pollution Paris health France A year in Paris is as bad for your health as smoking 183 cigarettes

Oh the irony! Trump won't sign the Paris accord as Paris itsef chokes to death on its own smog. Just too funny! And as a side note it's even worse in Bejing China. You know the china that is the darling of the left for "leading the way in wind and solar." Once again too funny!


"Spending a long weekend in Paris could be as bad for your health as smokingtwo cigarettes. But this is at least a lot less polluted than in Prague, where your mini-break could be the equivalent of smoking four cigarettes, or even worse in Beijing, where it could be same as puffing up to 16 cigarettes."

https://www.france24.com/en/20180810-year-paris-bad-health-smoking-183-cigarettes

 

Apples and oranges AFAIK. The Paris accord is primarily about greenhouse gas production, these figures relate to particulate emissions.

Again, wind and solar is primarily about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, not necessarily the particulates that are the primary focus of this article.

One pertinent question however would be how much worse would Bejing's pollution be without China's move to renewables.

All very interesting but again particulates != greenhouse gasses.

I happen to live less than 4 miles from one of the most polluted towns in the UK according to the particulates figures. You wouldn't think it to look at the place, situated as it is near an area of outstanding natural beauty. One of the reasons why the pollution is so bad is that the monitoring station is situated on a steep hill next to a busy road close to a roundabout where for about 2 hours a day, lorries sit idling due to the congestion. If the monitoring station were a couple of hundred yards away on the flat, or elsewhere in town then the figures would be much, much lower. IOW, particulate data is very sensitive to the location of the monitoring station(s) and extrapolating too much from one set of readings isn't too reliable.

 

Clearly you do not know or understand what you are typing about but found something you felt like trying to complain about. Please spend a few minutes researching the climate accord and pollution to seek a minimal grasp of the issues you pretend to discuss....not that discussion or even debate were your intent.

 

Paris accord is a big fat hypocrisy, Paris is only a shadow of itself, like Rome in 600.

 

Ahhh so now smog isn't C02 at all it's just particulates. LOL

 

You don't find it ironic that paris, the home of the climate agreement is a huge polluter itself? C'mon, that funny stuff.

 

Oh...I do find it ironic, but do not find it particularly funny.

You do understand that the "Paris Climate Accord" was not named such because of the city other than where it was signed...correct?

 

It's like all these global warming summits that get cancelled due to snow storms. You do understand the word ironic don't you?

 

The research on which the clickbait headline was based looked at particulates and not Carbon Dioxide so in this case it was all about particulates. Diesel engines in particular are comparatively efficient from a Carbon Dioxide perspective but are poor from a particulate perspective. One of the reasons why Paris is so for particulates is the very high proportion of diesel vehicles, in part driven by much lower taxes on diesel fuel.

Smog is something different and a little more complicated but at no point in time was it Carbon Dioxide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smog

 

Which ones would these be now ?

 

Oh really?


"Smog generally occurs in the lower part of the atmosphere, less than 5 km above the ground. Smog is a combination of airborne particulate matter, like soot, and invisible toxic gases including ozone (O3), carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and carcinogens".

"Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, is the main pollutant that is warming Earth. Though living things emit carbon dioxide when they breathe, carbon dioxide is widely considered to be a pollutant when associated with cars, planes, power plants, and other human activities that involve the burning of fossil fuels such as gasoline and natural gas. In the past 150 years, such activities have pumped enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to raise its levels higher than they have been for hundreds of thousands of years."

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/pollution/

 

Yes, really as the quoted bits demonstrate

A good description of Smog, note no mention of Carbon Dioxide.

Carbon Dioxide's role as a greenhouse gas, but no mention of Smog.

 

Guess you missed the part about cars and burning fossil fuels contributing to C02 but hey let's do it your way and say cars don't put out C02 and lift all regulations on cars and stop pushing electric cars. Works for me.

 

I'm afraid that you've got this all bass-ackwards.

The reason I'm posting in this thread is to point out that a country attempting to reduce its Carbon Dioxide emissions will not necessarily result in a reduction in particulates in the capital city. The Paris accord specifically addresses the former, but only tangentially addresses the latter. For example, if every car in Paris was a diesel car, the carbon dioxide emissions would go down but the particulates would rise because diesel engines have lower carbon dioxide emissions but higher particulate emissions.

My personal view is that I would welcome an overall reduction in Carbon Dioxide and direct steps to reduce particulate and other pollutants in cities. That would mean an increase in the number of low and zero emission vehicles, an increase in the use of low emission public transport and improving facilities for cyclists and pedestrians to address city pollutants together with an increase in the proportion of carbon free energy generation.

 

If you want to say smog is not a contributer to green house gases feel free but you will be all alone in this. If you want to say it's just particulates and has nothing to do with the AGW hypothesis maybe you need to start a hypothesis of your own, you never know it might catch on. Good luck.

 

I'm not sure whether you are deliberately or accidentally misreading what I have posted. Regarding Carbon Dioxide and smog, all I have said is that Carbon Dioxide is not a constituent of smog - as the National Geographic link you so kindly provided confirms.

