Why air pollution is so scary
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- čas přidán 29. 06. 2022
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The World Health Organisation says that 7 million people are killed every year by the air they breathe. Why, where, and what can we do about it? Turns out, there are a few reasons we should stop burning fossil fuels...
References
1. ourworldindata.org/data-revie...
2. www.who.int/news-room/fact-sh...
3. ourworldindata.org/outdoor-ai...
4. ourworldindata.org/extreme-po...
5. ourworldindata.org/grapher/de...
6. www.who.int/news-room/fact-sh...
7. www.nature.com/articles/s4146...
8. www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073...
9. ourworldindata.org/outdoor-ai...
10. www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/do...
So yeah, spoiler alert, air pollution kills 7 million people a year. And what causes the majority of dangerous air pollution? Humans burning stuff, specifically fossil fuels. Even without their immense impact on global climate, we should be phasing out the use of coal, oil, and natural gas because they are literally killing millions of people every single year. We have the technology to replace fossil fuel use in energy generation with renewables (and nuclear, though that's... complicated here), and wealthy economies need to support low and middle income economies in their efforts to decarbonise (and literally clean up) their energy supply.
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Beautifully edited by Luke Negus.
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The 'look at this graph' gag is a top tier science communicator move, thank you for including it.
Awareness without Doomersim:
HOPE and Climate-Anxiety need Balance.
Both were covered so good by 'Our Changing Climate' and 'Ankur Shah', please dont miss-out.
Said Channel, Hbomberguy, UpisNotJump, Some More News, Second Thought, those are the Frontier-Fighters on CZcams; not high on Hopium but also not Gloomy!
You believe his graph? 🤣
How is Greenland considered the most polluted place on earth? And the US is the cleanest? What about North Korea? It's also dirty yet they have not enough electricity to light up the country at night. This graph is a fraud.
Also, Africa is fully covered with data even though there is a "no data" option in gray. Having lived in Africa for many years, I can assure you most of Africa has no testing for pollution. Even quality temperature readings is woefully inadequate on most of the continent.
This guy pulls data and graphs from whoever agrees with his narrative. I've caught him using fraudulent graphs in his other videos.
This is a fear porn channel for profit.
@@loturzelrestaurant Jesse what the fuck are you talking about?
As a person who was born in Krasnoyarsk, and where my parents is still living, unfortunately I knew the answer to the question of how common the air pollution is, quite well.
We have a so-called "dark/black sky" condition I think at least once in a month. But it's when the situation is REALLY bad. Serious smog happens almost every couple weeks and it can last for week or even longer if there's no wind… And the medical records prove the point of the video.
I can't even imagine! :0
You have sort of answer the question.But you didn't give the answer I was looking for ! What is the Biggest pollution maker on the planet I will leave it with you ?
Air pollution causes inflammation throughout the body and, while not an exact analogue, basically accelerates the ageing process. So, as well as vital work tackling the air pollution at source, we should also work on treatments for ageing for those of us who have already been inhaling it for decades!
Climate, environment and health cross over everywhere, huh.
Great video!
Well I can't go live on Iceland so I'm just gonna breath crappy air okay? Not trying to be f'ing superman here
@@princeofkernow9875 You’re right, it’s not like that. It does cause inflammation at the vaccine site because that’s how vaccines work, but there’s no evidence it accelerates ageing. And, if you want to reduce systemic inflammation, avoiding covid by (amongst other things) getting vaccinated is a pretty great bet!
Yes, I could do with some help treatments to restore health. I was a gardener, in a high walled garden, in the middle of Central London. Directly outside the garden was a set of traffic lights, and whenever they changed, the garden would fill up with stinking blue exhaust fumes - most significantly from taxis.
In addition, I had the dust from London Plane leaves to contend with. It used to make me cough and sneeze all through Spring-time, and when disease caused the leaves to fall off before new growth emerged, I would go through the coughing and sneezing all over again. It's a wonder my lungs function at all.
It's little wonder that I am not nearly as energetic or healthy as my husband, who has been retired several years and is 17 years older than me.
Climate talk is a great way to shift the focus outta "it is dangerous & must be dealt with now" to "we have hundreds of years until SHTF, and we'll always be able to sequester carbon with Bill Gates' pumps."
David Sinclair is looking into this ageing reversal subject. More on this - czcams.com/video/cLZEEOZlTzo/video.html
8:39 Every time I see this meme I just can't hold myself together, the "please fking kill me" stare is way too funny.
My general meteorology teacher a few semesters ago did a whole lecture on air pollution and some of it’s global impacts. He’s an atmospheric chemist and does a lot of work in pollution dispersion and transport. Super cool!
What is your teacher‘s name? Maybe he has some interesting publications 🤔?
Thank you for talking about it. It's a topic most people seem to not even think about.
Don’t worry. It’s only the air we breathe…..
You can help by sharing this video if you haven’t already.
Most people are NOT AWARE of air pollution - they cannot see it . 🧐
What a nothingburger. Most people don't think about most things.
7:22
_"People aren't burning fossil fuels out of spite, they just want a higher quality of life."_
Coming from a guy with not 1, but 2 computer monitors behind him.
