Where does air pollution come from?

There are still cruise ships that dock, and they have been a big issue for local kids. They use a lot of power while docked. I believe the solution is to hook them up to the grid, but that requires that they and the dock both have the facilities.

There is a dock in the Greenwich area, and another one further down the Thames estuary.

> Someone else pointed out that there's very little shipping in central London now. It's all cars and buses causing this pollution.

Or gas boilers, in the case of NOx pollution:

> Gas boilers now produce ~72% of NOx emissions in central London.

https://bsky.app/profile/janrosenow.bsky.social/post/3lltacf...

Lest anyone take this seriously, these assertions are confidently-misinformed, conspiracy-minded thinking.

No asthma medications whatsoever have utility as a chemical masking agent, nor are there any plausible mechanisms for that to happen.

Beta agonists (mostly clenbuterol) have been abused independently in the past as a way to cut weight in weightlifting/cycling/etc., since they theoretically provide a marginal boost to overall metabolism - but the effects are marginal. They're de facto useless as a general PED.

Widespread doping in high-level sports is absolutely commonplace, and it's very easy to not get caught - but asthma medications have absolutely nothing to do with that.

See WADA masking agent list here: https://www.wada-ama.org/en/prohibited-list

Well-informed paper about real evasion strategies available here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03037...

Cruise ships certainly used to moore up in the Greenwich stretch of the river at the and a few years ago there was quite a lot of coverage of the issue around it. Cruise ships require a lot of power while docked, and unless they connect to the grid they used to create a lot of air quality issues.

If there are a lot less docking then that's great, but there do still seem to be a number that dock there https://blackheathandbeyond.wordpress.com/2024/03/27/fairly-...

I know there was a push to develop a big new cruise port in the Greenwich stretch which was strongly opposed by locals for that reason.

In many cities a lot of rich people live in the city centre. London is an example. Take a look at house prices and rents in Westminster or the City, or even adjoining areas. The only poor people there are the ones in social housing who are a minority.

Yes, but if the air pollution we're talking about is invisible then why would the rich elect for less exposure? Some might look at air quality data, but I suspect what is really going on is they seek out quiet. Noise pollution is the thing people really hate and avoiding that will likely lead to getting better air quality too.

> All that is needed is the factory owner quietly telling the town councillors that if they are forced to clean up their emissions, they will not be able to compete with foreign competitors who don't have to do the same, and will be forced to close.

Thing is, they're usually _lying_ when they say that. A while back I was looking at buying a house that was near a local authority recycling centre, so went on the EPA's website to see if there were any complaints about it, and went down a rabbit hole of reading regulatory action documentation (everybody needs a hobby). A very common pattern was, basically, company says "if we fix this, we'll have to close", regulator says "don't care, it's the law, fix it", company fixes it, and unaccountably fails to close like they promised, life goes on.

There are exceptions, of course, but a lot of "following the rules will make us unviable, so let us ignore the rules pls" rhetoric from companies is just rhetoric intended to marginally reduce costs. See RoHS; manufacturers acted like it would cause the collapse of modern civilisation, EU pressed ahead anyway, and 20 years later somehow modern civilisation is still there, albeit with somewhat less lead and mercury.

Yeah, as you say, the main source of air pollution in Dublin is cars. Those are basically outside of the EPA's remit. It has been very effective in cleaning up _industry_, which is in its remit, though a lot of this was playing catchup with the rest of Western Europe.

The cars are basically some combination of the NTA's and the local authorities' fault; a massive expansion of Dublin's bus and commuter rail capacity, and a new metro system, are all years behind schedule, largely due to planning permission nonsense (though also due to disastrously incorrect government planning about 15 years ago, which assumed that Ireland would go back to its traditional perma-recession after the financial crisis, with the result that starting these expansions was delayed by about a decade).

> It's quite possible to survive with friction tyres with the help of good traction control (especially from an EV) but there are vast areas of the country that do not get roads plowed in a timely manner, so it's "safer" to go with studs.

It's not really about roads not being plowed timely. More often than in the cities, country side roads are plowed faster and more often. This is simply because the road density is less.

In Finland, for example, there are a lot of dirt roads. These cannot be plowed bare in the winter as that would destroy the road surface, you want to build up a level of snow/ice on top of the road that you then maintain over the winter. If you drive on these types of roads daily you will need studded tyres, or you'll end up stuck at home ever year for multiple days when the weather goes above freezing and during kelirikko.

(in Sweden) I would say that 90% of people driving off the road where my parents live (based on people I have talked to or helped) have friction tyres. I tell people "if you ever plan to leave the city, get studs".

Even in towns, there will be conditions where friction tyres are completely useless. Heck, sometimes you should probably not drive at all. About once a year the sides of the main road near my house are sprinkled with cars, despite most people driving 30km/h or less (on a 50 road). On a very slippery march morning last year I counted 15 cars on an 800m stretch.

In 2022, the all-cause mortality under-5 was 117 per 1000 in Nigeria.

Not per 100k, per 1000.

That means that for every child that dies from air pollution, ~600 more die from some other cause.

To be fair, most causes seem related to terrible living conditions, so everything probably improves or degrades together.

I speculate that it's the ports which make the rules and they're not bothered by having to charge more for fuel, as ships are wholly dependent on that. Meanwhile local authorities can put pressure on ports to not provide certain types of fuel.

When maritime shipping quintupled in price during the pandemic it wasn't because ship operators suddenly figured they could fleece people like that - it was the ports' logistics which were all out of whack.

i loathe tire wear argument. i had to put it there. because it is local emission. just in one day you burn more kilograms of fuel then kilograms you remove from your tire for whole year. it is orders of magnitude away from being even relevant, but always someone points that out as a con, so i "proactively" put it there XD

And intuitively, they're likely better for brake dust pollution. Many will only have to actuate the physical brakes once per trip (to prevent calipers from seizing over time), and can use regen for the rest.

EVs are not less efficient. When you burn gasoline you're only capturing 15-30% of it's stored chemical energy. An EV will convent 90% or more of it's energy into motion.

can you generate electricity without emissions, YES.

can you burn anything in air without emissions, NO.

for me it is easy logic.

fossil cars are literally literally killing people. and live people is what capitalist needs to buy his products. so fossil cars are anti capitalistic.

Very surprised to see Belgium in that list. What gives? Our electricity mix isn't too bad. We don't have much heavy industry. We're not heavy A/C users. Is it our meat consumption?

[dead]

I don't think vegetarian is enough, since it often means diary, which goes back to cows as one of highest polluters.

Could be that one needs way fewer cows to produce diary equivalent to beef, that would invalidate above sentence. Anybody knows this?

I've lived for maybe 6 months in cca vegan diet when backpacking in India and Nepal (apart from infrequent paneer cheese, their meat in cheap dhabas was not great to be polite - either chicken bits chock full of bones or very chewy mutton), but I wouldn't consider it the best idea for everybody alive. Also those indian spices helped mentally to feel like eating great, but I know very few (specifically) men in Europe who would find it acceptable replacement (women seems more reasonable in this).