That's not to say that the processes which result in the generation of smog don't also contribute to Carbon Dioxide emissions but as I mentioned upthread there are some steps which reduce Carbon Dioxide emissions (which the Paris Accord covers) which would actually lead to an increase in particulates emissions - switching entirely from petrol powered to equivalent diesel powered vehicles being an example.

I'm not sure where you get this from....

The OP on this thread was, in essence "Hurr, hurr, the city that gave us the Paris Accord is failing on the Paris Accord". I was just pointing out that it wasn't necessarily the case. The Paris Accord was about reducing Carbon Dioxide emissions globally, the pollution issue quoted in the OP was to do with local particulates measures. Of course we don't know whether Paris would have even worse particulates problems if it wasn't for the Paris Accord. I suspect the Paris Accord will have made little or no difference on the grounds that the French will have been looking at changes in their electricity generation and consumption to meet their Paris Accord obligations whereas particulates pollution is very much a local thing.

By the way, it's a local thing that they are starting to take seriously. I drove to France earlier this year and as a precaution got myself an emissions sticker for my car. There are some cities including Paris and Grenoble which are cracking down on particulate emissions. My newish petol-engined Skoda is in the lowest polluting category and would therefore be allowed access to those cities even on high polluting days. My Jaguar XJ-S and MGB would have been in much higher polluting categories (in the unlikely event the could make it that far) and so would have been denied access.

 

If you can't grasp the fact that carbon dioxide and smog go hand in glove you are not too bright or deliberately obfuscating

 

Neither, I'm trying to be specific about Paris' particulates problem and why that does not signal a failure of the Paris Accord.

That said, global Carbon Dioxide emissions were far, far lower back in the 1950s and 1960s but the smog issues in major cities like London were far, far worse. The clean air acts resulted in a significant drop in smog without a significant short-term drop in Carbon Dioxide emissions.

Put another way. Siting power stations in the middle of the city and allowing most people to heat their homes with coal fires burning household coal will make your smog issues far worse without increasing your overall Carbon Dioxide emissions. Conversely, moving power stations away from centres of population and compelling people to use smokeless fuels or natural gas will make your smog issues far better without necessarily reducing your overall Carbon Dioxide emissions.

 

Once again where there's particulates there's so called green house gases and if you can't breathe the air due to particulates you can be sure there is also elevated "green house gases". Regardless of that fact surly you see the irony in Paris chocking on smog as they berate America for not signing a worthless piece of paper.

 

That's your view but as I've explained, in London the smog problem was addressed successfully (to the extent that people weren't dying in their hundreds from the "pea soupers") in the 1950s while overall emissions were still rising (UK Carbon Dioxide emissions peaked in 1979).

Paris' particulate problems are not a failure of the Paris Accord, overall French carbon dioxode emissions are significantly lower. Of course we don't know whether particulates would be even worse.

 

First you say there's no correlation between smog and C02 then you say Paris has fixed it's smog problem because people no longer drop dead in the street. The fun never ends with you.

 

You really don't read very well do you ?

Firstly what I originally said was that Carbon Dioxide is not a component of smog - something confirmed by the National Geographic link you so kindly provided.

I also said that London had fixed its smog problem back in the 1950s while UK Carbon Dioxide emissions were still on the rise as a way of showing that local smog and national (or global) Carbon Dioxide levels are not congruent. A rise or fall in one does not necessarily lead to a rise or fall in another. For example, if an economy switches from heavy industry to being increasingly service-based then it is entirely possible that Carbon Dioxide emissions fall whilst local particulate levels remain high because of the number of diesel vehicles operating in the vicinity of the particulate detector - the type of pollution mentioned in the OP.

The ideal is of course that all aspects are addressed - as France nationally (with its support of the Paris Accord) reduces carbon dioxide emissions and Cities locally seek to reduce particulate emissions.

 

You have no sense of humor or irony. If you can't see both in the fact that Paris is chocking in it's own exhaust as they whine about Trump not signing a worthless piece of paper ........

 

The Paris Accord is about reducing Carbon Dioxide emissions on a national and global level as a means to try to halt the worst effects of AGW.

Pollution issues relating to diesel particulates were not intended to be addressed by the Paris Accord.

You may consider the Paris Accord to be a worthless piece of paper - it's a common feeling among conservatives but then again conservatives appear to be in complete denial about AGW. Whether that's a symptom of the current anti-science and anti-intellectualism which seems to have taken hold in parts of the GOP and/or a reaction to "furriners and Poindexters" telling people what to do is interesting but I guess largely irrelevant but it does seem to be counter to the original "conservatives" who sought to preserve wildernesses and so on.

Paris is also attempting to address its particulate issues. It's likely that the kinds of measures they are proposing (restrictions on certain vehicles, increased funding for of public transport, improved emissions standards) are exactly the kinds of things that US conservatives oppose (look at how they are attempting to roll back Californian vehicle emissions standards and all kinds of environmental protections).

 

Where there's smoke there's fire and where there's smog there's "greenhouse gases".