Fossil Fuels Aren't Just Bad for the Climate, They're Bad for Your Health, Too

We've long known that pollution from the burning of gasoline is detrimental to human health as it contributes to an increase in respiratory and other illnesses. Fracking has been linked to asthma, as well.

Asthma sufferers who live near wells in which hydraulic fracturing is used to extract natural gas are up to four times more likely to have an asthma attack than those who live farther away, according to new research from the Johns Hopkins University.

The findings are the latest in a string of studies that have linked health problems to proximity to such wells, and come as Maryland prepares to lift a moratorium next year and issue permits for the controversial method of extraction known as "fracking."

Now there is a new study that links increased burning of coal for generating electrical power in the states of Tennessee and Alabama led to lowered birth weights in infants during the mid-1980s after a nuclear power plant was shut down, and coal was used to replace the loss of energy generation.

...Carnegie Mellon assistant professor of economics and public policy Edson Severnini says those closures may have caused reduced birth weight in children in the area at the time, due to pollution exposure from the increased reliance on coal-burning power plants. The sudden removal of nuclear power, which doesn’t emit any greenhouse gases, led to a ramp-up in the amount of power being provided by nearby coal plants, Severnini wrote. That led to increases in particle pollution in areas adjacent to coal power plants, measured by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in total suspended particulates (TSP). [...]

... Looking at data from 1983 to 1985, before the nuclear plant shut down, ... showed that the largest change in birth weight occurred after the shutdown.

“That said, it appears that babies born in the first quarter after the shutdown were not affected at all,” Severnini writes. “From the second quarter onwards, however, infants born in areas with highly increased power generation and TSP induced by the shutdown were born with lower birth weight relative to the control group. Furthermore, the effect increased with exposure to additional pollution until leveling off. It was 97g for infants born in the second quarter after the shutdown, 146g in the third quarter, and of similar magnitude thereafter.”

The paper’s results are in line with other studies done on air pollution and birth weight. Notably, researchers found that in Beijing, babies whose mothers had their eighth month during the 2008 Olympics and Paralympics were on average 23 grams heavier than babies born the year before or after. This coincided with a national push to reduce air pollution in preparation for the global games, with the government taking cars off roads, closing factories, and “even [banning] outdoor spray-painting,” according to Science News.

Climate denialists can argue deceitfully all they want that there is no proof of any impact on our climate resulting from humananity's fossil fuel emissions which put gigatons of CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each year. We know that our climate is radically changing at an ever increasing rate, creating dangerous consequences in the short term from extreme weather events, including to our food supply, and in the long term regarding the survival of human populations and all species on earth. However, that is far from the only danger to human life for which our dependence on fossil fuels, an outdated technology, is responsible. "Scientists estimate" more than that 200,000 people in India and China "die prematurely each year" thanks to the burning of coal. How many die from fossil fuel emissions world-wide is unknown, but the continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels it is clearly dangerous to human health.

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in which thousands died within a short period. In Pittsburgh, PA, in the early part of the 20th century, there were "black days" and even major league baseball games got canceled. I thought it was common knowledge that these fuel sources can be toxic.

That said, we should be thankful for this report because it reinforces that imperative that we have to "keep it in the ground."

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

Getting hard to find the various studies done showing increases in heart and lung disease which were quite prevalent some years ago... bad gateways...

This doesn't copy well, but you get the idea...

https://www.healthandenvironment.org/uploads/docs/Hrickoslides071014.pdf

Near Roadway Air Pollution (NRAP)
Special concerns near busy roads,
highways and “hot spots”
(marine ports, freeways, rail yards, warehouses and NOW
- airports)
Andrea Hricko, MPH
Professor of Preventive Medicine
USC Keck School of Medicine +
Director, Community Outreach and Engagement
NIEHS EH Sciences Center + NIEHS/EPA Children’s Center at USC...

... HEALTH OUTCOMES
• Children living near traffic-
related pollution are
more likely

to have reduced lung function

to get new cases of asthma

to have respiratory symptoms (bronchitis
)
• Mothers are more likely

to have premature or low birth weight babies
• Adults are more likely to

die from stroke and heart disease (especially if they have diabetes) and from lung cancer

If near diesel exhaust emissions: lung cancer
• The elderly are more likely to

suffer accelerated cognitive decline
McConnell R et. al 2005, 2010 Gatto NM et al, 2013 Wilhelm et al, 2011-
2
Gauderman WJ et al, 2007 Weuve J et al, 2012 Chen JC et al, 2009
Maheswaran R and Elliott P, 2003 Kan H et al, 2008 Basu R et al, 2013
...