*Rules for thee, but not for me.*
Smugly watching this as a Finn, knowing well that our good rating is mostly due to low population density.
Same from Australia
Indoor air pollution is caused by lots of things, not just indoor combustion of solid fuels. But it's a lot worse from burning solid stuff indoors.
Gas and liquid fuels aren't necessarily more expensive than solid fuels. But they require more expensive infrastructure to deliver. You can spend an hour walking a long way to gather firewood, or you can spend two minutes earning the money to buy gas. But if you're in a poor country, you may not have the second option.
Have a huge pole of logs at work can get firewood for a little work can't get gas for a little work
Someone else quite shocked to see USA and Canada in pale yellow?
Probably just due to averages from the LARGE SWATHS OF NOTHING in those countries and most cities actually having horrid air pollution.
I'm not (though that's because this is literally my job). Part of the reason is the relatively low population density. But the main reason, at least in the US, is the Clean Air Act, which is one of if not the best pieces of environmental legislation ever. Not only is it incredibly effective and aggressive, it was initially passed in 1970, meaning we've been working on improving our air quality for the last 50 years, while Europe didn't really get started until the 90s.
@@BrianJumps1 hats off to you then
10:38 If saving millions of lives is not a worthwile undertaking from an economic perspective, then maybe, our current socio-economic system is not excatly serving the people.
air pollution (the stuff that actually kills people) is caused by motor vehicles. the simple solution is to limit motor vehicle traffic. to make it easier to cycle, to provide better public transit and walkability, etc.
@@kairon5249 Never that simple. For example you can't limit traffic in sprawling american cities where everything is far from everything, without replanning and rebuilding the. And nah, its not just motor vehicles, it is mostly that in the west but there are also many coal plants and biofuel plants (basically wood burners) and other production facilities (chemical plants factories) to cause the pollution.
@@CraftyF0X sure we can. by building bike infrastructure (not just painted gutters) and public transit.
@@kairon5249 Im all for that the rest still remains.
They are not out to serve the people. The opposite is true.
The elites plan is to thin out the worlds population to save us from imaginary global warming by demonizing fossil fuels and ending their use, which will kill billions.
Only the wealthiest people will survive... on the fossil fuels they demonized. How ironic.
Hey, you are right, I live somewhere in the region of Southeast Asia and the problems revolving around pollution here are quite appalling. I feel like I can barely breathe, and no one uses forms of public transportation anymore, traffic congestion always takes place in my city and private vehicles are rampant (no one rides a bike, everyone drives or has his/ her motorbike). It's just disturbing thinking about the low wages we get paid and the amount of pollutant we exhale :(
everybody has to have their own ride😷🤢🥵
@@johnmitchell2741 yah, but the gov seems to provide little or no promotion for public transport:( in addition, they even build more roads :((
it gets even worse when you research the relationship between covid mortality and air pollution.
definitely out of date 1:50 I'm tracking local air quality since the wildfires burned 4 million acres of forest in California 2 years ago and since then America is seeing higher levels of PMP.
The ben shapiro impersonation caught me off guard hahaha
Having lived in Seoul for 6 years, I now cherish living in another country with clean air.
Unfortunately there are many issue of a renewable system that need to be addressed. First is the grid system and energy storage. When most green energy is generated, it’s not during peak use with limited storage and the grid can only handle so much at one time that these solar and wind farms have to be shut off. Another issue is the upstream cost to create the panels and turbines spanning from mining resources (Li, Co, Ni,REE) that have huge environmental or socioeconomic impact down to manufacturing (water use/waste/energy consumption). There’s accessibility issues from supply chain to simple cost. Incentives from tax “credits” or carbon credits are political theater without fixing the problem. We have a long way to go. -an energy scientist
Yeah, replacing about 80% of all our energy consumption today (I give renewables the credit of hydropower, they insist!), and that includes our aging nuclear plants...the youngest about 30 years old...that can go to sixty years if economic. Meanwhile, hopefully, the world's economy per capita improves everywhere, more productive people using more energy, and lay over that "normal"... a race to replace our entire energy infrastructure! In Texas now, you do not deny any wind or solar power source...you accommodate it and respond accordingly, for example, using "10 minute to full power" 100 MW natural gas fired jet engine power generators as backup...they don't last long.
@@danielmcwhirter "Wind denier" "solar denier" sounds really dumbass to use those expletives. Those are words used express your religious belief in some thing. God of climate change denier. What is next you going to make them drink hemlock like Socrates for blasphemy against your climate change God.
If you are worried about energy storage you should probably find out about energy you should probably look at meny of the long duration energy storage options and future recycling and mining practises for wind, solar. and energy storage.
This youtube channel is a good start. czcams.com/channels/RBwLPbXGsI2cJe9W1zfSjQ.html
Last year I was diagnosed with COPD. I've gone from tolerating Cars to hating their present. Like an ex smoker opening windows, I notice much more the stench of exhausts.
I hate the car centric Welsh Town I live it.
