[Stoves] Magnetite particles from combustion emissions (Crispin Pemberton-Pigott)

[Traveller]

Yeah. Pitch for more research money.

"Linked".  "Raises concerns". "Suggested. "

Whatever works for generating anxiety. I can't tell what data this study
had on "combustion emissions". All Maher says is "car exhausts, industrial
processes and power stations, anywhere you are burning fuel.”

What fuel? How combusted? How are emissions transported and translated into
dosage?

The generalized hysteria about particulate emissions is based on a)
fictitious emissions data and transport data, b) spotty concentration and
exposure data, c) spotty, heterogeneous exposure data, and d) concocted
dose-response ratios or, more accurately, predictions of "relative risk"
based on heroic assumptions.

Add two more sleights of hand, er, assumptions: equitoxicity and "no
threshold".

Voila! Next, us economists should be predicting recessions and
unemployment, lower tax revenues and interest rates, based on particulate
emissions.

With scientists like these, who needs education?

I forget. You can't teach children to merely parrot. You have to get them
to PhD and become slaves of grants.

Academic pretense shows up in this - "“Knowledge is power,” Maher said. “So
if there’s at least a possibility that exposure to traffic pollution is
having even worse health impacts than were previously known, then take the
steps you can to reduce your dose as far as you can.”"

This is theology. What knowledge, whose knowledge, whose purposes and whose
power? To argue "reduce your dose as far as you can" begs the question who
"you" is, just because "there's at least a possibility".

A general application of this principle would be lunacy.

Still, this kind of news stories are important because:

a. It suggests that not all particulate pollution is equitoxic.

Arguendo, particulate pollution that does not involve heavy metals might be
less toxic, especially when heterogeneity, confounding factors,  are
involved.

b. It emphasizes the importance of proper sampling (37 individuals from
industrial locations?), error potential (lab contamination?), and of dose
monitoring over time. (This is a cross-sectional study that is used to put
forth a time-series hypothesis, neglecting confounding factors.)

I am sick of hearing air pollution kills. Yes, risk factors
kill statistically, via assumptions and models. Whether any individual
death is premature or postmature is a matter of definition; its risk
factors indeterminate.

Manufacturing crises is a good fund-raising tool. GACC and USEPA.

There will always be premature deaths, the blame will be apportioned
differently every time. Something has to be blamed, because it benefits
somebody in the business of promising - pills, clean cookstoves, whatever.


Nikhil.


---------
(India +91) 909 995 2080

>
> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Magnetite particles from combustion emissions
>       (Crispin Pemberton-Pigott)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 14:39:21 +0600
> From: Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com>
> To: Stoves <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Subject: [Stoves] Magnetite particles from combustion emissions
> Message-ID: <COL401-EAS2908256DB9C4EB36251F183B1F90 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/stoves_lists.
> bioenergylists.org/attachments/20160906/70ea4123/attachment-0001.html>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Subject: Digest Footer
>
> _______________________________________________
> Stoves mailing list
>
> to Send a Message to the list, use the email address
> stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
>
> to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page
> http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_
> lists.bioenergylists.org
>
>
> for more Biomass Cooking Stoves,  News and Information see our web site:
> http://www.bioenergylists.org/
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of Stoves Digest, Vol 73, Issue 6
> *************************************
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20160906/7122d2cf/attachment.html>