This reeks like a con-artists rephrasing perfectly normal and mundane observations into scary-sounding situations so that people would buy the air-filter companies that are funding your research.
I'm all for cleaner air and I don't doubt that the already well-established negative effects of high CO2 or VOC concentrations on us, but can we at least keep any discussion to non-anecdotal, strong scientific evidence? None the articles linked both here show any rigorous statistics that pinpoint cause and effects, it's all handwavy conjectures with "common sense" evidence and statistical dressing to show correlation. Correlation doesn't even necessarily mean causality. Some of the articles even have *may" in the title, you can be the judge.
Probably an unpopular opinion given the large amount of anecdotal science already posted.
Dust on carpet is bad and particularly if you don't clean it and let stuff grow - we all know that already and we don't need a laser pointer to show kids how scary it is. Just because you can see it doesn't necessarily mean it's worse, and just because you can't see it doesn't necessarily mean it's better.
It's just insanity that everyone is suddenly a scientists with a few anecdotes or links to articles that show correlation but not causality.
"Data from the UK National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory
indicate that particles from brake wear, tyre wear and road surface wear currently constitute
60% and 73% (by mass), respectively, of primary PM2.5 and PM10 emissions from road
transport, and will become more dominant in the future. Currently they contribute 7.4% and
8.5% of all UK primary PM2.5 and PM10 emissions. Therefore to achieve further gains in PM2.5
and PM10 air quality in relation to road transport sources requires attention to reducing non-
exhaust emissions, not solely a focus on lowering exhaust emissions.
The magnitudes of non-exhaust emissions are, however, highly uncertain, particularly when
compared to data for exhaust emissions."
Ah yes, the countryside. Not quite sure how we're going to be housing 7+billion in the countryside.
Doesn't seem like a practical solution. Not in the least because moving the countryside will increase car dependence and pollution. But I guess the view might be nicer in the short term.
I agree that air quality is probably neglected. Mechanical ventilation (with or without heat/enthalpy recovery) with filters seem like a net win in every dwelling. I haven't had to open a window since installing mine. Less pollen, way less mosquitos, and constant fresh air. A lot cheaper in the long term than those gimmicky devices which circulate indoor air and filter out a bit. If it's in your house, you've already inhaled it.
Seems like on of those cases where "what is good for the individual is bad for the whole population if every body follows the advice" I remember seeing this when I took economics but I can't remember how it is called.
The universal principle of Kant's categorical imperative is likely this.
Something like, take actions that were the principles behind them applied to and adopted by all of society, that society would still be one you'd like to live in.
FWIW, I moved outta the city and bought a farm and it's been the best move of my life.
It sounds like you violated the very imperative you mentioned, though. If everyone did what you did, the world would be worse. This doesn't address the problem at hand.
First off, there's not enough land for the world's population to live like that. If everyone tried to do that, there'd actually be more stress because people would be fighting over their precious extra acre.
>Everyone here seems so insanely focused on carbon emissions
Given climate change and what drives it, is it any wonder? Creating some disasters in the future so we can have less stress now isn't a very good tradeoff.
It's like voting--if you know game theory, you know that voting is a waste of your time.
If I spent all my life avoiding "car dependence" at all, much less with the goofy fervor of the virtue-signalling green crew on the internet, I'd have roughly zero impact on climate change.
As it stands, I get to enjoy big ol' diesel trucks and dirtbikes and motorcycles.
Plenty of people don't enjoy these things and are happy sitting on the bus and enjoying things in cities, movie theaters or museums or whatever.
I just have different preferences.
Luckily, my preferences seem rare, so it's no worry.
Also, the biggest driver of climate change is the sun.
Sounds like a prisoner's dilemma, where from an individual perspective it makes sense to make a certain decision, but the same holds true from anyone else's perspective, and when everyone does it you end up in a worse-off situation than if everyone had cooperated.
Having lived in the "countryside" most of my life, it would absolutely increase "car dependence" (and thus pollution) for people to move there. Public transportation simply isn't possible on those scales.
We had maybe a dozen neighbors within a mile of us. Town was 5 miles away. School was in town. We had a nursery next to us, but the next nearest job was in town.
Even if you restricted what you're saying to the actual towns, that town currently has 3000 people in it. It only had 1000 when I lived there.