9:04 Isn't another primary reason why high-income countries have less air pollution also that they've largely outsourced manufacturing to mid-income countries? Hence, why basically everything's coming from China nowadays. So, even if high-income countries didn't have nuclear or renewables the emissions would still be lower because with the outsourcing of manufacturing they've also outsourced the emissions.
Agree. It's a neat trick, if ya can do it.
Hi - can you talk about heat stress?
I have started gardening in a new location. My sweet basil is 6 months old and looks smaller than a 6 week old plant should. The reason is heat stress. Sorry for the small scale example. How would heat stress affect, say, the idea of planting forests and using 'normal' growth projections, growing food and the planet's overall ability to feed living things. ?
I've been wrong before, but high income countries having less deaths from outdoor pollution is likely more due to tighter environmental regulations and manufacturing moving to middle and low income countries. Not renewables although nuclear has helped, minus it's consequences. Also particulate in the atmosphere cause clouds to drop their water sooner, thus less heat is reflected back to space. So there's that 🤷no good news here.
Perfectly described the problem and surrounding topic, amazing visuals and creative sets with the monitors and tv, substituting your last one. also the Nickelback meme had me rolling. 5/7 perfect video 5/5 stars.
The idea of one of the things going wrong on the planet helping to mitigate another reminds me of that scene in The Simpsons where the doctor tells Mr Burns his body is a complex eco system of diseases keeping eachother in equilibrium.
First of all great video! This is something really important that almost no one knows about. As a chartered transport planner I model air quality impacts as part of my job and it is also the case that the people who contribute least to the problem suffer the most. In the UK at least the majority of air pollution in residential areas is caused by traffic generated by high income people impacting low income people that can't afford to move away from a busy road.
1:36 Is there a map that shows local levels of pollution exposure? I was a bit surprised to see the US and Canada as solid yellow. I would have expected Los Angeles to have a higher level of exposure in spite of their aggressive emission reduction policies, not to mention other urban areas like New York or Dallas.
i was also wondering how the US is on the lowest color.
Maybe because of the rural areas lowering the average?
Would be interested in how they've calculated these. Australia is a darker yellow and if we were talking averages the vast majority of Australia is empty space. If the rural areas of North America are pulling it down why isn't the outback lowering Australia's to the same degree?
@@davidjennings2179 Extremely few people live in the Australian outback, whereas rural America still has a decent amount of people.
@@xway2 huh, learn something new every day. Thought it was a similar lay out with mostly uninhabited mountains and forests and then people in big cities. Maybe that's just Canada?
Hey Simon! Thanks for this video. I'm just about to start an MSc in Air Pollution Managment and Control at the University of Birmingham. Hoping to help solve this issue (in at least some small way) through my career. Video was fantastic as always. Especially interesting was the point on the reduction of Sulphur dioxide and the increase in global tempertautres that will lead to. Wasn't aware of that issue!
Your text animations are next level in this video. Good job!
I wanna thank you so much for adressing my concerns regarding this and seeing how little action is done for that, how people find thoughtless excuses for that and how I shouldn't worry too much because it is not in my control.
Finally, someone knowledgeable addresses my concern.
Gotta hold CEOs and Politicians personally responsible for malice and gross negligence.
Once their heads start rolling, change will happen, and not a fuck earlier.
FWIW, At 0:52 it is preferable to call them "Road Collisions" instead of "Road Accidents". The term accident makes it seem that its an unavoidable and unpredictable event and it has some value judgement in it, whereas collision just states that a vehicle hit another vehicle, it may or may not have been an preventable accident. Many road collisions are caused by predictable causes such as speeding and driver inattention due to mobile phone use.
I notice that Taiwan is not represented on this map. As someone who has been living there for 13 years I can assure you that we are red as well. Almost all of the 23 million people here live on the west coast, in a massive urban strip running pretty much uninterrupted from Taipei down to Kaohsiung. The combination of traffic fumes (almost everybody drives cars or scooters instead of walking, cycling or using public transport), factories, and power generation (we had the world's biggest coal-fired power station till a couple of years ago) creates horrendous conditions here a lot of the time. I teach at a senior high school, and outdoor PE classes are frequently called off due to high pollution. We are surrounded by beautiful mountains, but last week we couldn't see them from our 6th floor office for most of the week.
I wish I had some optimism that this would improve, but I doubt it. We've just started building a new natural gas refinery, destroying a precious reef in the process, because the government fell for the idea that gas is somehow 'clean'. Most people can't afford electric vehicles, despite our homegrown Gogoro scooters being quite excellent vehicles. Even worse, the majority of the population has been duped into blaming neighbouring China for our pollution problems, despite overwhelming evidence that they contribute only a small percentage, and only for part of the year. The upshot is that people will neither change their own lifestyles nor view air pollution as much of an electoral issue.
My wife and I will be moving to a small town on the east coast next year, largely because we're sick of the fact that the simple act of breathing is shortening the lives of ourselves and our dogs. I've known several other foreigners who have left the country entirely because of the problem.
The indoor air pollution impacts of gas stoves (and other leaky gas connected infrastructure) is an emerging topic of research- those of us in wealthy countries shouldn't count ourselves safe on that score yet!
