @03:03PM (6 children)
Oddly enough, water treatment plants don't seem to care too much about human waste as a pollutant; most are set up such that they could almost use sewage effluent directly as a water source. Some actually do, [pri.org] and it's long been known as a valid method for conserving water. [wikipedia.org]
There's an understandable amount of resistance to this in America, even in drought-prone communities, since the idea of "toilet to tap" isn't very appetizing. The typical solution is for the treated wastewater to be injected into the underground aquifer that the city uses as the source for its drinking water supply. This lets the community pretend that its water source is all fresh, and accomplishes the same goal (with some losses to geography).
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday October 22 2018, @03:36PM (5 children)
The funny part about the squeamishness aspect is that absolutely every body of water is constantly being peed and pooped in by all kinds of animals. This idea that you can somehow make the world free from poop is just plain wrong.
That said, "don't poop where you drink" is a good basic life rule.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday October 22 2018, @05:15PM (1 child)
Most animals doing their business upstream do not carry diseases that can affect humans.
(Score: 2) by e_armadillo on Monday October 22 2018, @05:44PM
and those animals don't all piss/shit into a set of pipes that concentrate it all into the river water . . .
"How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Monday October 22 2018, @07:34PM (2 children)
This conversation reminds me of the 38 million gallon reservoir [usatoday.com] that got drained in 2014 because a teenager urinated in it. The Portland water bureau paid $32,700 to drain and replace the water, then passed the cost on to its customers.
3.3*10^-7% urine content = contaminated. Flocks of migrating geese landing on the reservoir and doing as they please = business as usual. I think Bear Grylls [knowyourmeme.com] needs to have a word with them.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 22 2018, @08:04PM (1 child)
$32,700 would buy how many big macs?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 22 2018, @08:11PM
If theres 4k homeless in portland and a big mac costs $5, then that same money could have been used to buy one big mac for each, and still have a couple thousand left over.
https://www.oregonlive.com/portland-homeless/ [oregonlive.com]
https://www.howmuchisit.org/how-much-does-a-big-mac-cost/ [howmuchisit.org]
(Score: 5, Informative) by DannyB on Monday October 22 2018, @03:17PM (7 children)
I can hear it now from some congress critter or the administration.
If fewer people are dying from air pollution, then we should get rid of anti-pollution regulations since it no longer is a problem.
We want to be pro-business. Even if it kills everyone.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 22 2018, @03:34PM (1 child)
Trump would kill for job, job, jobs.... coming from a man that hadn't worked a day in his life.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 22 2018, @06:03PM
No he wouldn't, he doesn't give a shit about jobs unless it lines his pockets somehow.
How jmorris and other fools around here think Trump is good for the US is beyond me.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday October 22 2018, @03:48PM (4 children)
Plus there's the markets for medication and medical devices and such for treating said pollution-caused ailments that is suffering because of this government overreach. Why can't we go back to the Good Old Days when our child workers were routinely dying of lung failure?
The thing a remarkably large percentage of rich people haven't figured out: If the poor and middle classes are going down, we're taking them with us.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday October 22 2018, @04:22PM (3 children)
That was before Clean Coal. Now when the childens come home from work, their white work clothes will be just as bright as when they left to work in the mines 16 hours earlier!
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday October 22 2018, @05:18PM
Companies will also save a lot when they only have to buy the small shovels.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday October 22 2018, @06:44PM (1 child)
16 hours a day? Those ungrateful slackers! All of Massey Energy's child coal miners have to work 26 hours a day, it's more efficient that way!
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 22 2018, @08:15PM
Do you think about things other than knocking down strawmen arguments from the "other team"?
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Monday October 22 2018, @06:01PM
I remember visiting someone that lived in an apartment adjacent to a busy highway. The railings on their porch had a visible coating of soot, presumably from vehicle exhaust. Haven't seen this phenomenon again since.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @03:29AM
With Andrew "Coal Club" Wheeler, it's time to make pollution great again!