I just checked, and they do apparently have "public transportation" there now. They recommend that you book it 3 days in advance to make sure there's availability. It's pretty clearly designed for people who can't otherwise get around, but does clearly state that it's available for everyone.
>Having lived in the "countryside" most of my life, it would absolutely increase "car dependence" (and thus pollution) for people to move there. Public transportation simply isn't possible on those scales.
It's also not needed most of the time, and surely not everyday.
Plus, the US model of "countryside" life is not the same as in Europe or elsewhere: e.g. "We had maybe a dozen neighbors within a mile of us. Town was 5 miles away. School was in town. We had a nursery next to us, but the next nearest job was in town."
That's not countryside, that sounds like some a rural desert.
Countryside in most of Europe e.g. is networks of villages, that are more or less autonomous.
> networks of villages, that are more or less autonomous.
Apart from the fact that most people there have to do a big shop once a week at the nearest supermarket, or that all the professionals commute out of the countryside to their urban workplaces?
Only the islands are properly autonomous, and even then that just increases the length of time between supermarket trips.
Yes, they have all three. They have pipes connecting them to the country-wide electrical and phone network, and the regional water system.
Autonomous as in "you don't need to visit some city to get all your basics nor you need a car to go miles away to some Walmart to shop", not as in "they make their own electricy locally".
In that most of the month you just walk around your village, go to your shop, your field, the grocers, the super/mini/medium-market, to neighbors and friends, etc, and don't need a car.
You might use it a few times a month if you need something special, to visit another village or the nearest city, and that's it.
So like 1/20 to 1/50 the car use of the average suburban dweller.
Mechanical ventilation (with or without heat/enthalpy recovery) with filters -- what should one look for when evaluating what to purchase? Do you recommend specific brands?
* Do try to get an HRV/ERV if you live in places where the outside air temperature gets >30C or <10C. Otherwise bring in fresh air will cause issues.
* Make sure your system can handle MERV16 filters: they catch more things, but may create more back pressure, so the system has to be designed to handle it. Further nice-to-have upgrades would be HEPA capabilities, and (if you live in wildfire zones) charcoal filters (for smoke/fire smells). You don't have to (always) use the finer filters, but having that option is useful.
* The filter should ideally be 4"/10cm, as they have more surface area, so reduce back pressure and often only have to be swapped every 6 months (sometimes even every 12). They do cost a bit more because of the extra material, but you get convenience. Don't go less that 2"/5cm though.
* The mentioned Zehnder is a good brand, but AFAICT, are higher end systems, and so may be a bit more pricey:
* Consider getting a separate whole house dehumidifier, depending on your climate: sometimes the indoor air temperature may be comfortable (20-25C), but if the relative humidity (RH) gets too hight (>60%) it will feel hot. But the AC won't run because its thermometer will say everything is fine. Temperature and moisture needs to be dealt with via separate mechanical systems.
>Temperature and moisture needs to be dealt with via separate mechanical systems.
Are there dehumidifiers on the market that aren't air conditioners with a bucket under the condenser coils to collect the water? And if you have a whole-house version of one of those, do you need another whole-house air conditioner?
It's a matter of volume: one of the portable ones could be useful in a small apartment/condo, or (if you close the door) a bedroom. But if you have something that is 1000 sq. ft. / 100 sq. m. or larger, you may need multiple portable units. It may be simpler to just install a fixed unit and patch it into your existing ducts.
There's also the fact that you have to empty the portables, so they may stop at 'random' times until you do so. Not sure about their efficiency, given that have space-volume and weight constraints compared to a fixed whole house unit. Plus you have the noise of the unit running in your living space, compared to having it in your mechanical area.
I don't see how what you just wrote supports your assertion that "temperature and moisture needs to be dealt with via separate mechanical systems" or answers my question, "Are there dehumidifiers on the market that aren't [essentially just] air conditioners?" but you don't have to explain if you don't want to.
Yes, a dehumidifier does work on a similar principal as an air conditioner: there's a cold (metal) surface that causes condensation to remove moisture from air as it passes over.
An AC system would then take the heat that is also removed from the air and send it via a refrigerant loop to some place else (usually an outside device). A dehumidifier simply takes the extracted heat to another coil inside itself and reheats the air to (roughly) the same temperature.
