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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Among many things that former head of the EPA Scott Pruitt did during his time at the agency was to cease enforcement of emissions standards for so-called "Glider" trucks. Gliders are new heavy truck chassis that have older, less technologically advanced and emissions-compliant engines installed into them.
The Obama administration sought to close the loopholes that allow gliders to be built and sold in significant numbers in an effort to curb their pollution but Pruitt opted to toss that aside in the name of business. We've covered the glider situation in the past, but the big news is that the new acting head of the EPA, a former coal lobbyist, has moved to reinstate the Obama regulations after a court insisted that they be enforced once again.
[...] Many trucking fleets like gliders because they are often cheaper to maintain and run than modern trucks, but the amount of pollutants that they emit can be hundreds of times more than the federal standards would allow. The laws that permitted gliders to be built in the first place were designed primarily to reduce the number of wrecked trucks going into scrap yards, instead giving their engines new homes. That kind of backfired.
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(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Monday July 30 2018, @11:53AM (4 children)
Considering that nitrogen fixing by plants and bacteria gives off NOx as byproducts I'd say that it would be very suprising if there wasn't a safe (well, as safe as clean air (which I admit is harmful)) level somewhere. (the main human-made source for nitric oxide (NO) is agiculture).
I guess we need to figure out exactly what we consider "high concentration" and "low levels", but I assume we agree in principle on that up until a yet-to-be-determined point it doesn't make sense to worry since the worrying will be more harmful :)
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday July 30 2018, @05:07PM (3 children)
You are making the assumption, not, AFAIK, provably wrong, that naturally occurring levels of NOx aren't harmful. This is not guaranteed to be true.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Wednesday August 01 2018, @10:20AM (2 children)
I'm making the assumption that there is a limit where NOx makes less harm than the body's coping mechanism, but I do not touch the "naturally occuring levels" unless I have to (but I do not include agricultural practices in this - so naturally occuring levels hasn't been seen for about 10k years).
The reason why I assume there are safe limits are threefold.
1) NOx generation by life has been around for longer than the modern human, so we are evolved with it around us
2) Nictric Oxide (NO) is a signalling molecule in most (allmost all) known life, and since it is a gas some venting will occur
3) Coping mechanisms in the body tends to go haywire when there is an absence of an adversary (so I'd except an autoimmune reaction in absence of (excess) NOx).
(The entire "aren't harmful" - consider the case of milk to see the problem of trying to define this one (especially the cases of good nutrition vs lactase tolerance))
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Wednesday August 01 2018, @10:21AM
s/lactase/lactose/
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday August 01 2018, @04:40PM
That a defensible presumption, but it's still a presumption. And as you say, those levels can't even be approached.
FWIW, hydrogen peroxide is also used in the body, but it's still harmful. The normal activities of mitochondria are destructive to the cells that they exist within (and possibly also to themselves). Etc. Being a normal part of the body activities is not proof that something isn't destructive, merely that the advantages are usually more important than the costs.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.