Watching this video from Dhaka, Bangladesh. City with one of the worst air. Man! May God save us.
your video editing is outstanding and very underrated!
Burning wood should just be banned in developed countries. Despite all the greenwashing it's the dirtiest fuel.
Not to mention the fact that old growth forests (not many left) are “raided” to obtain the firewood, for a few quick dollars; while houses, full of suitable firewood are just demolished and buried in the ground.
I really enjoyed this one, for the first time I actually knew what was being talked about!!! Environmental science is so cool!!!
I'm so glad that you mentioned aerosol masking and land use....
I can't even believe how many times I've had to bring these things up on environmental channels and I've completely exhausted myself trying....
We could fix so many problems by beginning with animal agriculture (becoming vegan on a widespread scale) and rewilding all that land (made possible not just by getting rid of animal farms, but rather taking the plants we feed to animals and repurposing them for human consumption)...
This equates to an area the size of RUSSIA and 16 years worth of emissions being absorbed! Check out the study in "Nature" about this!
The most important group I know that is addressing this whole paradox is MEER Reflection Project....
Building simple mirrors that can help locally reflect a lot of heat world give us much more time to figure out how to balance the carbon levels without reducing the aerosols so soon, which as you mentioned, could actually accelerate climate change.
Once we could better manage the heat, then we could reduce these pollutants more safely!
The last thing we want is to finally get everyone on board with fossil fuel reduction, but then only speed up the degradation of the environment because we cross more tipping points without really solving the energy input disparity.
MEER Reflection Project might just be the key to solving this!
Cheers, again I'm so glad you're at least bringing up this paradox, because most people speaking about climate just ignore it!
@@princeofkernow9875 you are picking the worst example of growing veggies to compare to the best possible example of dairy.
That's not how this is supposed to work.
You don't have to have monoculture to grow plants.
And most dairy is not produced like it is where tribal people, who live in the land, produce small amounts.
The majority of people aren't willing to live with cows and give up cars, homes, technology etc, and become hunter gatherers...
Plant based diets take up less than a quarter of the land, not to even mention fossil fuel reductions and water use (btw the SW US is undergoing a HUGE drought right now, the worst it has ever seen).
This isn't me suggesting this, it's multiple studies.
Do some research and see.
Start with the land use study published in Nature.
I'd link it but then half the time the comment disappears.
I'm sure you are smart enough to find it in two minutes and read it in a few more.
It clearly shows we could massively reduce impact by going veg.....
So stop telling me I'm wrong by bringing up cherry picked anecdotes
@@princeofkernow9875 most animals are fed with large monocrops like soy...
A very small percentage are actually grazing, and these need even MORE water and land, by far.
Have you not seen the giant rotating machines with dozens of cattle locked up to them while they are milked?
This is hardly environmentally friendly, or them grazing peacefully with no impact.
In Colorado, you can smell factory farms from 50 miles away, or even while flying over them (as I've done).
It's horrific for both the animals and the ecosystem.
But this is the only way to satisfy the demand.
You simply can't get nearly the yield or profits from a more "sustainable" method.
Meat is just more profitable when it's done in mass operations.
This is also what's destroying the Amazon, as it is burned down to make room for more beef and feed crops.
Veggies don't necessarily need to be done in these destructive ways.
You can grow food at home, or buy locally, both of which require minimal transport or fossil fuels...
Transport is actually only a very small percentage of the fossil fuel use anyways.
And meat is transported more, because of the feed, which you seem to be forgetting.
Those crops aren't just sitting there for the animals to eat.
In any case, the far more efficient way is to focus that food for human consumption, which gives you much more protein by weight per acre.
If we concentrate on growing human friendly crops, the majority of land that is now used for food can actually be returned to wild biodiverse forest, as explained in the article I already mentioned.
Just think logically, it's much less impact to just eat the plants directly than to require all that extra production, transport, water, land etc...
Farms can also be biodiverse, and actually give higher yield than monocultures, they just require more work and planning.
Think of the "three sisters" for example...
Native cultures have known this for millennia
Yeah nah, I ain't going vegan, especially given the clearly visible detrimental health effects (and no you can't prove it's healthy, maybe in a lab with perfect diet it is but every single long term vegan I've ever seen in the real world looked frail as a breadstick).
Especially since we're doing jack shit to reduce emissions where it's easy. It's precisely the fault of """""environmentalists""""" (largely the same ones who are now telling me to go vegan and ride a bicycle for 17km, go figure) that the West still relies on fossil fuels so heavily. Not only did they spend the last 50 years slandering nuclear power, but they are still ACTIVELY DOING IT RIGHT NOW, knowing damn well that every nuclear reactor shut down or not built is a gas/coal plant chugging away in its stead.
50% of the world's emissions come from heating and power generation, and if we had just started a common EU nuclear program 20 years ago we would have completely eliminated them by now. But nooo, nuclear power is scawy :(
Better to keep burning gas by the cubic kilometers and then try to force everyone to go vegan and carless so you can feel like your activism hasn't activelly contributed to destroying the planet.