The purpose of a furnace is to put heat into air, of AC to take heat out† (which just so happens to also change the RH), and that of a dehumidifier is to remove moistures while not altering temperature.
If your thermostat already reads (say) 25C, but your RH is 70% (e.g., due to a lot of cooking), then it's going to feel much higher than 25C. So do you crank the AC? You drop the temperature down to 20C, but the RH may still be 60%, and still feels too warm/muggy for you. Do you crank it to 18C? Running the AC, even though the thermostat says things are "fine", can use a lot of energy just so you can feel comfortable. There's a reason why the "humidex" / 'feels like' concept is often mentioned in weather reports: it has both psychological and physiological effects (wet-bulb 35C is a real thing).
Also note that, in winter, even if the temperature and humidity are okay, it may still feel too cold because of mean radiant temperature:
MRT is why people feel a "draft" near windows. There is 'extra stuff' going on the walls and windows and thermal bridging. Do a search for ASHRAE 55 for various factors that go into making a comfortable (indoor) environment:
† AC was actually originally created for humidity control by Willis Carrier specifically for printing, to keep the ink and paper consistent and not runny. Cooling humans was only "discovered" as a use case later.
I opted for Zehnder using a DIY package. If you have basic DIY skills you can install it yourself in a couple of days. Comes with semi-flexible ducting, which is super easy to use. I have fresh air delivered to the living room & bedrooms, and extraction in the kitchen/bathroom/utility room. The unit does heat recovery in winter, which ought to save a bit on the heating bill. It's early days, so we'll see how that goes.
Many electric cars use the motors for regenerative braking instead of the actual breaks. I also have no sources at hand, but I believe brake dust is greatly reduced with electric cars.
Tire wear, well, from what I can tell electric cars seem to chew through tires more quickly due to the weight of the vehicles and the high torque. No sources at hand for this, either…
Even in a PHEV that effect is very noticable. I have a Volvo XC60 T8, 2.2 tonne SUV, and 10k miles in the brake pads are like new. When I had the car serviced recently all pads measured the same thickness as new pads - I'm 100% convinced it's because I just use regenerative breaking all the time, extremely rarely engaging actual brakes. In a car this heavy the pads should be at least half gone after 10k miles, but since they are rarely used they just don't wear out.
>>Tire wear, well, from what I can tell electric cars seem to chew through tires more quickly due to the weight of the vehicles and the high torque.
I think part of it is the incidental result of most electric cars being both very high torque and very high horsepower. Any 400bhp+ car is going to chew threw tyres quickly, and that's what a lot of the big expensive EVs are. I'd like to see if something like the the Leaf or ID3 use tyres anywhere near as quickly - I suspect very much not.
The value priced EVs typically come with narrow low rolling resistance tires that have the kind of friction coefficient that tends to get online comment sections whipped into a frenzy of pearl clutching about safety when poor people buy them for their 20yo ICE cars. It's hard to make a 1 for 1 comparison with the luxury EVs that use soft wide tires to take advantage of all that torque.
Nitpick: Most EVs are pretty low horsepower. You just don't care because you have ~100% of it available at any RPM.
Not as quickly as the Teslas, but my 21K mile LEAF is due for front tires soon. That’s significantly sooner than OE tires on a typical competitive car.
> electric cars seem to chew through tires more quickly due to the weight of the vehicles and the high torque. No sources at hand for this, either…
A Nissan LEAF weighs about the same as a Honda CR-V. Smaller EVs weigh less.
A large-battery EV will weigh more. The Tesla Model S, for example. But not all EVs have large batteries.
As for living near roadways in general, it has an unhealthy effect on "30%-45% of the North American urban population" according to the American Lung Association. [1]
Despite the screeching of many an online commenter ICE vehicles can make similar torque in normal driving situations. Most new cars can roast the tires through the first several gears if the traction control will let you.
I think the difference is that EVs make no extra noise when you step on it so people feel more free to use more of the acceleration capability of the vehicle.
The other difference is that for most modern ice, you get plenty of torque, but only a quarter second after you asked for it due to turbo lag. With an EV, the torque is instant.
> Best personal solution would probably to move to the countryside.
Depends on the country. In Central and Eastern Europe countryside often has worse air quality than cities during winter (because in the cities there's central heating system and co-generation and in the countryside almost each house burns coal for heating).