Have to go down a few exchanges to get to the point, but here's an excerpt:
https://www.faa.gov/airports/environmental/records_decision/bos/media/ro...

September 22, 2006
Mr. John Silva
Federal Aviation Administration
New England Region
12 New England Executive Park
Burlington, MA 01803

Re:
AIRSIDE IMPROVEMENTS, CENTERFIELD TAXIWAY, LOGAN
INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

...there are multiple indications suggesting that Logan Airport may be contributing in
significant part to the adverse health impacts being experienced by nearby populations. Such
indicators include:
a.
Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) Risk Assessment,
b.
BPHC Heath of Boston Data,
c.
MIT Community Risk Assessment,
d.
Winthrop Community Health Survey,
C.
O'Hare Airport Risk Assessment
As an example, according to Environmental Defense Fund risk assessment based on U.S. EPA's
National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment data, there are 680,000 Suffolk County residents having
an added cancer risk of greater than I per 1000 attributable to hazardous air pollutant exposure. I
There are 690,000 Suffolk County residents exposed to an acute health effects Hazard Index of
greater than the maximum acceptable level of 1.00. The average Suffolk County Hazard Index is
5.4, greater than 5 times more than the acceptable level. On average, Suffolk County residents
have an added cancer risk of 2 per 1000 persons compared to an average added cancer risk of
0.89
for Massachusetts (including Suffolk County) residents. Acceptable added cancer risks
range from 0.01 to 0.001 per 1000. Ninety percent of the added cancer risk for Suffolk County is
attributable to diesel emissions. Ninety seven percent of the Suffolk County added cancer risk is
attributable to mobile sources. Logan Airport is one of the largest contributors to mobile source
air pollution in Suffolk County.
According to the 2005 Health of Boston Report, East Boston has an age-adjusted lung cancer
mortality rate of 87 deaths per 100,000 population compared to a rate of 58 deaths per 100,000
population for the rest of Boston.2 The neighborhoods having the highest three age-adjusted
cancer mortality rates are South Boston (303 deaths per 100,000), Charlestown (241 deaths per
100,000), and East Boston (231 deaths per 100,000). These are the neighborhoods close to
Logan Airport. The high cancer death rates in South Boston, East Boston, and Charlestown may
not be able to be explained by smoking rates alone. The percentage of adult South Boston, East
Boston, and Charlestown residents smoking tobacco is currently within 1 percentage point of the
rate for Boston as a whole (19 percent).
International airport operations are a major mobile source of air pollution, which can be expected
by their known emissions to contribute significantly to cancer risk in nearby communities. The
Risk Assessment commissioned by the City of Park Ridge, Illinois published in August 2000, in
which Risk Assessment calculations was based on conservative toxic emissions data developed
in 1999 by Chicago's consultant, KM Cling Environmental, Inc. demonstrated significant cancer
risk related to the operation of O'Hare Airport.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, has prepared
a report "Community Risk Assessment, Air Quality in Chelsea and East Boston" for the Chelsea
Creek Action Group. The report is dated May 18, 2001. This report indicates that there is
increased residential cancer risk in part from Logan Airport operation emissions.
1 littp://Nvww.scorecard.org/env-releasesAiap/county. tc l2 fips_coimty_code=2502 5
2 http://www.bplic.org/reports/pdfs/report_201.pdf ...

http://mtag.org.au/diesel-pollution/

Diesel Pollution

... There are countless studies linking trucks, diesel emissions and public health issues, including increased hospital admissions, respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses and mortality. The 2013 Senate inquiry into the health impacts of air quality in Australia heard that air pollution causes more deaths in Australia each year than road accidents.

In May 2014, Environmental Justice Australia released ‘Clearing the Air’, a major report into Australia’s air pollution laws. This report identified Yarraville as one of Australia’s pollution hot spots “with some of the highest diesel pollution levels ever recorded in Australia”.

In June 2012, the World Health Organisation classified diesel exhaust as a class one carcinogen. This put diesel exhaust into the same category as other known hazards, such as cigarettes and asbestos. There is no safe level of exposure to diesel exhaust.

Children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of diesel pollution for a number of reasons. They spend more time outdoors than adults and are also more active. They breathe more quickly and breathe proportionately more air than adults – around 50% more per unit of body weight, increasing the amount of particulate matter they breathe. Their lungs and immune system are still developing and exposure early in life means damaged cells have less ability to repair and more time to become cancerous. ...

... Why is diesel pollution so dangerous?

