[Stoves] WHO and 600,000 dead children

Crispin Pemberton-Pigott crispinpigott at outlook.com
Thu Nov 8 17:41:28 CST 2018


Dear Andrew



>Crispin I was after a source for the amount of PM 2.5 from a standard cigarette, I had already come across some comparisons with particulates produced by a cigarette verses a diesel car idling



I just Googled it and found various references. I was using 45 mg for a while but later found there were some claims of 40 mg.



The mass of tobacco in a cigarette is about 0.9 g. A PM2.5 mass of 45 mg is the equivalent of 50 g per kg (exactly). This is a believable amount for smouldering biomass that has no flame.



The CO is 0.5% to 5% of the gas volume<https://faculty.washington.edu/djaffe/ce3.pdf> with perhaps a typical range of 1.2-3.7%. (same source).



As for the ridiculous (that is the only word for it) numbers give for “exposure” I found the source document at Berkeley here<http://berkeleyearth.org/air-pollution-and-cigarette-equivalence/>. The argument, which is foolish, presented is presented as:



“Now let’s consider air pollution. The most harmful pollution consists of small particulate matter, 2.5 microns in size or less, called PM2.5. These particles are small enough to work their way deep into the lungs and into the bloodstream, where they trigger heart attack, stroke, lung cancer and asthma. In the Berkeley Earth review of deaths in China we showed that 1.6 million people die every year from an average exposure of 52 μg/m3 of PM2.5. To kill 1.6 million people would require, assuming 1.37 x10-6 deaths per cigarette, 1.1 trillion cigarettes. Since the population of China is 1.35 billion, that comes to 864 cigarettes every year per person, or about 2.4 cigarettes per day.

Thus the average person in China, who typically breathes 52 μg/m3 of air pollution, is receiving a health impact equivalent to smoking 2.4 cigarettes per day. Put another way, 1 cigarette is equivalent to an air pollution of 22 μg/m3 for one day.”



This argument is so foolish one has to wonder what they are smoking in Berkeley. One cigarette produces about 45 mg of PM2.5. Spread through 10 cu m of air (what a person breathes in a day) would create air with 4,500 μg/m3 yet they claim it is 22. That is a big difference, an error of 200 fold.



The calculation is based on a calculation that assumes all PM2.5 in China comes from cigarettes – is that correct? Or only in the case of the 1.6m they say die from…what exactly…air pollution?  There is no information to support such statistic in China.  That have to have made it up.



Conclusion: “In China the numbers are far worse; on bad days the health effects of air pollution are comparable to the harm done smoking three packs per day (60 cigarettes) by every man, woman, and child. Air pollution is arguably the greatest environmental catastrophe in the world today.”



Yeah well, the death of responsible statistics looks like a catastrophe of similar proportion.



There is a reference to another opinion: “Arden Pope, had previously calculated that average pollution in Beijing is similar to smoking 0.3 cigarettes per day – and that this comparison is used to reassure people that the pollution really isn’t that bad.”



Well, let’s look at that “reassure” idea. Pope looked at the amount of PM absorbed, but I have not read much of his work yet. He is pretty well respected in this field and he disagrees<https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa0805646> profoundly with Berkeley’s numbers. His methodology is well explained in that reference and involves drawing “associations”, not getting medical diagnoses (because there is no data on anyone’s personal exposure).



From what I can understand, Pope’s China calculation is based on what PMO absorbed from a cigarette, not the exposure to it (inhaled) as most is exhaled (90%?). He seems to assume that ambient air pollution is absorbed, not 10% of what is inhaled (which seems odd). He arrives at a 1/6th of a cigarette per day for living in Beijing<http://www.myhealthbeijing.com/china-public-health/air-pollution-or-smoking-which-is-worse-a-letter-from-dr-pope/> (2013). That reference gives as the inhalation volume 18 cu m per day, not 10. (13-23). He correctly calculates the exposure (inhalation) as the mean concentration * volume to arrive at 90 µg/day up to 1,800 µg/day in a highly polluted city (100 µg/m3).



An interesting observation can be made comparing the figure from the Berkeley paper (22 µg/m3 = 1 cigarette/day equivalent) and Pope’s second hand smoke value which is that living in an apartment with someone who smokes 1 pack per day exposes other people in the flat to 20 µg/m3. This is a very big mismatch. Pope has it that the total exposure in the breathed air of a second hand smoke recipient is 360 µg/day, while Berkeley’s calculation has it that living in the same flat breathing that 20 µg/m3 air (Spengler 1991) is the same as smoking 16 cigarettes! So one guy smokes 20 cigarettes per day, and the other guy sharing the flat inhales another 16 in the form of second hand smoke? Now consider that the first guy who inhales all that original smoke gets another 16 cigarettes worth just be staying indoors. So he gets 36 cigarettes worth of smoke while only buying and smoking 20?



No wonder Pope doesn’t believe Muller’s calculations.  They are unbelievable. They do not even consider ozone<http://www.myhealthbeijing.com/china-public-health/move-over-pm2-5-ozone-is-the-new-black/>.



Regards

Crispin



http://berkeleyearth.org/air-pollution-and-cigarette-equivalence/

http://www.myhealthbeijing.com/china-public-health/air-pollution-or-smoking-which-is-worse-a-letter-from-dr-pope/

Here is the Berkeley model applied to large cities based on the 22µg/m3: https://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/04/how-much-are-you-smoking-by-breathing-urban-air/558827/

Spengler JD. 1991. Indoor Air Pollution: A Health Perspective. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, pp 33-67.


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