Not all countryside have clean air. Air from more polluted areas can carry pretty far (like Wildfire smoke, Ozone).
For current air quality levels and maps, you can check AirNow[1] for US and Canada, or IQAir[2] for anywhere in the world.
It fluctuates every day (like today for me it's just under 50 or 'good', but just yesterday it was over 100) so it's better to look at trends. AirCompare EPA[3] can tell you how many poor air quality days over the past several years on a county by county basis, although not every county reports this (and probably generally the more rural counties don't).
Reducing car dependence really ought to be in the top 3 of environmental action points. Clean up energy production, reduce car dependence, start removing CO2 from the atmosphere. There are about 1 BILLION cars in use. It boggles the mind.
This is the big thing hidden behind all projects (renewables, capture, efficiency upgrades) that claim "this is the equivalent of taking 60,000 cars off the road." Think of the savings for health and the environment if we just spent the money trying to get an actual 60,000 cars off the road in the first place.
The country side is not a silver bullet. It has its own set of problems with pesticides and second-order pollution such as ozone which can be higher than in urban areas. And as other have pointed out, moving to the country side does induce significant extra driving.
>>In some countries they're also displacing leaded gasoline which is a double win when it comes to intelligence affects of pollution
Excuse me, but what? Leaded petrol has been phased out almost everywhere in the world, even according to wiki:
"only Algeria, Yemen, and Iraq continue widespread use of leaded gasoline. None use it exclusively".
I doubt any of those countries are seeing significant EV uptake either.
The only potential real connection here is how in some countries where leaded petrol is still legal but extremely rare(UK), and pretty much only ever used by classic car owners and even then rarely due to its extreme cost, maybe some of these cars are getting converted to EV drivetrains and therefore don't actually burn leaded petrol anymore. Maybe. But that will be extremely negligable, and literally a statistical error compared to the amount of leaded fuel still being burnt by the aviation industry.
I have never heard the brake and tire argument, but it sounds like the 'batteries are worse for the environment than gas' argument which is not very accurate.
Makes you wonder if there are companies who benefit from information such as this being believed. Companies such as Shell maybe?
Edit: Not saying it isn't true! Just saying there might be more sides to this.
Tire wear is a matter of friction. Higher weight, higher friction, thus more wear. In this isolated instance, electrical cars are likely to be worse off than regular cars due to generally higher weight. Perhaps this is offset by regenerative breaking systems though. I'm sure you could make that argument on other parts of the EV as well.
Outside of isolated areas like that, I would be seriously surprised if electrical cars comes worse off than gasoline cars on the whole. There has been some talk about CO2 emissions made when making hydro electric dams, for instance, but then there's also CO2 emissions when making oil platforms, and so on, so IMHO those kinds of discussions quickly become very theoretical. Either way, I'm sure EV's are better off in terms of local emissions, meaning that they reduce local smog, and so on.
On the other hand, EV's can very well run on coal, if that's how your local electricity is produced. In that case, how well EV's do environmentally speaking is due to the total effort made by society. For that reason I'd love to see a comparison of gasoline and diesel versus coal. Which one is the cleanest?
AFAIK there are some real issues with the way lithium is mined for the batteries, however, that doesn't strictly involve emissions. So there are many pros and cons in the debate on electric vs gas cars that aren't obvious to the casual on-looker.
I don't have a particular horse in this race myself, but I do note that those who do, tend to offer arguments that are more strongly coloured by their preference.
Personally environmental safety isn't the only deciding factor. There's also such things as cost and reach. And I don't just mean how many miles a car can run on one tank, but also its longevity. On the whole it seems to me that EV's have a higher capital cost (up front cost), that might not make up for the savings you make by running it.
On the whole it seems to me that gasoline cars have far better overall longevity than EV's, with the offset that EV's are cheaper to run, though with slightly more hassle in the "refuelling" department. For me personally, winter cold is an issue, since it severely affects battery capacity. On the other hand, those Teslas do look pretty cool.
> electrical cars are likely to be worse off than regular cars due to generally higher weight.
Given that a Nissan LEAF weighs about the same as a Honda CR-V, and that there are many EVs that have the same weight or are lighter than the Nissan LEAF, I would say that you are considering only a select group of EVs.
