Fossil Fuel Burning Poses Threat To Health of 1.6 Billion People, Data Shows

Fossil fuel burning is not just damaging the world's climate; it is also threatening the health of at least 1.6 billion people through the toxic pollutants it produces, data shows. From a report: Carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from fossil fuel burning, does not directly damage health, but leads to global heating. However, coal and oil burning for power generation, and the burning of fossil fuels in industrial facilities, pollute the air with particulate matter called PM2.5, which has serious health impacts when breathed in.

A new interactive map from Climate Trace, a coalition of academics and analysts that tracks pollution and greenhouse gases, shows that PM2.5 and other toxins are being poured into the air near the homes of about 1.6 billion people. Of these, about 900 million are in the path of "super-emitting" industrial facilities -- including power plants, refineries, ports and mines -- that deliver outsize doses of toxic air.

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[Valgrus Thunderaxe]

That and eliminating meat consumption.

Re:Welp

[Powercntrl]

That and eliminating meat consumption.

I'll meet you halfway on this - I'm gonna drive my EV to the store to get some meat.

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[atomicalgebra]

And more nuclear power as well!

Yeah but oil execs need more subsidies

[locater16]

To buy bigger yachts, so they can avoid the shore during the wildfires. Once you're dead you won't miss those tax dollars anyway!

Re:Yeah but oil execs need more subsidies

[ndsurvivor]

There is a way to eliminate fossil fuels. One simple way is to re-define what the economy is, to re-define GDP. We don't have to live in a hyper energy economy, spending 2-5 hours a day in a car, it is our choice. Walking to work, walking to the supermarket, and walking home is not a bad lifestyle. I live it.

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[Powercntrl]

Walking to work, walking to the supermarket, and walking home is not a bad lifestyle. I live it.

You know what grocery store is sort-of within walking distance of where I live? Walmart.
You know what jobs are sort-of within walking distance of where I live? Fast food joints, and also, obviously, Walmart again.

So no, that doesn't work for me.

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[ndsurvivor]

I understand that it takes a re-thinking of the values that our society holds dear. I just got back from the store. While I was walking I was wondering why people would want to sit for 2 to 4 hours in a car a day? One random thought I had is that people inherently want power, and driving a car makes them feel powerful. Many turn into "internet trolls" too, because they are anons, they honk their horns, and yell profanities at strangers. It seems like everything is a choice. We could choose to plan

Re:Yeah but oil execs need more subsidies

[shilly]

Americans used to be able to imagine change. Once upon a time, they invented the future. Now Americans like you are completely stuck, incapable of conceiving that it's possible to structure your governance and economy to be something other than ruinously shitty and destructive. It pervades absolutely everything, from mass murder of children to how your roads are laid out to your use of magnetic stripe credit cards to the chemicals in your food. It's even in how your hotels and restaurants charge for things. You are just stuck in this antiquated, shitty version of the way things are, hurting yourselves, hurting us, hurting everything. It's truly awful to watch

Re:Yeah but oil execs need more subsidies

[jacks smirking reven]

Absolute bad faith, nobody expects them to just go away but you change their incentives and they will either adapt or wither away, we all love capitalism around here right? Adapt or die like anything else, regulations are part of business.

Just keep expanding the nonfossil options, continue supporting battery and EVs, the tech marches forward. Nobody is taking your meat away. Id say that what would happen is meat goes up in price since the cost of it's pollution gets factored in but he'll, look at the cost of beef now it'd be less than that.

So what's new?

[devslash0]

What's the actual "news" here? We've known this for years. Common knowledge.

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[larryjoe]

What's the actual "news" here? We've known this for years. Common knowledge.

Yep, the link between air pollution and health has been known for a while. However, with the current US administration, accepting obvious scientific truths is no longer a given.

Maybe the more surprising related recent news story is that wildfires [slashdot.org] are expected to become the most costly climate-related health hazard.

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[93 Escort Wagon]

What's the actual "news" here? We've known this for years. Common knowledge.

Well, it's certainly news in contrast to Trump's rambling speech yesterday in front of the UN General Assembly.

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[AmiMoJo]

Useful new research that can be used in lawsuits over air quality.

And water is wet

[PPH]

coal and oil burning for power generation

It's been known for quite some time that scrubbing coal and oil (specifically bunker oil) combustion products of particulates isn't economically viable. That's why we switched to natural gas in many cases. Much less stuff to scrub.

Save the crude oil for lighter fractions of lubricating and fuel products, fertilizer, drugs and other petrochemical products.

