On 30/01/2020 10:23, wrote:
On Wed, 29 Jan 2020 20:09:06 -0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
wrote:
On Wed, 29 Jan 2020 16:02:19 +0000
Peter Able wrote:
On 27/01/2020 11:26, Recliner wrote:


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d...-more-than-car

-crashes-x09pp52s3?shareToken=1d8301dddec30b9b2a47e85a2ecdb 7d5



Ironic that the article associates particulates with cars when,
nationally, the greater risk will probably be from wood-burning.

PA

It would be interesting to see what the quality of air in a city street and
inside your average hut/house anytime from the neolithic to the 1950s before

the clean air act. I suspect today we're breathing cleaner air than anyone
has
for a few thousand years. And imagine a house before electricity or gas
heated by a wood or coal burning hearth and lit by candles.

Particulates would have been much worse then, but what about NOx?

Don't know. Are wood and coal fires hot enough to create it? I suspect coal
fires would have released a lot of SO2 though which arguably is worse.

Lots more people seem to get asthma these days.

Indeed, and I'm one of them though not badly. Wish I knew what caused it but
its not city pollution as I get it just as much in the middle of the
countryside.


I'm not sure that it worth speculating about the past. The point you've
both missed is lifespan and lifestyle. In the days of candles, those
who made it through all of the childhood pestilences - therefore the
selected, tough ones - would die before they got to ages we would feel
cheated to die at.

The challenge is to try to set today's agenda. Politicians are so
ignorant and easily conned when it comes to science. Look at the
vacillation about diesel; the gross misunderstanding of the
environmental and health issues surrounding the burning of biomass; the
mixed messages and lack of leadership surrounding wood-burning -
particularly domestic wood-burning.

As for Boltar's asthma - you need to move to the coast - that's the only
place to go to depress it.

PA