Here are some examples of popular electric cars and how much they weigh in order of weight:
Model X Long Range – 2459 kg without passengers or fuel (7 adult capacity).
Tesla Model S Performance – 2241 kg without passengers or cargo (5 adult capacity).
Tesla Model S Long Range – 2215 kg without passengers of cargo (5 adult capacity).
Model 3 Performance and Long Range AWD – 1847 kg without passengers or fuel (5 adult capacity).
Nissan Leaf – 1775 kg without passengers or fuel (5 adult capacity).
Chevrolet Bolt – 1616 kg without passengers or fuel (5 adult capacity).
Opel/Vauxhall Ampera-E – 1611 kg without passengers or fuel (5 adult capacity).
Renault Zoe, 44 kWh – 1480 kg without passengers or fuel (5 adult capacity).
Hyundai Kona – 1399 kg without passengers or fuel (5 adult capacity).
BMW i3 – 1343 kg without passengers or fuel (5 adult capacity).
Based on this, and the upcoming plans of many automakers to launch pickup truck and SUV type EVs, I would say that a significant portion of EVs will be heavier than the average car on the road currently.
The EV market is about 2% of car sales in the US. I doubt that we would be right to predict double-digit growth happening suddenly.
A Ford F150 (the most popular pick-up truck) weighs about the same as the Tesla Model 3. The top-selling vehicles in the US are all pick-up trucks.
The Toyota Camry (a popular sedan) weighs about the same as the Nissan LEAF. The Prius Prime is also in this weight range.
A Honda Fit (a popular small car) weight about the same as a Smart EQ. Small cars are not what US consumers are choosing.
Your argument is a hypothetical projection of Tesla-class EVs into a very large market-share. In reality, consumers are choosing larger, heavier ICE vehicles.
Your argument proves my point. The customers that are currently choosing larger, heavier ICE vehicles will choose the same form factor of EV when given the option, and that F150 which currently weighs the same as a Tesla Model 3 will add on however many hundreds of pounds a battery pack weighs. Same goes for the Camry, it weighs the same as a LEAF (a much smaller car) now, but when you add the battery pack in the bottom, now it weighs the same as a Model S.
I see, you imagine the current ICE-Vs with batteries. But US consumers want large vehicles and ICE-comparable range.
Very large EV batteries are expensive. Your conjecture may hold if the cost of Tesla-sized batteries becomes much cheaper (approximately half the current 2021 cost).
EVs are likely to remain a small market in the US. Hybrids make more sense for cost and range. In Europe, the EV market is growing rapidly. Although some people can afford the Tesla, small EVs are popular in Europe. And the small EVs are not especially heavy vehicles, as the data show.
* Weight of the average Small family car (C) (same class as the Nissan Leaf): 1,365 kg ^[1]
* Weight of the Nissan Leaf: 1,560 kg ^[2]
Difference: 1,560-1,365 = 195 kg.
So about two washing machines in difference... :) And that's by giving you credit by comparing the heaviest average within the same car class. The lightest one yields a three washing machine diff.
I think we differ in our perception of "small" and "mid-size" car.
But even so, 195 kg is the weight of a driver and passenger. If we consider this to be a decisive factor in pollution, we had better also consider the obesity epidemic as a factor in tire wear. ^_^
One possible explanation is that I live in a different market. In any case, the weight comparisons are the real data to use. The Nissan LEAF is heavier than some cars, but much lighter than the most popular ICE-V choices being made by consumers.
Our two cars are a 2015 LEAF and a 2005 CR-V. These aren’t directly competitive cars IMO. The CR-V has much more interior and cargo space, obviously longer range, and better winter road performance.
The LEAF is more directly comparable to a Nissan Versa in size and capability (3500# vs 2500# curb weight).
> I have never heard the brake and tire argument, but it sounds like the 'batteries are worse for the environment than gas' argument which is not very accurate.
It's not quite the same thing as "the long tailpipe fallacy".
Electric cars are great, but let's be clear about what issues they will solve, and which they will not. They will produce _less_ particulate matter pollution due to not having an Internal Combustion Engine, but will not eliminate all sources of particulate matter pollution.
Or even come close - the last link above estimates 60% is "Non-exhaust emissions" from "brake wear, tyre wear, road surface wear and resuspension of road dust"
It's not a showstopper, because the environmental argument for EVs is CO2 and climate change rather than PM2.5 and air quality. But it's worth bearing in mind that they only solve the former.