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[AmiMoJo]

This is about more than just soot though. PM2.5 is emitted by many other things, e.g. nuclear plants.

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[burtosis]

This is about more than just soot though. PM2.5 is emitted by many other things, e.g. nuclear plants.

Wildfires provide the vast majority of PM2.5 and other sized particulates to my entire state. The skies turn brown and visibility can drop to 100 yards making travel at highway speeds dangerous, one day this year it was so bad my city became the most polluted PM2.5 city on the planet despite having very low other sources. Canada isn’t going to run out of forests to burn anytime soon, and the weather is only getting warmer while precipitation is more sporadic.

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[AmiMoJo]

Which state is that?

For the UK it's mostly industrial operations, domestic, and pollution from vehicles: https://laqm.defra.gov.uk/faqs... [defra.gov.uk]

Domestic is harder to do anything about, but the other two can be addressed.

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[burtosis]

Minnesota. You probably aren’t located near vast forests, whereas in Ontario and Manitoba you can fit in entire European countries in areas that at most have a few hundred year around residents and the rest is forest. Here [firesmoke.ca] you can see the plumes of PM2.5 particulate from the fires.

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[burtosis]

Also, according to your link, half [defra.gov.uk] of the PM2.5 comes from natural sources (just as harmful, it’s the particles not the source that’s the problem)

“ Around half of the concentrations of PM that people in the UK are exposed to come from either naturally occurring sources, such as pollen and sea spray, or are transported to the UK from international shipping and other countries.”

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[AmiMoJo]

What page are you looking at? Page 25 seems to suggest that natural sources are a small proportion, much less than half.

The phrase you quoted is not in the PDF when I ctrl-F for it.

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[burtosis]

The phrase is in the original link you provided and sources information from the link I provided as a source. Looking at the data, if you average 25 over two years you are considered the most polluted cities in Europe, but if you look at the plume map I showed you whole regions the size of small European countries are blanket with up to 250+ temporarily. It’s pretty clear wildfire smoke, if you are downwind, far outstrips man made pollution by a factor of at least 10+ although much of it can be attr

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[PPH]

The subject says fossil fuel burning. If you want to extend this to all PM2.5 then you run into the tragedy of overly sensitive measurements. Now you need to measure everything to decide what to deal with: nuclear plants, farts on a bus, fentanyl smoke from the hobos on the street corner, etc.

Unless you are suggesting that we pre-select sources from a list of things you don't like. Well, I don't like your after shave.

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[Anonymous Coward]

it compares very poorly. all those other things are much cleaner and better for the environment

But it does damage health...

[ShadowRangerRIT]

Umm, carbon dioxide does in fact damage health directly. No, it's not doing anything to us right now outdoors, but indoor levels of CO2, especially with large numbers of people in a poorly ventilated area are substantially higher than outdoor levels. A higher baseline outdoor CO2 makes those indoor levels rise even higher. Health effects begin at around 1000 ppm, which we regularly hit already indoors, and which we could hit outdoors in urban areas by the end of the century. [nature.com] It begins with reduced higher-level cognitive function while exposed to the higher levels (read: we get dumber and dumber as levels rise), and chronic exposure weakens bones, forms kidney stones, and damages the circulatory system (more cardiac arrest, more strokes, etc.). It's why solar radiation management isn't sufficient to solve the problem; if we cool the planet without reducing CO2 levels themselves, we'll all get dumber and sicker no matter how much we do to restore pre-industrial temperatures.

And where in the world....?

[Budenny]

The story omits to say where in the world these unfortunate 1.5 billion people are living. So I asked Grok, as you do:

Do you have a list of the leading particulate emission countries, by amount emitted? And where do the people most exposed to particulate emissions live, also by country?

Leading Countries by Particulate Emissions (PM2.5)

Particulate emissions typically refer to the total amount of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) released into the atmosphere from sources like industrial activities, vehicle exh

Department of the obvious...

[polyp2000]

Another study from the department of the fucking obvious stating something we already know/.
This cost time and money and more importantly action ( lack of )

wood is better

[groobly]

Just burn wood, or cow poo-poo.

Just more agenda driven drivel

[BoB235423424]

And how many lives has it improved and extended. Everything has trade offs.

I have no problems moving on to something better. But it's not going to happen overnight. The doomsayers that want nothing less than the complete destruction of the petro industry tomorrow will keep spreading their fear. Life and civilization will continue despite us burning stuff to keep modern quality of life moving along.