Air pollution

Did you know that pollution is associated with mental health issues? Cognitive functioning? Murder rates? I could definitely see the first, and maybe the second, but third.... To be clear these results are not from studies that employ full-on causal analysis, but this is interesting nonetheless.

A more straightforward but still chilling conclusion from a different study: one of the largest causes of infant mortality in Europe is air pollution. https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/6/1084

"Worldwide, outdoor air pollution reduces the average life expectancy at birth by one year. The effect is much more pronounced in some countries: It cuts the average Egyptian’s life span by 1.9 years and the average Indian’s by 1.5 years. In Russia, it’s around nine months." https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/22/climate/air-pollution-deaths.html

"[W]e  find  significant  positive  effects  of  air  pollution ... on  body  mass index (BMI)" http://ftp.iza.org/dp12296.pdf

“Air pollution can harm acutely, as well as chronically, potentially affecting every organ in the body,” conclude the scientists from the Forum of International Respiratory Societies in the two review papers, published in the journal Chest. “Ultrafine particles pass through the [lungs], are readily picked up by cells, and carried via the bloodstream to expose virtually all cells in the body.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/may/17/air-pollution-may-be-damaging-every-organ-and-cell-in-the-body-finds-global-review

This NYT summary talks about the effects of air pollution on mental health while this research article shows that "PM2.5 reduces hedonic happiness and increases the rate of depressive symptoms" http://ftp.iza.org/dp12313.pdf

Historical studies of for example the four day London smog of 1952 increased mortality rates by 2%, and caused long-term damage to human development, ability to work, and increased cancer risk for decades.

Update July 2019: "New study links air pollution with over 30,000 deaths and reduced life expectancy in the United States" PLoS article

Also, dust from the Sahara desert increases infant mortality NBER paper 

Food Economics

The topic of "food" is finally something broad enough that I can use it to talk about pretty much everything I'm interested research-wise. Here are three four articles that caught my attention, and they have food in common, if not much else! :)

The first is from the New York Times: it's about the idea of developing a "National Institute of Nutrition." While this seems like a no-brainer, a conference I attended this week featured several nutritionists agreeing that one of the defining characteristics of nutritionists is that the discipline is a mess. Every day another new study comes out pushing some new superfood or potential carcinogen. How do we make sense of that if the experts can't? I'll leave that right there.

The second is about another hidden dimension of climate change: impacts on fish. Since most of the world's fish come from the ocean and since the ocean is, well, huge, it's hard to see all the impacts of climate change. Yet another place where we may not know what's going on until it's too late.

A late addition: I've been hearing a fair amount about lab-produced meat lately, and this article is an interesting overview. I'm surprised that the impact is as low as it is: it's apparently only slightly less impactful than regular meat, and a long way from better alternatives. The chart on the page also indicates that CO2 impacts of pork are less than those of chicken, which I didn't expect. Curious.

Finally I wanted to highlight this piece by my professor David Zilberman. He is pretty negative about organic agriculture, but a few days ago I heard a similar opinion from uber-nutrition professor Barry Popkin. I have a lot to learn about this area and I'm keen to hear more.

***Update: this brief article in the Guardian highlights updates for improving the food system in the UK. Unfortunately it has only good things to say about organics. To be clear, there are certainly good things about organic agriculture, but the large decrease in yields is pretty concerning!

Dumb and dumber

A shocking article I can't fully process right now: I need to get the original research. Take a look!

Social Costs

Yes, it's the start of a new term and I'm teaching Resource Economics again, so more of my gaze is devoted to issues like this. However, this article might've caught my eye regardless: the AP summarizes fossil fuel rollbacks under the current administration to be complicit in billions of dollars of damages and thousands of deaths per year. The catch? It's hard to link specific deaths to pollution. Statistically speaking, the deaths are happening, we just don't know who is dying. At least some mention is being made of this ledger!

Chesapeake update

I haven't done a good job of keeping up with the news on the Chesapeake, but fortunately a couple of articles from the Baltimore Sun this month have bailed me out. First comes a piece talking about the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's State of the Bay report, which showed a deterioration in quality this year sparked by the heavy rains that inundated the region. This is the first time the ranking has gotten worse year-on-year in at least 10 years.

A longer list of bullet points summarizes the situation in this second article. While the rain wreaked havoc on water clarity (and thus didn't work wonders for bay grass health) many categories of the report showed very little change. The above article preaches doom about the crab population, but the CBF is a bit more sanguine, noting that the number of juveniles is up. Still, the authors caution that wastewater must be better controlled going forward, particularly as the developed areas in the watershed continue to expand. Hopefully we have a more normal year as far as rainfall, and bay grasses continue to expand, while runoff is increasingly sequestered in buffers. We'll see!

Ride-sharing increased accidents by 2-3%/ year

Wow, big numbers from this study showing $5-13 billion damage per year. "Our estimates, moreover, do not include the costs imposed by non-fatal accidents, for which data is not readily available." Yikes.

At least it's not all the fault of Pokemon Go!

Climate change, travel & meat

Interesting article on making decisions that affect climate change. While they are working hard to make the article accessible, talking about daily decisions, they make some mention of the bigger picture, which I appreciate. See what you think.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20181102-what-can-i-do-about-climate-change