[Stoves] Off-topic Re: New PM2.5 health impact analysis

Thu Sep 6 16:39:59 CDT 2018

Thanks, Nikhil. You are well versed in this, and have an interesting take
on it. It is an education for me.

I have recently re-read a paper by Tami Bond (attached), coincidentally
with re-discovering Forrest Mims III, an amateur scientist who has done
some interesting stuff with low cost and accurate atmospheric measurement.
In fact, he annually calibrates some of the instruments at Mauna Loa
observatory in Hawaii. Anyway, I have a sudden interest in atmospheric
science.

Tami Bond's paper gives a pretty convincing demo of being able to measure
PM in the field and getting a correspondence between gravimetric methods
(filters) and optical methods (3 bands). The optical method is able to
distinguish between EC and OC, whereas the filter method gives only the
sum. I had missed the significance of a table of results she presents,
where EC + OC, obtained optically, = PM(gravimetric) within 10%.

Forrest Mims discovered in the early 70's that LEDs can also be used as
photoreceptors and give you the same results as high end optical narrow
bandpass filters. LEDs these days are available basically for free, and in
pairs form narrow band emitters/receptors and span the range from
ultraviolet to far infrared. It ties in conveniently with work we will be
doing this winter.

Best .......... Norbert

On Thu, Sep 6, 2018 at 4:03 PM, Nikhil Desai <pienergy2008 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Norbert:
>
> This is not an impact analysis. It is only revision of estimates with new
> models. New assumptions, no measurements. Impact is what can be sold for
> more grants.
>
> Page 2 notes the limitations of strong assumptions behind the Integrated
> Energy Response (IER) that was used in cooking up HAP GBD.
>
> That is good. While they call it "strong assumptions", I call them deceit.
> That is a matter of opinion, not facts or falsifiability. Kirk Smith had
> cautioned us on assumptions behind IER and, more importantly, the fake
> "daily average concentration" applied to the entire "premature dead" (by a
> day or by more than eight decades) population (some 500 million to 800
> million, having lived about 1 trillion person-days, cumulative from 1990 to
> 2016).
>
> So, Burnett et al. now (this piece) innovate on Burnett et al. (2014) that
> I have commented on previously, and cook up "new, improved, fortified,
> citations-enriched, ultra-modern" cake of deaths. No DALYs here; that's the
> IHME icing.
>
> They have a finding supporting the air pollution hysterics - "
> Specifically the global estimates of mortality attributable to ambient fine
> particulate air pollution (8.9 million, 95% CI: 7.5–10.3) were *120%
> higher than previous estimates and suggest comparable impact to the leading
> global mortality risk factors of diet* (10.3 million deaths, 95% CI:
> 8.8–11.9) and cigarette smoking (6.3 million deaths; 95% CI: 5.7–7.0) (1). "
>
> To repeat the broken record, "attributable" does not mean "caused by", and
> attribution of past deaths has no applicability to the currently alive in
> terms of "avoidability".
>
> But the basic question remains -- what are the underlying data on
> exposures and disease incidence behind these "global estimates"?
>
> Here is something of an answer - global population health is not
> constructed from national and sub-national statistics on disease and death,
> or for that matter diet, smoking, pollution exposure, or alcohol. (Read
> this item on NYTimes.com last week - Study Causes Splash, but Here’s Why
> You Should Stay Calm on Alcohol’s Risks
> <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/28/upshot/alcohol-health-risks-study-worry.html>,
> Aaron Carroll 28th August 2018).
>
> Analogously, I suggest we all stay calm on air pollution risks. GBD is a
> product of ignorance -- the idea being something like "back of the
> envelope" calculations engineers and economists do all the time, from
> guessing power sector investment requirements and then checking them
> against models with numerous untenable assumptions, then assessing the
> risks of decisions.
>
> If you read the Lancet paper on GBD from alcohol (23 August 2018, cited in
> the NYTimes opinion piece I gave a link to), you would notice the authors
> suggesting that given the global findings, more work is required at the
> national level.
>
> This is like Trump declaring trade war or denuclearization of the Korean
> Peninsula -- shoot first, ask questions later. But this is inherent to the
> IHME approach -- make a splash, throw mud or better still, just drive all
> sensible people away, and use the media.
>
> On HAP, there are captive think-tanks like HEI or flake projects like GACC
> - who sponsor papers by Prof. Smith's ex-students and fellow aDALY
> marketers.
>
> Have a drink. On me. No smoke. (Under the assumptions of this study, Risk
> is instantaneous to exposure. Time profile does not matter. I have to read
> the Supplemental Information, and check again.)
>
> This piece rather soberly says,
>
> "..this approach suggests that the health benefits of reducing PM2.5 are
> likely much larger than previously assumed, owing to much stronger
> relationships between air pollution and mortality at higher concentrations.
> The implications of this finding are particularly significant for countries
> with the highest air-pollution concentrations, as the potential health
> benefits of air-quality improvements in these areas are larger than
> previously recognized."
>
>
> Yeah, right. I will have to post a blog item from the World Bank on the
> spurious national AAP pollution estimates of the kind marketed by IHME and
> fellow glee club of the glib. I will also have to check whether this
> finding of "much stronger relationships.. at higher concentrations" runs
> counter to the Kirk Smith and Jennifer Peel 2010 paper that it is better to
> lower the AAP concentrations when they are low, compared to reducing active
> smoking, say. (Counter-intuitive, as they admitted themselves. But that was
> the pre-IER, i.e., pre-Burnett, world.)
>
> There are many ways of reducing air-pollution concentrations and, more
> importantly, exposures. The OECD history of air quality management (unlike
> these models) suggests to me that cleaner combustion of solid fuels,
> particularly in modern coal-fired power plants, and better management of
> existing devices (vehicle and industrial engines), goes a long way in
> reducing emissions, and better homes and built habitats similarly go a long
> way in reducing concentrations and exposures.
>
> The dead will be with us, so to speak, as also dead wood like these
> modelers of global health.
>
> Nikhil
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Nikhil Desai
> (US +1) 202 568 5831
> *Skype: nikhildesai888*
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 5, 2018 at 12:08 PM, Norbert Senf <norbert.senf at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Interesting paper published yesterday in PNAS:
>> "Global estimates of mortality associated with long-term exposure to
>> outdoor fine particulate matter"
>>
>> It appears to be a fairly comprehensive analysis using newer, more robust
>> statistical methods and to be a rather large panel of health and
>> atmospheric sciences experts:
>>
>> http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/08/28/1803222115
>>
>> --
>> Norbert Senf
>> Masonry Stove Builders
>> 25 Brouse Road, RR 5
>> Shawville Québec J0X 2Y0
>> 819.647.5092
>> www.heatkit.com
>>
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>>
>

-- 
Norbert Senf
Masonry Stove Builders
25 Brouse Road, RR 5
Shawville Québec J0X 2Y0
819.647.5092
www.heatkit.com
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