Also these "environmentalist" associations are the same who fought for biomass (especially wood pellet stoves) to be labeled "green" and directly contributed to its use skyrocketing even here in an area where we already had a massive problem with particulate matter pollution (several northern italian cities are among the most polluted in Europe due to geography). And they keep saying biomasses are "clean" to this day.
No, sorry, I'm not depriving myself to reduce my emissions by 5% when the ones who claim to care about the environment are doing all they can to prevent us from fixing the easily solvable 50%. My emissions are already lower than the average because I keep clothes for years, never change furniture, and don't have aircon at home. I've done my part.
Re: the "Share of the population exposed to air pollution levels above WHO guidelines, 2017" figure, I wouldn't be surprised if more of the globe would be considered above WHO guidelines in an updated version using 2021/2022 data. I say this because I know that fairly recently, the WHO lowered their annual guidelines for PM2.5 from 10 ug/m^3 to 5 ug/m^3, and for the 24-hour guidelines they were adjusted from 25 ug/m^3 to 15 ug/m^3. I know this because I had to adjust these guidelines values when writing my thesis lol
Just finished reading Firmament. Amazing book, thanks so much!
I thought I was safe living in a relatively small town in England, but no! I attended one of the council meetings and our air quality is reducing lifespans by ~5 years, in a town with a population of only 40k!
Fabulous video! Loved the depiction of the big scary adult world!! Thank you Simon :)
well phrased!
His whole channel is fear porn for profit. Keeping the viewer scared to justify spending more money on an imaginary problem.
Statistically, life expectancy has doubled in the last 100 years and fossil fuels are why. Now he wants them gone without an equally reliable replacement.
But that's ok, he'll be fine.
Sabine Hossenfelder did a real good explainer of particulate matter recently on CZcams.
haven’t gotten too far into the video but gas stoves do contribute to particulates in the air as well as harmful gasses and while they may not be as much of a death risk, they do contribute to asthma and other health issues
I wasn't expecting to see the UK as a high risk country for air pollution! 😱
@@fspg3207 I honestly thought those issues had been dealt with.
What's with Greenland? Is it coloured so dark because it's Denmark, or is it indeed highly polluted where the little populations are?
0:52 how does that relate to cancers caused by air pollution? Are those factored in already?
I would rather breathe in some particulate matter and live to maturity, than die from freezing to death.
10:50 Reducing methane emissions will not result in a cooling effect, but rather a reduction in the rate of warming.
Good thing I live in Finland which is one of the few places on the graph without much pollution
Incredible, cannot sleep!
The extract says "contributed a cooling of 0.0°C to 0.8°C". So the effects of principally aerosols could be zero, but you then took the top end of the range and ran with it. That was misleading. Great video though! I liked your book.
Yes I realised this right at the end of the editing process and unfortunately I had to get the video out today so that had to stay in the video. I should clarify that the effect of sulphates is shown in the IPCC graph (as highlighted) and the mean figure for that specific contribution is about 0.5°C of cooling. You are quite right though that it was improper to give a figure towards one extreme (as caused by a hasty reading of the summary), and while the general point still stands, I can only apologise!
It seems to me that if this is true, then we are in kind of a no win situation with respect to industrial activity that puts sulfates in the air. This fossil fuel burning activity is what is taking the world to 1.5C and beyond; at the same time, we CANNOT stop doing it totally because if we do, then we woud go up approximately 0.5C in a very short amount of time, taking us OVER 1.5 in no time.
Do I have that right?
@@SimonClark Thanks for the response. I'm just getting into video creation and overwhelmed with the amount of time and effort going into a 10 minute video. Agree that the point you were making's all valid.
@@SimonClark Given how vital this point is to the entire premise of a sizeable chunk of this video it would be in your best interests to find time to re-record and splice in at least a card at the start explaining the error if you can find the time.
It is the true mark of a professional to do your absolute best to put out corrections where they *cannot* be easily missed, especially on topics as vital to our future as these.
Sadly, comment sections and descriptions are no longer adequate avenues for this, and the potential lost revenue from having to reupload it pales in comparison to the benefits of reputation and goodwill in most cases.
However, it is ultimately your decision to make and I won't fault you whichever way you decide to go - after all, content creation is always full of tradeoffs and hard decisions and this comment alone tells me you do at least care about accuracy and transparency which is already a wonderful quality to posess.
yes, that is the problem with humanity. We always want more. a more comfortable life, more holidays, more new gadgets to buy, more people on the planet to work, more. more. MORE. Our hubris, and goal to beat death itself will be our greatest downfall
How's in the everloving fuck is this video only on 21k views?
Brilliant take and nuanced delivery. Thanks!
Do highly polluted countries also have a high cancer rate?
The US government should use that map as a success story with the clean air act.
Burning gas instead of coal is also huge
PhD environmental engineering here - AQ and climate-forcing emissions focus. Yeah so the argument of not reducing emissions bc of climate cooling benefits is pretty short-sighted. Yes you remove sulfate precursors, but you also get carbon emission reductions (the cause of climate change in the first place). I'm not opposed to atmospheric sulfate injection, but that's more of a bandaid approach
Why does the US have such low levels of air pollution compared to the rest of the world?
why is the air quality in the us so good?
because 'MURICA
or probably due to the winds, probably comes from the Pacific mostly
sooo, maybe a stupid q, but if dangerous air particle are a problem, does wearing a mask help at all?
One would need a specialized mask to filter out the fine particulate matter (such as an N95), and that isn’t practical for wearing on a long-term basis. If you live in an area where the air pollution level is high, a better defense would be to stay indoors and use high efficiency filters in your A/C system.
not 100% effective but won't hurt to use one and probably reduce exposure to other pollution like large soot, bacteria, and dirt. A N95 have electrostatic filtration that made it 95% effective but obviously it can't last and not meant for reuse. A mechanical filter like HEPA require a blower and so cannot be wear on the face. Other mechanical filter like surgical mask and fabric mask is poor effectiveness against PM2.5 but won't hurt to use and still have benefit.
N95 or P100 helps. It's very noticeable in heavy traffic areas if you're asthmatic.
The short answer is: Technically, yes, to an extent, with some tradeoffs. If you are able or willing to put up with the financial burden and potential discomfort of bulk buying and wearing single use n95 masks (which are essentially the only real practical option here in terms of efficacy and lack of weird looks from others) then it is really not a bad idea at all. I wouldn't bother with the dirt cheap 'surgical masks' due to their abysmal fit and increased discomfort and I'd advise against cloth masks as they definitely don't make nearly as much difference as a proper n95 will. HEPA is the other major option but it has a lot of really huge tradeoffs that for most people make it not really worth it outside of, maybe, in home units, but even then you need a good amount of disposable income and/or a high risk of, eg, developing COPD, to justify those.
tl;dr your mileage may vary but it certainly beats doing nothing at all, if you can consistently keep up the effort and don't mind the drawbacks!
@@trevinbeattie4888 N95 *can,* under some circumstances, be surprisingly practical for long term daily use. Though probably limiting use to when you are outside so as to prolong the supply you have in addition to the method you laid out for indoor filters.
Very informative video
I got the question at the stsrt of the video right cause i read the title :), good vidoe though and still very shocking statistics
So what im hearing is we need more reflective sulphates in the atmosphere
your best video i think
Currently AQI is 94
and PM 10 : 94
PM2.5 : 78
Weather report says wear a mask when you go out
Quick point on that map: the Aussie data is likely under-representing air pollution by quite a long margin because of the way it is measured (and often not measured). I'd bet other countries have similarly under-represented air pollution. Even then, it kills as many people as the road toll in Australia.
Australia is a bit weird because of the outback.. a large portion of the continent gets almost no air pollution at all (few people live in the outback) while the majority of the population is clustered in a few extremely dense places along the coasts.
I'm guessing the map makes it look so low because its averaged across the entire land area. Suggesting to me that its likely a map created to track per-country CO2 emissions (ie: based on political jurisdiction without caring about concentration within that jurisdiction) rather than measuring something like health risks due to air pollution (which doesn't make much sense as an average across land area.. Australia might be especially prone to poor averaging, but the same problem applies in every country - pollution is almost always concentrated around dense urban or industrial centers, not around open wilderness).
@@altrag, a colleague's partner works in air pollution, so I'm reasonably certain it isn't about averaging. The issue is that the way air pollution is measured minimises the levels (distance from source, location of measuring equipment, etc).
And rural areas tend to have other air pollution issues. I haven't seen data for Australia, but the US has some pretty big issues with spray drift. I know Australia have lower rural density, so that probably isn't as big an issue here, but our wind erosion events are getting a bit ridiculous.
@@tim290280 That's kind of my point. I don't think it was an "air pollution" map (which would need to be more specific about where the pollution actually is in order to be useful) so much as it was a "CO2 by country" map (which doesn't care about specific locations as its more of a political tool than a practical one).
As for Australia.. the outback isn't just rural, its effectively unpopulated as its basically one massive desert covering something like 3/4 of Australia's land mass (maybe more.. I haven't actually measured just eyeballing it from maps). Its not _quite_ as unlivable as say the deep Sahara, and there are _some_ people who try to survive there (including an American military base pretty much smack dab in the middle - chosen specifically because its unlikely anyone would ever stumble upon it accidentally or otherwise), but the population density is well below what anywhere in the US would consider "rural". More in comparison to California's Death Valley than Idaho's potato farms.
@@altrag, just an FYI, you just Ausplained to an Aussie.
@@tim290280 Your phrasing sounded like typical Americentrism. Makes me curious why an Aussie would try to compare the outback to rural areas though.
What's interesting is the US and Canada's low outdoor air pollution numbers despite high levels of car dependency and not being leaders in renewables. What this indicates to me is how dependent much of this is on specific regulation and legislation designed to combat outdoor air pollution. It's not simply the result of getting wealthier that really works but active political choices. A lot of developed countries ought to be looking at the implementation of the clean air act in the US, one piece of environmental legislation we've actually been good at!
