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Air pollution killing over two million annually


knocker

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Posted
  • Location: Camborne
  • Location: Camborne

(CNN) -- More than two million people are dying every year from the effects of outdoor air pollution, according to a new study.

An estimated 2.1 million deaths are caused by anthropogenic increases of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) while a further 470,000 are killed annually as a result of human-caused increases in ozone pollution.

 

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/16/world/air-pollution-killing-study/index.html?iid=article_sidebar

 

The study

 

http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/3/034005/article

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Posted
  • Location: Camborne
  • Location: Camborne

China's pollution so bad it 'causes eight-year-old to develop lung cancer'

Smog in China has become a threat to national security because surveillance cameras guarding sensitive sites can’t film through the thick haze, experts claim.

 

The smog that blankets the country for much of the year is getting worse and now the central government fears terrorists may choose a smoggy day to launch attacks.

 

Concerns were voiced as it was reported that an eight-year-old girl had become the youngest person in China to contract lung cancer which doctors claim was caused by the country's horrendous air pollution.

 

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Posted
  • Location: North York Moors
  • Location: North York Moors

The smog that blankets the country for much of the year

Quite an exaggeration I think.

It's the very industrialised areas that have a serious problem - and then only during certain weather conditions.
The west effectively closed down industry which could not meet clean air standards, then bought the products made cheaply by these Chinese factories with less strict controls.

The heart of the problem is their huge population - rightly expecting a more prosperous lifestyle.
If they weren't so industrialised now, the population would probably be larger still, and most of the required energy would be from wood and coal burnt in even more uncontrolled ways.
I think it's mischievous to make green propaganda points highlighting the problems of air pollution from modern industry (and look an 8 year old might die!)  - when without the new industries the life of millions in China would be infinitely worse, and shorter.

 

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

God bless the morality of our economic system then Four? Saw a piece on where you were most likely to meet a psychopath and CEO topped the list!  

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Posted
  • Location: North York Moors
  • Location: North York Moors

Where was your computer made?
Or at least where were most of the components made...
Not in West Yorks or the Royal Duchy I'll wager.

So you are in part responsible for causing that eight year old get cancer Posted Image 
 

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

Certainly won't claim to have any answers Four but , I find, the best way to solve a problem is to first fully explore the problem. I am sure that many folk recognise the moral issues involved in wealth creation under the capitalist system and the moral issues of a system that has a few mega rich and the majority dirt poor. I'm told that in the U.S. the top 300 wealthy folk hold the same amount of money as the rest of their population combined...... to me such a situation is morally indefensible. Surely an enlightened society does not depend upon such disparity to prosper and develop? Surely 'wealthy' is a relative term and does not demand such disparity for it to remain a motivation?  

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Posted
  • Location: North York Moors
  • Location: North York Moors

Ideally you might think they would invest in cleaner manufacturing and that would mean our imported goods were more expensive.What might actually happen is China, under pressure to improve air quality - while maintaining production - exports the hard to clean up processes to Africa or something.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: Devon UK
  • Weather Preferences: ... go easy on the drizzly stuff
  • Location: Devon UK

I experienced a car providing sick air.... it took ages to realise (small levels over long periods of time).THEN THIS:It was my immediate idea to find possibilities then find monitors, then get measurements.... so could provide data rather than wooly "not well fuzzy talk".But i became aware that majority of monitors are really expensive.... and seem to be beyond local findings.... ie order online rather than pop down to council and borrow one or two.If ways of monitoring were cheap and accesible.... then people would be able to measure more... and this would create results.... which may be numerous to possibly influence those in ivory towers.I'd quite like to "get" this greater "availability" into being.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
Posted
  • Location: Camborne
  • Location: Camborne

The equivalent of the population of Bristol dies each year in China because of lethal air pollution, according to Chen Zhu, who was the country's Health minister until last year.

 

Mr Chen, who is also a professor of medicine and a leading molecular biologist, is the most senior government official to put a human cost on the smog that regularly clouds Chinese skies.

 

Until recently, any mention of deaths relating to pollution was strictly censored.

