... what's in the air?

[thwart]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/06/well/move/on-your-bike-watch-out-for-the-air.html

Pertinent stuff for any urban cyclist.

A friend, avid cyclist for most of his life, died in his early 70's of lung cancer... and had never smoked.

[R3awak3n]

what a sad world we live in. Can't even get out on a bike and go to work without worrying about crap like this.

there were studies like this before, I believe in England and they still say its better to get the exercise. But how long will that be the truth?

[AngryScientist]

i didnt read the article yet, and i will, but will note that things are definitely improving since the advent of widespread (mandated) use of diesel particulate filters for diesel engines and discontinuation of asbestos brake pads. those were two big hitters in the "stuff you dont want to breathe in" category.

without making any political remarks, this is why it is terribly short sited and makes me crazy that the current administration would consider rolling back the air quality standards that we had and have been striving for. the more efficiently we produce power, and the more efficient we make automobile traffic, the better the air will get for all of us. IMO, we NEED to continue to set hard goals, and strive to make cleaner power and transportation.

it would be terrible if NYC ends up like some of the dirtier cities where everyone is wearing masks on the streets and told to stay indoors on the worst pollution days.

[Cicli]

i didnt read the article yet, and i will, but will note that things are definitely improving since the advent of widespread (mandated) use of diesel particulate filters for diesel engines and discontinuation of asbestos brake pads. those were two big hitters in the "stuff you dont want to breathe in" category.

without making any political remarks, this is why it is terribly short sited and makes me crazy that the current administration would consider rolling back the air quality standards that we had and have been striving for. the more efficiently we produce power, and the more efficient we make automobile traffic, the better the air will get for all of us. IMO, we NEED to continue to set hard goals, and strive to make cleaner power and transportation.

it would be terrible if NYC ends up like some of the dirtier cities where everyone is wearing masks on the streets and told to stay indoors on the worst pollution days.

I am in the transportation industry. These mandates are adding costs to vehicles and driving people out of business.
I agree, we need clean air. My business makes a ton of money cleaning diesel exhaust aftertreatment systems. The average bill to service it is 1200.00. Replacement is 7000.00 if it cant be cleaned. This drives up the cost of everything. Some people cant pay the bills and get out of the business. Transportation costs go up. People lose their businesses. In response, the older equipment is being rebuilt and put back on the road. It costs less per mile to operate. Still pollutes. California wont let these vehicles in and now they cant move freight. Nobody wins.

[Kirk007]

I am in the transportation industry. These mandates are adding costs to vehicles and driving people out of business.
I agree, we need clean air. My business makes a ton of money cleaning diesel exhaust aftertreatment systems. The average bill to service it is 1200.00. Replacement is 7000.00 if it cant be cleaned. This drives up the cost of everything. Some people cant pay the bills and get out of the business. Transportation costs go up. People lose their businesses. In response, the older equipment is being rebuilt and put back on the road. It costs less per mile to operate. Still pollutes. California wont let these vehicles in and now they cant move freight. Nobody wins.

And here's the crux of it. Ever since the Industrial Revolution businesses have been profitable because they have been able to externalize the true costs of doing business by dumping their waste - in the ground, air and water - into the public domain. At the public's detriment. Yet business interests even today continue to allow and even promote this practice, effectively subsidized by all of us - both our tax dollars and with our health - all the while business interests like the Chambers of Commerce and a certain poltical party continue to champion the rugged, standing on their own two feet unaided businessperson while demeaning the "renters' and nonproducers who receive federal assistance (or course overlooking all the federal assistance most businesses, particularly those that pollute the most, recieve in direct federal subsidies or tax brakes.

Our system is fundamentally flawed and we all pay in the most dear way possible, with our health and lives. And while I lay more of the blame here on a certain political side, lets face it, the problem is all of us - we all want a bargain, we all look after our own interests at the expense of others - flawed human nature.