I don't know if you just heard, not more than a few hours after this comment the US Supreme Court made another terrible decision. Rolling back power granted to the EPA from the clean air act 😔
@@Tclack Yeah that decision was terrible, but in the specific context of this video on particulate matter the US' protections are still good and largely effective by global standards. We may cause the globe to burn up but we'll have easy breathing (outside) while doing it
The Clean Air Act is one of the best pieces of environmental legislation ever! And it was passed in 1970, so we've had a long time to achieve good air quality. Many places, even Europe, didn't get started until the 90s.
I guessed the most dangerous thing to me would be lightning, but that's because I'm in a storm right now! Ahhhh!
As a norwegian looking at the air pollution map... yay..?
Maybe all the plastic in our bodies will save us.
11:35 please look up the movement „Debt for Climate“, everyone.
Why is Switzerland a dark yellow island? Why is it being weird again?
Getting rid of cole and gas-fired powerplants, cole gas, oil heating, and foilfule bring cars will help with both climate change and air pollution.
It's safe to say I'm very surprised the US wasn't very red, with all the car dependency
AQI is off the charts at 600+ today in Central Oregon. 9/12/22 ☣️⚠️😵
Thats why we elect a government to look after our best i interests and tell us what's really going on ...i think.
10:00 all this reminds me of a recent study that estimated a 42 % chance/risk of going past 1,5 degrees of heating. Source: „42% chance of breaching 1.5°C goal even if all carbon emissions cease“.
1.5 is too low we need to get at least 10°C how else are we gonna get the high score???
i have a question, there are a lot of desert countries very high in the scale. maybe sandstorm has something to do with that high number? or sandstorms aren't so important?
A lot of the middle eastern ones like Qatar and Saudi arabia are just very oil dependent so have poor air quality
I would imagine a major source of those natural emissions are also themselves combustion in the form of wildfires etc. Granted many of those are not entirely natural in origin as human activity often provides the spark (Campfire gone wrong or a dead tree branch shorting out our power infrastructure for example). We could potentially reduce this contribution too in time if we so desired though it is possible to collect that accumulated deadfall and bury it in a hole for example.
and india replaces them at a rate of 22 mil per annum.
>Uruguay mentioned
Does this include radiological particulate from nuclear tests in the 50s?
Hey bud great vid but you never talked about all the green energy incinertators that burn up garbage or all those plastic water bottles ect that dont get recycled but are burned up and the dioxin levels are insane in the air we all breathe ....
I mean, calling them "green energy" is a farce
and that's why I don't go outside
7:15 some are. Think super yachts.
Interesting video
Yo Simon. Can you do a video on how countries tend to need to support their existing populations with a population pyramid just for the sake of propping up their pension funds? Thus, if you believe population plays an important role in climate change, industrial countries, specifically, should examine their own role in doing little to incentivize population reduction (esp by way of immigration from young people - Germany comes to mind here).
Nice
I also live in Sweden so my air pollution level is really low! YAY!! 😃
Low population helps
@@qjtvaddict Not us. We need to massively increase our population
There are two channels to check out if you want more information on indoor air quality, Home Performance and Indoor Chem.
Urban climate vibes
seriously what is going on on your monitors
"essential financing from the global north to the south is needed" so it's not happening, got It
I have asthma and live in an undeveloped country, so I'm deeply aware of the consequences of it, so it just hurts more knowing that the countries with power are not gonna do their part
Feels like hayfever is how the atmosphere is trying to kill me. Of course, the pollution makes the hayfever worse.
Hayfever is certainly a nuisance, I noticed that using an air purifier indoors made a huge difference for me the last 3 years making the symptoms go away while inside at home. And since the start of this years season my doctor prescribed me steroid nose spray that I have to use twice per day and antihistamine eye drops, both doing their job excellent. The nose spray has pretty much eliminated my usual runny/blocked nose, sneezing and frequent blocked eustachian tube issues leading to fluid buildup behind the ear drums. The eye drops I only use as needed, so pretty much before going outside and I haven't had the itchy/burning to the point of being unable to keep my eyes open issue again (unless I neglected to apply the eye drops again halfway during the day).
While I don't like having two more medications to spend time on each day it has made being outside for extended periods of time enjoyable again during these months. I'd strongly recommend asking either a doctor and/or pharmacy for some advice on what might be worth trying with your particular symptoms.
@@extrastuff9463 I use an air-purifier at home. Before going outside I apply a little vaseline to the insides of my nostrils, except during the grass pollen season. I also take astaxanthin, which has made it possible for me to breathe and see during the grass pollen season. God knows what it is doing to my immune system. I had not seen any suggestion for it to be used against allergies. I just tried it as an antioxidant and found it took away my hayfever. I still rinse my eyes and face regularly as well.
latvia has much worse air quality than estonia in source 3. Seems suspicious that there would be big diffrence between them. all I know is that latvia has only couple air quality stations and all of them are in big city centre. is this really representative?
Share of the population exposed to air pollution levels above WHO guidelines in 2017:
-Estonia 0%
-Latvia 89.01%
what is this?
America isn’t doing terribly? I, I never though I’d see the day!