>>But it's worth bearing in mind that they only solve the former.
That's....almost categorically not true, the PM2.5 emissions should be solved with in ICE cars with inclusion of DPF and GPF filters, but there is plenty of cars without those still on the road. A taxi driver sitting outside of my house at night in his 10 year old Skoda Octavia diesel is definitely contributing to the air pollution around me, and that wouldn't be a problem if he drove an EV or a modern diesel with all the filters functional - but the economics of taxi driving mean they almost always drive crappy old cars which pollute a lot.
> the PM2.5 emissions should be solved with in ICE cars with inclusion of DPF and GPF filters
Unless they filter the tyres, this will not be "solved".
"Non-exhaust emissions (NEE) .. are currently believed to constitute the majority of primary particulate matter from road transport, 60 percent of PM2.5 and 73 percent of PM10"
I can't find it but I did recall there was some rule in France or some Scandinavian country that banned early childhood centres away from within certain distances to highways and a like
How can it not be causality when it's a double-blind intervention? This isn't an epidemiological study that is merely observing correlations in the wild.
> How can it not be causality when it's a double-blind intervention?
The design of the study looks solid and results are certainly statistically significant. With N=24 and the limitations quoted below, I think it's fair to take these results with a grain of skepticism.
But on balance, I found the criticism in GP's comment to be a little over the top.
- "By testing on subsequent days, it is possible that effects from one condition were reflected in the scores obtained on the next day."
- "The environmental factors that were not experimentally modified exhibited some variability owing to changes in outdoor conditions and participant behavior."
- "This study used a controlled environment to individually control certain contaminants. Assessments performed in actual office environments are important to confirm the findings in a noncontrolled setting."
It's not just N=24 because those same participants took 9 independent tests which generates more data. Also, the p-value should be considered along with the N, since the sampling variance of the test statistic will go up with a small N and this is accounted for in the test thresholds, which somewhat offsets that limitation.
But, a larger N and replication studies are needed.
> I'm all for cleaner air and I don't doubt that the already well-established negative effects of high CO2 or VOC concentrations on us, but can we at least keep any discussion to non-anecdotal, strong scientific evidence?
They're so well established that there are industry guidelines, ASHRAE 62.1 and 62.2:
Pull/return air from places like bathrooms and kitchens, and supply air to (e.g.) bedrooms, and in between temper the filtered, fresh air you bring in from the outside with an HRV/ERV:
I agree with your point that this article does use a lot anecdotes and not enough strong evidence to back up the terrifying conclusions it suggests and throws around "may" quite a bit.
I will say though, that similar to investigations on microplastics exposure and health impacts, it can be prohibitively difficult to really have "rigorous statistics" or fully control in studies when it's become so ubiquitous in nearly every environment and when the exact types of pollutants people are exposed to can be very hard to quantify. For any of the more complex compounds it will be very hard to discern what aspect of it causes what exact health outcomes. For example, with microplastics its nearly impossible to find any population without exposure to or detectable amounts of microplastics in their bodies, meaning fully controlling for it in the stats is not possible. The types of plastics people are exposed to can also be very difficult to quantify meaningfully as they don't all accumulate in our tissues and as a result it can be difficult to quantity the actual exposures people have to what pollutants, short of some very unethical experiment designs.
Yes, and maybe we should start doing the science before we make stuff ubiquitous in our environments, rather than trying to figure stuff out after the fact. Leaded gasoline is an example where it took us a long time to understand the effects, and we'll never really be able to quantify the damage caused. And the data you get later from phasing something out at a systemic level gives you only a kind of crude single crossover result, with lots of potential confounding variables. Why did crime in the US decrease in the 90s? We can't be sure.
I'm not saying microplastics are like lead of course. Just that in some cases, we're pretty sure we've caused a lot of damage by filling our environment without sufficient advance consideration.
Yeah it's a really tough problem with no clear answers.
Microplastics and other pollutants with potential long-acting health impacts are very hard to predict far in advance. Strong evidence for or against any adverse health effects would take considerable effort to gather while in the mean time they offers such clear advantages and solve so many problems. Plastics have massively reduced costs in almost every industry and have become almost irreplaceable in some applications such as medical equipment (think packaging for syringes, surgical tools, or anything that requires contamination control).