[AngryScientist]

I am in the transportation industry. These mandates are adding costs to vehicles and driving people out of business.
I agree, we need clean air. My business makes a ton of money cleaning diesel exhaust aftertreatment systems. The average bill to service it is 1200.00. Replacement is 7000.00 if it cant be cleaned. This drives up the cost of everything. Some people cant pay the bills and get out of the business. Transportation costs go up. People lose their businesses. In response, the older equipment is being rebuilt and put back on the road. It costs less per mile to operate. Still pollutes. California wont let these vehicles in and now they cant move freight. Nobody wins.

i do see that side of the coin, but it's my opinion that it's more important to make strides towards cleaner air, especially in densely populated areas than to allow people to stay in business with lower operating costs and more polluting equipment. it's simply the cost of doing business, and (again, IMO), if you cant afford the equipment to operate a clean burning engine then you cant afford to be in the business.

it's no different than some OSHA mandates. if you cant afford to work safely, and purchase all the appropriate safety equipment for your employees, like fall protection harnesses, barricades, scaffolding toe boards, etc etc - you cant afford to be in business. 25 years ago, being a construction worker in NYC was a much more dangerous job than it is today because of these rules.

we should be leading the charge for cleaner air and environmental protection. what's more important than the air we breathe?

[pjbaz]

without making any political remarks, this is why it is terribly short sited and makes me crazy that the current administration would consider rolling back the air quality standards that we had and have been striving for. the more efficiently we produce power, and the more efficient we make automobile traffic, the better the air will get for all of us. IMO, we NEED to continue to set hard goals, and strive to make cleaner power and transportation.

That is a political remark ...

As for the crap we breathe, my father had lymphoma in a lung about 6-8 years ago (surgery fixed that!) and was never a smoker, etc. He also wasn't a runner or cyclist, but like many spent a lot of time outside. No idea how or why it happened ...

[fuzzalow]

I Brompton all over the city, here using Brompton both as a vehicle and a verb.

Although I don't have to cross bridges and am free from the pollution risk in the bridge plazas and approach ramps, most of my commute is right through the worst traffic density and gridlock in midtown. It can feel dirty just moving through the air. In the still stagnant summer air it is a presence that can be felt as well as the residue adhered to on the skin afterwards.

Nuthin' I can do about it except not ride. Two things help:
Being in better fitness makes it unnecessary to RPE higher at normal commute speed or terrain and
slow down in gridlock - the first time you get doored by a taxi passenger bailing out of gridlock in frustration makes it sensible to slow down.

Honestly fellas, taking a position that the rest of the world or society has to, in effect, subsidize any business that needs not meet pollutant and emissions requirements because it reduces that business's cost is sheer stupidity and immoral. Really and truly, the business wants profit and I desire cleaner environment but his challenges to his profitability are none on my concern - I don't GAS. A business that can't cover its costs needs to figure out how to boost its margins but not at my expense. The general public didn't all decide to help this business owner make a better buck.

[CNY rider]

I am in the transportation industry. These mandates are adding costs to vehicles and driving people out of business.
I agree, we need clean air. My business makes a ton of money cleaning diesel exhaust aftertreatment systems. The average bill to service it is 1200.00. Replacement is 7000.00 if it cant be cleaned. This drives up the cost of everything. Some people cant pay the bills and get out of the business. Transportation costs go up. People lose their businesses. In response, the older equipment is being rebuilt and put back on the road. It costs less per mile to operate. Still pollutes. California wont let these vehicles in and now they cant move freight. Nobody wins.

I think we've heard this before, ad nauseum.
In 1966, Henry Ford II famously argued that implementation of federal safety requirements for automobiles (including lap and shoulder seat belts) would force his eponymous company to “close down.” (3)

Chrysler Vice President of Engineering Alan Loofburrow gazed into his crystal ball before a U.S. Senate subcommittee in 1974 and saw an even blacker picture. Fuel economy standards, Loofburrow predicted, might “...outlaw a number of engine lines and car models including most full-size sedans and station wagons. It would restrict the industry to producing subcompact size cars—or even smaller ones—within five years.” (7)

From this article: http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/fuel-efficiency/life-in-the-slow-lane#.WWDxOBQy5FQ

[1centaur]