More Climate-Coverage: Hbomberguy, UpisnotJump, SMN, OCC, Climate-Town.
Why is it then, according to the graph provided in the video, that the USA has one of the lowest rates of outdoor air pollution in the world while Europe generates much more when we use so much in fossil fuels to power our economy compared to Europe given our love of cars and coal, while places like France get 75% of its energy from nuclear power, which does not pollute like we do?
What is it that Scandinavia and the US doing right that the rest of Europe is doing wrong?
I believe it was the air quality standards imposed primarily on automobiles which requires all registered vehicles to filter out these kinds of particulates from their exhaust before it gets released into the environment.
In this context the main difference between the US and most of Europe involves the fuel that is used by most automobiles with the USA promoting the use gasoline while the EU promoted the use of diesel.
This all comes down to a trade off between these two fuels gasoline is cleaner in terms of air particulates however it naturally releases far more carbon dioxide as you are getting far more complete combustion. Diesel however because much of its combustion is incomplete releases less carbon dioxide into the environment but at the cost of producing far more air pollutants.
The EU made the decision that due to releasing less carbon dioxide diesel would be the better choice as by doing so it could then reduce its carbon emissions. Also don't forget Volkswagen's claims about their ability to reduce air pollutants which politicians bought into before it came to be revealed it was a scam based on cheating around emissions tests. That ultimately came down to consequences which once the commercial infrastructure is in place becomes quite difficult to reverse. Switching to gasoline isn't a wise investment since we need to cut all fossil fuels so until fossil fuels can be phased out entirely the EU will have to pay for this health burden. The nuclear phobia also contributes to this problem as the freak outs related to nuclear fears (which were unjustified) resulted in the switch back to coal power which in terms of particulate pollutants is the dirtiest energy dense fossil fuel.
In the US however the EPA according to the clean air act is mandated to focus on reducing air pollutants thus gasoline was the only choice short of passing new legislation.
(Also note that the corrupt corporate bought and owned supreme court justices have just decreed carbon dioxide is not included as a pollutant and thus the EPA and federal government can't regulated carbon dioxide emissions at all so expect things in the US to get far worse in the future.)
Thus countries which use gasoline have far less air pollution however they also have far higher carbon emissions as a consequence. Ultimately it comes down to a choice of picking your poison without switching to non fossil fuel based methods you will have to chose between one or the other.
@@Dragrath1 That makes a lot of sense and I suppose that air flow patterns somewhat neutralize France’s overwhelming use of nuclear because Germany (and Spain and the UK) probably are all polluting French airspace.
I know that Canada also closely follows the same standards but I still wonder about Scandinavia. Did they adopt similar standards to the USA?
Europeans drive diesel and live more densely. The fact that 60% of the US is completely empty helps.
@@turtle4llama I gather that it is Scandinavia’s relatively sparseness that is what helps it because their cars are mostly diesel as well, I believe.
Search what plant DIF is
The decrease is happening in areas right now. It only takes a few too warm nights to halt crop production.
Happening regionally now. No okra produced last year in this area by anyone.
Noticed worms are gone this year too…completely as far as I can tell. Plants been blooming crazy times for few years.
It’s too late
-54yo horticulturist
Not that old or that much experience with plants, but things do seem different for sure. I've noticed that plants grow different and have their flowers at times I wasn't used to growing up at my parents. Their garden layout is still mostly the same with general species of plants present yet when they bloom seems to be different. I also remember swarms of flies and other insects on my trips to school by bicycle, these days passing by the same route for the commute to the office for work (rare since covid and mostly working from home) or just city shopping trip there are way less. Only a few rare days when the quantity is anywhere near it during some of the early hot days, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if the the diversity in those few days of high flying insect quantity is much lower than it used to be.
As for it being too late, sometimes I feel like that since what's truly lost won't come back but at the same time it's still worth preserving what's left. Reduction of the harm might not be ideal but it's better than nothing.
I'm slightly annoyed that I'm considering getting rid of the remnant of my own garden but since my back became more troublesome it has become a nuisance to work on, the lower back varies from sensitive to painful and almost all flexibility is gone making kneeling required for anything requiring hands near the ground. But I don't mind the alcea rosea that have found their place in the small gap between my fence and stones to the shed, easy to take care of and they seem to come back every year now and grow to crazy heights if they survive the slugs eating near the ground leaves (1.8-2.5m already). Once they are tall I give them a bit of support so the wind doesn't knock them over and nature does the rest and while they bloom a lot of flying insects seem to be attracted to them. I don't like the way stone tiles or gravel trap the heat but unfortunately it's also no longer practical to maintain a typical decorative or vegetable garden.
1:37 how the hell did Greenland manage getting dark red, not even Denmark is that colour. less than 60,000 people in an area three times the size of Ukraine
Hey, I got it right at the start, woo...
As someone who lives in Denver, notoriously air polluted with our brown cloud and frequent ozone alert days, where some days we get news that we're the #1 (woo?) most polluted city in the world that day, even beating out your stereotypical cities in China, I am FLOORED that the US was in yellow. I don't even want to imagine how bad it is elsewhere if we're in yellow.