With lead there were viable cost-effective alternatives, it wasn't in nearly every product we consume, and we already had pretty clear evidence that its highly toxic so the only evidence needed was to show that the low levels being used in gasoline, while not acutely toxic, could be harmful given enough exposure to it over time.
I doubt anyone working on plastics early on anticipated microplastics would end up in nearly all of our food, living spaces, and even build up in our bodies. By the time there would be any alarm bells sounding, it would've been too late, the sheer number and ways it solves problems makes it far too difficult to retreat from when, due to the nature of how its potential effects could arise, wouldn't give any strong evidence that its harmful.
Outside of plastics many air pollutants are similar in that manner. The processes that release them are so convenient and solve so many problems, while any health effects would be long-term and extremely difficult to gather strong evidence for.
There are also many more legitimate studies (and decades of experience) showing that submarine crews working at an order of magnitude or more of CO2 concentrations experience no cognitive effects.
It’s very likely the study you linked is flawed or there is a confounder.
Having worked in filtration, aerosols and the built environment - this has been known for years, the challenge was creating broader understanding of the value of better iaq.
I agree, there is a lot of already well-established knowledge on the topic. I'd also argue though that a lot of ordinary people probably don't know much about the importance of air quality in the home. I never thought about it until I had a house. I suspected something in it was making me a little ill and so I looked into it and bought an air quality testing device. The illness went away so I don't think it was sick building syndrome (unless me using all the water outlets in the house again helped make it go away), but I did find that in my basement, CO2 tends to build up quite a bit. I never knew that this was something that could happen, and that I should open the windows once in a while. So maybe articles like this might raise awareness?
> already well-established negative effects of high CO2 or VOC concentrations on us
I don't know about this. Research is mixed and the US military has tested supposed mental impairment at higher levels of CO2 in sailors inside submarines and found nothing suggesting CO2 levels can effect noticeable cognitive performance.
There are studies on AQ and classroom performance[1][2] that seem to arrive at similar conclusions. Obviously there can be conflicts of interest if the backers manufacture air filters, but I don't see any disclaimers on those, at least.
As my family of 5 wakes up, the CO2 comes down with them as their bedroom doors open (CO2 is heavier than air), and the CO2 level spikes downstairs - and can take a couple hours after opening the windows and doors to get down to the outside baseline CO2 level of about 420 ppm.
Here is a visualization where I did not open the windows right away, and had to close again due to the heat: https://i.imgur.com/1alDAfB.png
On summer days, my servers don't love the heat and humidity of outside air, otherwise I've learned to keep the windows open all day. I do seem to notice a difference in how I feel if the level goes over 1000ppm, but that's really hard to quantify.
Yes, unfortunately houseplants don't do much for air quality[1]. But they do look nice, and they can be satisfying to take care of (unless you kill them, that is).
I lived with some roommates for a year in a big house covered in carpet and we never vacuumed, not once. One of them allegedly had asthma too. We were all fine and I couldn't tell the difference between that place and a vacuumed place. It validated my lifelong supposition that vacuuming is truly a waste of time, a bizarre cultural neurosis we would all be better off without.
I can assure you, as an allergy sufferer, that vacuuming makes a huge difference in my well-being. Dust and pollen build up and make me miserable. Carpet is tougher to clean, and we're having wood floors installed in part to make cleaning easier.
I'm all for cleaner air and I don't doubt that the already well-established negative effects of high CO2 or VOC concentrations on us, but can we at least keep any discussion to non-anecdotal, strong scientific evidence? None the articles linked both here show any rigorous statistics that pinpoint cause and effects, it's all handwavy conjectures with "common sense" evidence and statistical dressing to show correlation. Correlation doesn't even necessarily mean causality. Some of the articles even have *may" in the title, you can be the judge.
Probably an unpopular opinion given the large amount of anecdotal science already posted.
Dust on carpet is bad and particularly if you don't clean it and let stuff grow - we all know that already and we don't need a laser pointer to show kids how scary it is. Just because you can see it doesn't necessarily mean it's worse, and just because you can't see it doesn't necessarily mean it's better.
It's just insanity that everyone is suddenly a scientists with a few anecdotes or links to articles that show correlation but not causality.