Neither "side" can afford not to GAS about the externalities. Pollution is an externality of business (any human activity other than mere existence, really) and GDP-reduction is an externality of a cleaner environment. Lower economic activity means less money to pay for most of the things society values. While there may be win-wins (cleaner environment-better GDP; though the environment is hurt by solar cell and windmill production too), there are not enough of them to wave off GDP concerns as "somebody wants to get rich on my back." So common sense compromise is the ideal to pursue, and there is rarely agreement on "common" because both "sides" want to push their agenda farther and neither side trusts or believes the other, thinking the other side is clueless and selfish. I doubt we could get society to agree that economic growth is required (for reasons even beyond societal welfare, including defense) and that we should strive together for the cleanest way to achieve that growth.

[Tony T]

…without making any political remarks…

:)

[R3awak3n]

There are way too many cars in NYC, specially cabs. Every other car is an UBER now. It is hard to say what can be done to reduce polution in a big city but something needs to be done or it will get a lot worst.

I read somewhere (it was a facebook article so ymmv) that france wanted to stop selling gas and diesel cars by 2040

[thwart]

GDP-reduction is an externality of a cleaner environment

Not sure I agree completely with that assumption... but I'm not an economist... maintaining our environment needs to be done wisely with trade-offs in mind.

At any rate, I posted the article for informational purposes, not to start a political discussion.

[ftf]

GDP-reduction is an externality of a cleaner environment.

Depends if you are the country buying the new greener technology from someone else, or the leader selling the new greener technology to everyone else.

[fuzzalow]

GDP-reduction is an externality of a cleaner environment.

This is conjecture. On balance, there is no way to know the added cost of cleaning up dirty fuel or cleaning up dirty by-products across various industries is not offset by GDP growth in extraction, usage, gains to efficiency and operating margins incurred through burning cleaner sources of fuel or optimizations for ongoing advancements in industrial processes.

It is incorrect to say that mandates towards cleaner environment imposes immediate & damaging costs to an industry as new standards are, and have been, phased-in over time. For example the CAFE automobile standard has been in use & effect since 1978 under various levels of average fleet MPG stringency. You portray industries you favor as being singled out for injurious regulation without also acknowledging that markets and technology move against, injure and obsolete outmoded industries too. For example, there is no force that can change the downward curve of coal relative to other sources of fuel when balancing for all other attributes except beyond price.

While there may be win-wins (cleaner environment-better GDP; though the environment is hurt by solar cell and windmill production too), there are not enough of them to wave off GDP concerns as "somebody wants to get rich on my back." So common sense compromise is the ideal to pursue, and there is rarely agreement on "common" because both "sides" want to push their agenda farther and neither side trusts or believes the other, thinking the other side is clueless and selfish.

I don't discuss policy topics like this in the kind of terms you employ here and I never said or inferred these sentiments. My not GAS was a an expression as metaphor to the truth and cruelty of the free market at work and its effects on industries out of step to current global market demands. The free market most certainly does not GAS.

[unterhausen]

we subsidize trucking wildly beyond what we should. I have had trucks bring things to my house that were full-size semis with almost no load. Our roads are built to a standard only required by trucks. They do virtually all the damage to roads. Making it so trucks are safer and don't pollute so much is a fair cost on the industry. Other people that can run their businesses properly are going to take up the slack. If that doesn't work, prices will go up. If they paid their fair share in taxes, I'm sure shipping prices would go up. I guarantee you that I'm already paying these prices in my taxes.

The treatment of cancer and other pollution caused diseases is in the GDP. So is the cost of the pollution control devices. All sorts of negative things are in the GDP.

[bikinchris]

Depends if you are the country buying the new greener technology from someone else, or the leader selling the new greener technology to everyone else.

Exactly. The leader and holder of patents in green tech will be the winner. Bigly. There is no reason why the US shouldn'the be that leader. Jimmy Carter called for that to happen and was laughed at.

France is well placed to try to eliminate fuel burning, since they have so much nuclear generated electricity.

Back on track, there was a photo of a billboard I saw in northern Europe once that claimed car exhaust killed 4 people for each person killed by crashes. I have never been able to find that study.