 

Mr Chen's claim came in a commentary in December's issue of the Lancet, co-written with Wang Jinnan, Ma Guoxia and Zhang Yanshen from the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

 

"Studies by the World Bank, WHO, and the Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning on the effect of air pollution on health concluded that between 350 000 and 500000 people die prematurely each year as a result of outdoor air pollution in China," Mr Chen and his fellow authors noted.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10555816/Chinas-airpocalypse-kills-350000-to-500000-each-year.html

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Posted
  • Location: Camborne
  • Location: Camborne

More diseases from air pollution uncovered by improved data material

 

Good health and personal registers in combination with model calculations of air pollution down to an individual address has helped Danish researchers to become among the very best in the world to detect harmful diseases deriving from polluted air.

 

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-01-diseases-air-pollution-uncovered-material.html

Edited by knocker
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Posted
  • Location: Camborne
  • Location: Camborne

Air pollution link to heart attacks

 

Writing online in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), the authors said: " Long-term exposure to particulate matter is associated with incidence of coronary events, and this association persists at levels of exposure below the current European limit values."

 

They said the results of this study, together with other Escape findings, "support lowering of European limits for particulate air pollution to adequately protect public health".

 

Previous research suggests that particulate matter is responsible for 3.2 million deaths worldwide every year.

 

Jon Ayres, professor of environmental and respiratory medicine at the University of Birmingham, said: "The findings of the Escape project have been awaited eagerly for some time.

 

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/scotland/air-pollution-link-to-heart-attacks-1.180526

 

The study

 

http://www.bmj.com/content/348/bmj.f7412

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Posted
  • Location: Camborne
  • Location: Camborne

Particulate Air Pollution Leads to Increased Heart Attack Risk

 

Neuherberg,

 

January 22, 2014. Long-term exposure to particulate matter is associated with an increased risk for heart attack. Moreover, this association can already be observed in levels of particulate exposure below the current specified European limit values. These are the results of a European research team led by scientists of Helmholtz Zentrum München in a population study published in the British Medical Journal.

 

http://www.helmholtz-muenchen.de/en/news/press-releases/2014/press-release/article/23334/index.html

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Posted
  • Location: Camborne
  • Location: Camborne

China’s ‘nuclear winter’ smog threatening crops

 

The dense, carcinogenic smog currently wreathing Beijing and almost a quarter of China is stunting crops, causing seedlings to wither and could trigger agricultural disaster for hundreds of thousands of farmers.

 

The warning, issued by crop experts and shared by Beijing farmers interviewed by The Times, compares the smog with the effects of a nuclear winter and comes as the Chinese capital enters a third week of air pollution more than ten times higher than safety levels recommended by the World Health Organisation.

 

With Beijing in a state of “orange alert†for the first time since the designation was invented, and with the smog conditions not expected to lift until later this week, farmers said that crop growth has slowed noticeably. Unless the smog lifts as forecast, vast quantities of the “off-season†crops on which they depend for income could simply die.

 

Full story

 

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/asia/article4015488.ece

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Posted
  • Location: Camborne
  • Location: Camborne

China blamed as smog smothers Japan.

 

Japanese people were warned to stay inside and avoid outdoor exercise yesterday after smog from China drifted over large areas of the country, adding a new element to the hostility between the two countries.

 

“China crisis comes from the air as well,†ran a headline in the nationalist Sankei newspaper, after authorities across Japan issued warnings of unusually high levels of microscopic PM2.5 particles (particles measuring less than 2.5 microns, or 2.5 millionths of a metre across) which are blamed for a range of deadly diseases and respiratory problems.

 

Warnings against outdoor exercise were made as far apart as Fukushima and Niigata prefectures in northern Japan, and Hyogo prefecture and Shikoku island in the west. In Osaka, PM2.5 levels of 104 micrograms per cubic metre of air were recorded. The limit recommended by EU authorities is 25 micrograms per cubic metre.

 

China smog drives face masks out of stock

 

BEIJING – China’s biggest online face-mask sellers were running out of stock Wednesday as consumers rushed to protect themselves from smog that has shrouded large swathes of northern China for an entire week.

 

Beijing’s official reading for PM 2.5 — small airborne particles which easily penetrate the lungs and have been linked to hundreds of thousands of premature deaths — stood at 501 micrograms per cubic metre on Wednesday afternoon. The World Health Organisation’s recommended safe limit is 25.

 

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/02/26/asia-pacific/china-smog-drives-face-masks-out-of-stock/#.Uw8ebc6cSpA

Edited by knocker
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  • 3 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: Powys Mid Wales borders.
  • Location: Powys Mid Wales borders.

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