Diesel exhaust is made up of both particulate matter as well as gasses such as nitrogen oxides and sulphur oxides. There are two ways diesel particulate damages our health – the size of the particles and its chemical composition.

Size: Particulate matter ranges in size from PM10 (at or below 10 micrometres in diameter) to ultrafine particles PM2.5 (at or below 2.5 micrometres) and down to PM1.0 (1 micrometre and smaller). The smaller the particulate matter, the further it penetrates into our bodies. PM10 are what make up the black soot we regularly find on the outside of our houses. Whilst too much of it can overwhelm our lungs and cause damage, our lungs are able to cough it up. It is the ultrafine particles, PM2.5 and PM1.0 that are of greatest concern. Our lungs cannot expel them. They penetrate the walls of our lungs, make their way into the bloodstream and travel around our bodies, even getting into the brain. Once they have lodged themselves into our bodies, they start causing damage and we have limited ability to flush them out.

Composition: Diesel particulate matter acts as a chemical hitchhiker. Chemical toxins attach themselves to the particulates, causing them to be delivered deep within our lungs and bloodstream. These toxins are made up of a dangerous cocktail of at least 450 different compounds including arsenic, benzene dioxins, formaldehyde and the two most carcinogenic chemicals ever discovered, 3-nitrobenzanthrone and 1,8-dinitropyrene.

Health Impacts of Diesel Pollution

Short term symptoms:

Dizziness
Light-headedness
Nausea
Coughing, wheezing and phlegm
Difficult or laboured breathing
Tightness of chest
Irritation of the eyes, nose, throat and lungs

Long term symptoms:

Cardiovascular disease
Cardiopulmonary disease
Lung cancer
Inflammation of the lungs and airways
Triggering of respiratory conditions such as asthma, bronchitis
Respiratory diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Lowered resistance to respiratory infection
Mutations in chromosomes and damage to DNA
Low birth weight/preterm babies
Decrease in lung development and lung function in children
Premature mortality

Current Studies

The World Health Organisation reports evidence that diesel pollution increases the risk of bladder cancer.
Research is ongoing on links between diesel exposure and cancers of the larynx, oesophagus and stomach. Studies are also looking at possible links to blood system cancers such as lymphomas and leukaemia’s, including childhood leukaemia.
Researchers at both the Harvard School of Public Health in the US as well as Kings College in London are finding links between pre-natal exposure to heavy diesel pollution and increased risk of the baby developing autism and schizophrenia.
Researchers at Columbia University’s School of Public Health are finding evidence that pre-natal exposure to high levels of air pollution increases the risk of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Scientists at the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology in Spain are finding evidence that air pollution contributes to lower cognitive development in children.
Studies are ongoing into changes to DNA induced by breathing diesel exhaust. ...

Almost all I seem to hear about any more is carbon pollution and I fear that the issue of industrial/fossil fuel pollution destroying human/animal/environmental health and killing life on the planet in a multitude of ways is being buried under corporate-created 'climate debate' nonsense often focusing solely on whether it snows in winter and absurdly simplistic 'is carbon bad - let's just trade credits' - while we are to be globally inundated with even more industrial poisons in the lucrative pursuit of publicly paid 'geoengineering': the spraying of toxic industrial pollutants into the stratosphere, this also destroying the ozone layer so that the killing pollution must be maintained to help cut deadly radiation no longer blocked - this so that unlimited industrial/fossil fuel pollution may continue right up to the death of all poisoned life.

Let's keep the (already diminished!) level of sunlight upon which all life depends and use it for solar energy.

Don't stop the world, let its (pacific) revolutions throw off The Parasite Class instead.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Hawkfish's picture

The NYT reports this AM that geoengineering is back on the table. The problem is that even if we dropped emissions to zero today, we would still have a lot in the pipeline.

GE has its own problems, some of which are political. How do you know when you are done? What if someone doesn't like the effects?

The only viable solution politically and ecologically is to start pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere and back down to 290ppm. That would require an energy generation surplus equal to what was used to fuel civilization for the last 220 years. This is not profitable, so the government/UN would have to pay for it. Plus, I don't think we can build such an infrastructure using green tech - it would require orders of magnitude more steel than is annually produced for windmills (for example). And changing to a neo-primitive lifestyle wouldn't do it either (that would only reduce future emissions, not the current CO2 load).

So the choices are to mitigate (and watch the Great Barrier Reef die) geoengineer (and start some nasty wars) or build out every form of power generation and carbon capture system we can think of as fast as possible (which includes nukes because they provide the highest power density for a given level of resource consumption.) But we are not a wise or just species, so I don't think any of these options are actually going to happen.

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We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg