Indoor air pollution

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pages: 122 words: 36,274

Grow Green: Tips and Advice for Gardening With Intention by Jen Chillingsworth

carbon footprint, clean water, food miles, Indoor air pollution, Kickstarter, Mason jar

If the soil is completely dry, water each plant with a teaspoon of water Eight houseplants to reduce indoor air pollution * * * Houseplants are the superheroes in our homes. They have the power to reduce levels of indoor air pollution, eliminating toxins such as benzene, formaldehyde and trichloroethylene from the air. These are commonly found in furniture, paint, cleaning products, plastic and carpets. Long-term exposure can cause respiratory problems, severe headaches and dizziness, so include a few houseplants in your home to provide cleaner, healthier air. The houseplants listed here are all easy to care for and good for reducing indoor air pollution. SNAKE PLANT (Sansavieria trifasciata/Mother-in-law’s tongue) Slow growing and one of the best plants for improving indoor air pollution.

SNAKE PLANT (Sansavieria trifasciata/Mother-in-law’s tongue) Slow growing and one of the best plants for improving indoor air pollution. Prefers bright light but can handle some shade too. Snake plant like to have its roots crowded, so choose a tight-fitting container. Use a good quality cactus compost and feed once a month from spring to autumn. Water sparingly in autumn and winter. Propagate from leaf cuttings. DEVIL’S IVY (Epipremnum aureum/Golden Pothos) Trailing vine suitable for hanging planters or it can be trained to grow up a moss pole. Ideal for rooms with high levels of moisture like kitchens and bathrooms, it needs occasional misting if located elsewhere.


pages: 520 words: 129,887

Power Hungry: The Myths of "Green" Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future by Robert Bryce

Abraham Maslow, addicted to oil, An Inconvenient Truth, Apollo 11, Bernie Madoff, carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Cesare Marchetti: Marchetti’s constant, clean tech, collateralized debt obligation, corporate raider, correlation does not imply causation, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, decarbonisation, Deng Xiaoping, disinformation, electricity market, en.wikipedia.org, energy security, energy transition, flex fuel, Ford Model T, Glass-Steagall Act, greed is good, Hernando de Soto, hydraulic fracturing, hydrogen economy, Indoor air pollution, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Jevons paradox, Menlo Park, Michael Shellenberger, new economy, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, peak oil, Ponzi scheme, purchasing power parity, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, smart grid, Stewart Brand, Ted Nordhaus, Thomas L Friedman, uranium enrichment, Whole Earth Catalog, WikiLeaks

And, to be more specific, it would be the millions of young children and women who are sickened or who die prematurely every year from indoor air pollution caused by the burning of biomass. In 2007, the World Health Organization estimated that indoor air pollution was killing about 500,000 people in India every year, most of them women and children. The agency also found that air pollution levels in some kitchens in rural India were thirty times higher than recommended and that the pollution was six times as bad as that found in New Delhi. Worldwide, as many as 1.6 million people per year are dying premature deaths due to indoor air pollution.17 About 37 percent of the world’s population relies on solid fuels, such as straw, wood, dung, or coal, to cook their meals.18 These low-quality fuels, combined with inadequate ventilation when the cooking is done inside, often results in the living areas being filled with a variety of noxious pollutants, including soot particles, carbon monoxide, benzene, formaldehyde, and even dioxin.19 Continued exposure to polluted indoor air can result in numerous illnesses, ranging from relatively minor problems such as headaches and eye irritation to deadly conditions such as asthma, pneumonia, blindness, lung cancer, tuberculosis, and low birth weight in children born to mothers who were exposed to indoor air pollution during pregnancy.20 Despite these numbers, the problem of indoor air pollution doesn’t get nearly as much attention as other public health issues, such as vaccination or safe drinking water.

Worldwide, as many as 1.6 million people per year are dying premature deaths due to indoor air pollution.17 About 37 percent of the world’s population relies on solid fuels, such as straw, wood, dung, or coal, to cook their meals.18 These low-quality fuels, combined with inadequate ventilation when the cooking is done inside, often results in the living areas being filled with a variety of noxious pollutants, including soot particles, carbon monoxide, benzene, formaldehyde, and even dioxin.19 Continued exposure to polluted indoor air can result in numerous illnesses, ranging from relatively minor problems such as headaches and eye irritation to deadly conditions such as asthma, pneumonia, blindness, lung cancer, tuberculosis, and low birth weight in children born to mothers who were exposed to indoor air pollution during pregnancy.20 Despite these numbers, the problem of indoor air pollution doesn’t get nearly as much attention as other public health issues, such as vaccination or safe drinking water. One of the most passionate voices proclaiming the need for more hydrocarbon use among the world’s poor is that of Kirk R. Smith, a professor of global environmental health at the University of California, Berkeley.21 In 2002, Smith wrote a piece for Science magazine entitled “In Praise of Petroleum?”

For more information, see Gorillacd.org. 14 Tom Knudson, “The Cost of the Biofuel Boom on Indonesia’s Forests,” The Guardian, January 21, 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jan/21/network-biofuels. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 Kounteya Sinha, “‘Indoor’ Air Pollution Is the Biggest Killer,” Times of India, March 22, 2007, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1790711.cms. 18 Fatih Birol, “Energy Economics: A Place for Energy Poverty in the Agenda?” The Energy Journal 28, no. 3 (2007): 3, 4. 19 Kirk R. Smith, “Wood: The Fuel That Warms You Thrice,” Human Health and Forests (2008): 99, http://ehs.sph.berkeley.edu/krsmith/publications/2008%20pubs/Colfer%20book%20chapter.pdf. 20 Sinha, “‘Indoor’ Air Pollution.” 21 “Viewpoints: An Interview with Professor Kirk R. Smith.” 22 Kirk R.


The Cigarette: A Political History by Sarah Milov

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", activist lawyer, affirmative action, airline deregulation, American Legislative Exchange Council, barriers to entry, British Empire, business logic, collective bargaining, corporate personhood, deindustrialization, fixed income, Frederick Winslow Taylor, G4S, global supply chain, Herbert Marcuse, imperial preference, Indoor air pollution, information asymmetry, invisible hand, Kitchen Debate, land tenure, military-industrial complex, new economy, New Journalism, Philip Mirowski, pink-collar, Potemkin village, precariat, price stability, profit maximization, race to the bottom, Ralph Nader, rent-seeking, scientific management, Silicon Valley, structural adjustment programs, technological determinism, The Chicago School, Torches of Freedom, trade route, union organizing, Unsafe at Any Speed, Upton Sinclair, vertical integration, War on Poverty, women in the workforce

., 2019), 32–40; James B. Sullivan, “Working with Citizens’ Groups,” Physics Today 27, No. 6 (June 1974): 32–37. 79. Repace, Enemy No. 1, 36–39. 80. Ibid., 50–59. 81. James Repace and Alfred Lowrey, “Indoor Air Pollution, Tobacco Smoke, and Public Health,” Science 208, (May 2, 1980): 471. 82. “Tobacco Smoke: An Occupational Health Hazard,” n.d., Folder 1, Carton 2, Shimp Papers, UCSF. 83. Repace and Lowrey, “Indoor Air Pollution, Tobacco Smoke, and Public Health,” 471. 84. Richard Kluger, Ashes to Ashes: America’s Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris (New York: Knopf, 1996), 496. 85.

Derthick, Up in Smoke, 110–114. 5. James Repace and Alfred Lowrey, “Indoor Air Pollution, Tobacco Smoke, and Public Health,” Science 208 (1980): 464–472; Repace and Lowrey, “A Quantitative Estimate of Nonsmokers’ Lung Cancer Risk from Passive Smoking,” Environment International 11, No. 1 (1985): 3–22; National Research Council, Environmental Tobacco Smoke: Measuring Exposures and Assessing Health Effects (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1986); J. M. Samet, M. C. Marbury, and J. D. Spengler, “Health Effects and Sources of Indoor Air Pollution,” American Review of Respiratory Disease 136, No. 6 (1987): 1486–1506; A.

The EPA eventually refused to approve the sewage incinerator on the banks of the Potomac.78 Repace’s success in marshaling his professional expertise to thwart the incinerator siting made him an in-demand expert for citizens’ groups opposing incinerators across the D.C. area.79 That is, Repace became a NIMBY (“Not In My Back Yard”) specialist. After a meeting with a Maryland citizens’ group, an audience member encouraged Repace to turn his technical skills to the question of indoor air pollution. By Repace’s calculations, tobacco smoke in enclosed environments would exceed EPA-permissible air quality standards. Fortuitously, Repace’s attention to the issue conceded with Jesse Steinfeld’s political demise. Once out of office, Steinfeld organized a conference on nonsmokers’ rights at a Baltimore community college.


Live Green: 52 Steps for a More Sustainable Life by Jen Chillingsworth

carbon footprint, clean water, food miles, Indoor air pollution, Mason jar, microplastics / micro fibres, smart meter

Some of them have carcinogenic properties and they also cause harm to the environment, which is why their use in paint is strictly controlled by legislation. Most brands now offer low-VOC paints for indoor projects, but they often still contain other nasties like ammonia, formaldehyde and acrylic softeners – all major sources of indoor air pollution. Switch to green alternatives: * * * PAINT FOR WALLS Many eco paints are virtually free from VOCs, are breathable and are great for rooms like kitchens and bathrooms as they are formulated to help reduce condensation, mould and mildew. However, not all are washable, so in time you will probably have to touch up areas that get dirty.

Scenting the home naturally We like our homes to smell welcoming, but this can mean masking the aromas of cooking or the whiff of pets. Many of us reach for air freshener sprays, plug-ins or scented candles, yet they are full of chemicals that harm the environment and release toxins into the air in our home. Aim to open your windows once a day to let some fresh air in and help to counteract indoor air pollution. Choosing candles * * * Most scented candles are made from paraffin wax (also known as mineral wax). A petroleum waste product, paraffin is bleached, synthetically coloured and fragranced to make a scented candle. When it’s burning, the fumes released are comparable with those from a diesel engine and are especially harmful to anyone who suffers with asthma and other respiratory problems.

These products work by temporarily blocking the pores to prevent the body from sweating and typically contain some nasty ingredients – aluminium, phthalates, propylene glycol and parabens. Spray versions also release potentially harmful VOCs (see Green decorating), which significantly contribute to indoor air pollution. Switching to a natural deodorant is the answer – no nasty chemicals are used, and no harmful VOCs are released into the air. However, many people struggle to find the right product that works for them, and it can take several attempts until you find one that does. I tried a few before I finally found one that suited me.


Green Interior Design by Lori Dennis

big-box store, carbon footprint, clean water, Indoor air pollution, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), McMansion, the built environment

A home is thought to be a haven, but if it is flooded with toxic materials, it’s not exactly the idyllic retreat we imagine. Typically, the wood, plastic, and fabric in most furniture is made or finished with toxic materials, so the furnishings selected to make a space livable actually create indoor air pollution that is harmful to human life. Toxic chemicals and organic pollutants used in paints, paint strippers, and wood preservatives routinely applied to household furnishings are suspected to cause cancer in humans and animals. Formaldehyde, a known indoor pollutant, is used as an adhesive in most residential wood furniture.

Candlelight can be a soothing and wonderful way to create a mood, but most candles are toxic when they’re burned, releasing harmful chemicals into the air. Most candles are made from petroleum by-products and contain benzene and toluene, both known carcinogens. Artificially scented candles may contain phthalates. Once these paraffin candles are burned, they release these chemicals and add to indoor air pollution. Soy or beeswax candles burn longer and cleaner. Soy wax spills are easier to clean compared to paraffin candle wax, which stains fabric and carpets. Soy candles also act as a diffuser because they burn slower, allowing for a cooler flame near the oil. When the oil is not burned, it diffuses around the room more evenly.

Jennair, Bosch, Wolf, and Viking offer induction cooktops. GE has a free-standing model with a convection oven on the bottom. When specifying outdoor barbeques, chose electric, propane, or natural gas instead of charcoal or wood briquettes. HOODS Using ventilation hoods while cooking helps to eliminate indoor air pollution caused by smoke and food particles. Selecting an Energy Star–rated model will help ensure that there is less noise and energy usage generated. They also feature high-performance motors and improved blade design, which provides better performance and lengthens the life of the appliance. MICROWAVES The reviews are mixed on microwaves.


pages: 414 words: 119,116

The Health Gap: The Challenge of an Unequal World by Michael Marmot

active measures, active transport: walking or cycling, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Atul Gawande, Bonfire of the Vanities, Broken windows theory, cakes and ale, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, Celtic Tiger, centre right, clean water, cognitive load, congestion charging, correlation does not imply causation, Doha Development Round, epigenetics, financial independence, future of work, Gini coefficient, Growth in a Time of Debt, illegal immigration, income inequality, Indoor air pollution, Kenneth Rogoff, Kibera, labour market flexibility, longitudinal study, lump of labour, Mahatma Gandhi, Mahbub ul Haq, meta-analysis, microcredit, move 37, New Urbanism, obamacare, paradox of thrift, race to the bottom, Rana Plaza, RAND corporation, road to serfdom, Simon Kuznets, Socratic dialogue, structural adjustment programs, the built environment, The Spirit Level, trickle-down economics, twin studies, urban planning, Washington Consensus, Winter of Discontent, working poor

Childhood underweight, which makes children more vulnerable to infection, comes in at rank 8, after high body mass index, i.e. overweight. Today, considering all countries, high-, middle- and low-income, the major diseases affecting people are similar – so-called non-communicable diseases: heart disease, lung disease – note the importance of indoor air pollution, a cause of chronic lung disease in low-income countries – cancers, diabetes. AIDS, Ebola, TB and malaria remind us that there is still a long distance to go in eradicating major infectious disease epidemics. That said, already in middle-income countries, and increasingly in low-income countries, the causes of suffering and death are similar to those in high-income countries.

The pharmaceutical industry may not like me for saying it, but my preference is for seeing how we could deal with the causes of high blood pressure, high cholesterol and high blood sugar, rather than simply wait for them to get raised and then treat. Third, and related to the last point, there is no social analysis. Overwhelmingly, most of these risk factors are related to people’s social circumstances. We might call these the ‘causes of the causes’. Diet, indoor air pollution and high blood pressure are potent causes of disease globally. We need to ask why, increasingly, these risk factors are linked to social disadvantage. Remember the discussion of maternal mortality? We may call lack of access to medical care a cause of a mother dying in childbirth. We need to look at the causes of lack of access – the causes of the causes.

In addition to the physical burden of carrying wood or manure, they are at increased risk of sexual violence. Cooking over open fires, and indoors in smoky badly ventilated dwellings, is also bad for health. The World Health Organisation estimates that in 2012, globally, 4.3 million deaths were attributable to indoor air pollution, almost all of them in low- and middle-income countries. We have, then, a significant contributor to health inequities between countries. The pity of this problem is that it is soluble, and quickly. Global poverty is soluble too, but will take a little longer. The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves is one among many organisations that are committed to helping hundreds of millions of families escape the unnecessary toil of having no cooking stove or only a rudimentary one.


pages: 454 words: 107,163

Break Through: Why We Can't Leave Saving the Planet to Environmentalists by Michael Shellenberger, Ted Nordhaus

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Abraham Maslow, affirmative action, An Inconvenient Truth, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, bread and circuses, carbon credits, carbon tax, clean water, conceptual framework, David Brooks, deindustrialization, Easter island, facts on the ground, falling living standards, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Great Leap Forward, Herbert Marcuse, illegal immigration, Indoor air pollution, insecure affluence, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, knowledge economy, land reform, loss aversion, market fundamentalism, McMansion, means of production, meta-analysis, Michael Shellenberger, microcredit, new economy, oil shock, postindustrial economy, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Florida, science of happiness, seminal paper, Silicon Valley, Stewart Brand, Ted Nordhaus, the strength of weak ties, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, trade liberalization, War on Poverty, We are as Gods, winner-take-all economy, World Values Survey, zero-sum game

Their research was consistent with the results of other studies, which found asthma to be caused by many factors not just air pollution, from breathing secondhand smoke to breathing indoor air pollution to emotional and physical stress to the lack of health care. The Harlem study found that children with asthma are 50 percent more likely to live with someone who smokes than nonasthmatic children. They discovered that the causes were themselves overdetermined: there are causes within causes. Indoor air pollution is caused by everything from cockroach feces to mold to dust mites. And even those parents who get medical care for their children often do not understand their children’s condition well enough to help them take their medication properly.

., 218 human nature, 101–3, 145–48, 150–54 Hussein, Saddam, 243 hybrid vehicles, 125 I Icarus, myth of, 271 ideological constructs, 230–32 nature vs. market and, 232–35 new politics and, 239 “I have a dream” (King speech), 1–4, 17–18 immigration, attitudes toward, 168–69 immiseration theory, 36 Inconvenient Truth, An (Gore film), 11–13, 25, 105–9, 116, 125 India, 121, 149. See also economic development individualism. See American character; self-creation, freedom for Indonesia, 279 (n13) indoor air pollution, 79, 297 (n36) infrastructure development in Brazil, 47, 49, 54–55, 297 (n43) clean energy development and, 123–24 Inglehart, Ronald, 280 (n7), 282 (n11), 282 (n13) inner-directed (fulfillment) needs, 28, 162, 164, 282 (n12) insecure affluence. See also status insecurity ecological programs and, 39–40 lack of new social contract and, 175–80 late 1990s social transformations and, 171–75 moral values and, 184–85 origins of, 14–15, 160, 165–67 prosperity since 1993 and, 167–69 Inslee, Jay, 229, 257 interest-based advocacy.


Jaws by Sandra Kahn,Paul R. Ehrlich

agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, clean water, desegregation, Edward Jenner, epigenetics, Great Leap Forward, hygiene hypothesis, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, Indoor air pollution, invention of agriculture, invention of writing, language acquisition, longitudinal study, Louis Pasteur, meta-analysis, out of africa, randomized controlled trial, twin studies, Wall-E, women in the workforce

Toxicologic pathology 34: 252–269. 16. Personal communication, February 11, 2016. 17. R. Dales, L. Liu, and A. J. Wheeler. 2008. Quality of indoor residential air and health. Canadian Medical Association Journal 179: 147–152. 18. J. M. Samet, M. C. Marbury, and J. D. Spengler. 1988. Health effects and sources of indoor air pollution. Part II. American Review of Respiratory Disease 137: 221–242. 19. M. Garrett, M. Hooper, B. Hooper, P. Rayment, and M. Abramson. 1999. Increased risk of allergy in children due to formaldehyde exposure in homes. Allergy 54: 330–337. 20. J. L. Sublet, J. Seltzer, R. Burkhead, P. B. Williams, H.

DiLorenzo, and J. H. Bovbjerg. 2003. Family and friends with disease: Their impact on perceived risk. Preventive Medicine 37: 242–249. 25. J. A. Bernstein, N. Alexis, H. Bacchus, I. L. Bernstein, P. Fritz, E. Horner, N. Li, S. Mason, A. Nel, and J. Oullette. 2008. The health effects of nonindustrial indoor air pollution. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology 121: 585–591. 26. P. R. Ehrlich and J. Harte. 2015a. Food security requires a new revolution. International Journal of Environmental Studies: 1–13. Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207233.2015.1067468; and P. R. Ehrlich and J. Harte. 2015b.


pages: 424 words: 119,679

It's Better Than It Looks: Reasons for Optimism in an Age of Fear by Gregg Easterbrook

affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, air freight, Alan Greenspan, Apollo 11, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Bernie Madoff, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, Boeing 747, Branko Milanovic, Brexit referendum, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, clean tech, clean water, coronavirus, Crossrail, David Brooks, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, driverless car, Elon Musk, Exxon Valdez, factory automation, failed state, fake news, full employment, Gini coefficient, Google Earth, Home mortgage interest deduction, hydraulic fracturing, Hyperloop, illegal immigration, impulse control, income inequality, independent contractor, Indoor air pollution, interchangeable parts, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, labor-force participation, liberal capitalism, longitudinal study, Lyft, mandatory minimum, manufacturing employment, Mikhail Gorbachev, minimum wage unemployment, Modern Monetary Theory, obamacare, oil shale / tar sands, Paul Samuelson, peak oil, plant based meat, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, post scarcity, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, reserve currency, rising living standards, Robert Gordon, Ronald Reagan, self-driving car, short selling, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, Slavoj Žižek, South China Sea, Steve Wozniak, Steven Pinker, supervolcano, The Chicago School, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the scientific method, There's no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home - Ken Olsen, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thomas Malthus, transaction costs, Tyler Cowen, uber lyft, universal basic income, War on Poverty, Washington Consensus, We are all Keynesians now, WikiLeaks, working poor, Works Progress Administration

Air in China, India, and parts of the developing world is dangerously polluted; across the contemporary globe it is the poor nations that are the polluted ones, not the advanced industrial regions. In poor nations, indoor air pollution—caused by burning wood, coal, or agricultural wastes for heating and cooking—may be worse than outdoor air pollution. The World Health Organization estimates that indoor air pollution causes 4.3 million deaths annually in the developing world; by contrast, outdoor air pollution causes little if any mortality in the United States and European Union. Indoor cooking smoke in the developing world is far more harmful to the human family than conjectured super-plagues.

In 1900, some 80 percent of Americans were employed at manual or semiskilled labor: Theodore Caplow et al., The First Measured Century (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 2000). Chicago has invested about $4 billion in a deep-tunnel system: Trevor English, “Chicago Deep Tunnel Project,” Interesting Engineering, May 21, 2016. The World Health Organization estimates that indoor air pollution causes 4.3 million deaths: “Clean Household Energy for Health, Sustainable Development, and Wellbeing of Women and Children” (Geneva: World Health Organization, 2016). Today the typical man in the Netherlands is five-foot-eleven: Max Roser, “Human Height,” https://ourworldindata.org/human-height/.


30 Days to a Clean and Organized House by Katie Berry

big-box store, Broken windows theory, clean water, Indoor air pollution, Mason jar

That doesn't mean you have to repeat the plan over and over. Instead, use the Monthly Cleaning Routine to keep chaos away. You can always refer back to the Plan when you want to -- say, for Spring Cleaning -- but if you keep up with the Monthly Cleaning Routine you'll probably find you don't need to. HOMEMADE CLEANING MIXES Indoor air pollution is a very real concern, particularly in newer homes which are built to prevent outdoor (fresh) air from seeping inside. Quite literally everything you cook or burn, spray or wipe, wash or clean with in your home becomes part of the air you breathe. For that reason, it's important to think about the products you use.


The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations by Daniel Yergin

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", 3D printing, 9 dash line, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, addicted to oil, Admiral Zheng, Albert Einstein, American energy revolution, Asian financial crisis, autonomous vehicles, Ayatollah Khomeini, Bakken shale, Bernie Sanders, BRICs, British Empire, carbon tax, circular economy, clean tech, commodity super cycle, company town, coronavirus, COVID-19, decarbonisation, deep learning, Deng Xiaoping, Didi Chuxing, disruptive innovation, distributed generation, Donald Trump, driverless car, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, energy security, energy transition, failed state, Ford Model T, geopolitical risk, gig economy, global pandemic, global supply chain, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, hydraulic fracturing, Indoor air pollution, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), inventory management, James Watt: steam engine, John Zimmer (Lyft cofounder), Kickstarter, LNG terminal, Lyft, Malacca Straits, Malcom McLean invented shipping containers, Masayoshi Son, Masdar, mass incarceration, megacity, megaproject, middle-income trap, Mikhail Gorbachev, mutually assured destruction, new economy, off grid, oil rush, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, open economy, paypal mafia, peak oil, pension reform, power law, price mechanism, purchasing power parity, RAND corporation, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, rolling blackouts, Ronald Reagan, Russian election interference, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, smart cities, social distancing, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, Suez crisis 1956, super pumped, supply-chain management, TED Talk, trade route, Travis Kalanick, Twitter Arab Spring, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, ubercab, UNCLOS, UNCLOS, uranium enrichment, vertical integration, women in the workforce

Many, many things are not being taken into account with all the talk about renewables and electric vehicles.” What those like Sylva see as not taken into account is that three billion people, almost 40 percent of the world’s population—what the World Health Organization (WHO) calls “the forgotten 3 billion”—are subject to indoor air pollution caused by these poor fuels, which the WHO calls “the greatest environmental health risk in the world today.” Close to four million people a year die from this indoor pollution, and many more suffer from a wide variety of illnesses. For children, it can mean stunted development.1 India, with almost 20 percent of the world’s population—soon to be the most populous country in the world—is a case study for the challenges of the developing world.

Workers assemble solar cells in a factory in China, which supplies 70 percent of the world’s solar cells. Almost three billion people do not have access to commercial energy, but instead depend upon gathering wood and crop and animal waste for cooking and heating. The resulting indoor air pollution, says the World Health Organization, is “the greatest environmental health risk in the world today.” Offshore is the new frontier for wind power. Here a supply ship services one of the 150 turbines in the Gemini Wind Park, which covers twenty-six square miles off the Netherlands’ coast.

., xv and gas supplies to Europe, 84–89 and Nixon administration, 53 and opposition to Russian gas exports, 109 and politics of U.S. shale production, 55 and Russia-Europe relations, 83 and South China Sea tensions, 171 and varied approaches to climate change, 412–13 “energy superpower” status, xv, 57, 70–71 Energy Transfer Partners, 49, 51 energy transition and breakthrough energy technologies, 403–6 and carbon capture technology, 419 and current global challenges, xiii–xx, 427–29 and developing world, 407–10 emerging consensus on climate issues, 382–87 and “green deal” proposals, 388–91, 391–93 historical perspective on, 377–79 and IPCC, 379–80 and Paris climate agreement, 380–82 and push for renewable energy sources, 394, 400–401 and U.S. position, xv and varied approaches to climate change, 412 Eni, 256 environmental issues and activism and American shale gas reserves, 113 and Fukushima nuclear disaster, 87 and global power politics, xiii and hydraulic fracturing, 28–29 and indoor air pollution in developing countries, 407–8 and opposition to pipeline projects, 46–51 and U.S. transition to LNG exporter, 37 See also carbon emissions; climate change Environmental Defense Fund, 28–29 EOG, 14–17 Erbil, Kurdistan, 232 Erdoğan, Recep Tayyip, 247, 305, 315 ESPO pipeline, 118 Estonia, 69 EU Council, 102 Eurasian Economic Union, 92, 93, 189 Europe and China Belt and Road Initiative, 182, 184 and Eastern Mediterranean petroleum resources, 258 and impact of U.S. shale and LNG, 38, 55, 61–62 and push for renewable energy sources, 398–99 See also European Union (EU); specific countries European Central Bank, 187 European Commission, 388–90 European Union (EU) and energy security issues in Europe, 85–88 and energy transition challenges, 381 and “green deal” proposals, 388–91 and Nord Stream 2 pipeline, 102, 104, 108–9 and Russian annexation of Crimea, 95 and Russian gas supplies to Europe, 85 and Russian geopolitical ambitions, 70, 115 and Russia-Ukraine tensions, 93 and Syrian refugees, 248 Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) and territorial waters, 142–45, 148, 159, 170, 257 extraterritoriality, 108, 139 ExxonMobil, 15, 65, 76, 395 Fabius, Laurent, 381 Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, 214 Faisal I, King of Iraq, 198–200, 202–3 Falcon rockets, 332 Farouk I, King of Egypt, 203 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 103 financial crisis of 2008, 26–27, 333, 429 Financial Stability Board, 385 Financial Times, 113, 273 financing for energy projects and China Belt and Road Initiative, 182–83 and “green recovery” proposals, 428 and push for renewable energy sources, 397, 400–401 and Russian interests in Central Asia, 125–26 and Russian LNG, 112 Fink, Larry, 385 First Opium War, 139 First Sino-Japanese War, 154 5G technology, 175, 354 “flight shaming,” 387, 415 Ford, Bill (and Ford Motor Company), 329, 338, 346, 351, 369–70, 373 Ford, Henry, 372–73 Fort Laramie Treaty, 49 Fracking Debate, The (Raimi), 28 France, 138, 195–96, 201–2, 227, 232, 247, 343 Freeport LNG facility, 24, 35–37, 38 Free Syrian Army (FSA), 244 Fukushima nuclear accident, 63, 87, 401, 430 G7, 129 G8, 129 G20, 129, 280, 319–20, 388, 426 Gadhafi, Muammar, 239 Gadkari, Nitin, 342 Gaidar, Yegor, 73 gasoline and Auto-Tech advances, 368, 370–72 and “clean diesel,” 335 and consumer behaviors, 421 Mexican imports, 41, 43 and oil embargo of 1973, 53–54 and oil price war, 316–17, 323 and pipeline battles in U.S., 47 Gates, Bill, 315, 385–86 Gates, Robert, 237–38 Gaza, 253 Gazprom, 76, 80, 86, 89, 105, 107–8, 109, 125 Geely, 338 General Motors, 171, 329, 333–34, 369 Georges-Picot, François, 194–95, 196–98, 201–2 Georgia (country), 82 Germany and “clean diesel,” 336 economic growth before World War I, 132 and energy security issues in Europe, 86–88 and energy transition challenges, xix and global order after First World War, 200 and Iranian nuclear ambitions, 223, 227 and Khashoggi affair, 305–6 and Nord Stream 2 pipeline, 102, 104–5, 107–8 and push for renewable energy sources, 395–96, 400–401 and Russia’s “pivot to the east,” 117 and Syrian refugees, 248 and the Thucydides Trap, 131, 154 and U.S.


pages: 1,631 words: 468,342

Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson

biofilm, Boeing 747, Broken windows theory, clean water, deskilling, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, independent contractor, Indoor air pollution, indoor plumbing, Jacquard loom, Own Your Own Home, sensible shoes, spice trade, Telecommunications Act of 1996, telemarketer

CLEANLINESS The Air in Your Castle Effects of inadequate ventilation, signs of inadequate ventilation, desirable levels of ventilation … Desirable indoor temperatures, indoor and outdoor methods of cooling using air conditioners, shade trees, awnings, window shades, blinds, solar shades and screens, and other means … Desirable indoor humidity levels, effects of excess and insufficient humidity … How to measure and control indoor humidity … Indoor air pollution caused by household chemicals used for cleaning and other purposes, chemicals used in hobbies and work, pesticides, ozone, formaldehyde, asbestos, radon, lead, off-gassing and fumes produced by fabrics and carpets, microorganisms, house dust … Indoor pollution caused by furnaces, stoves, heaters, and fireplaces; combustion by-products, carbon monoxide; unvented heaters, wood stoves, gas stoves … Tobacco smoke … Air-cleaning devices such as filters and air-cleaning machines; effect of houseplants Dr.

Because all that fresh air requires heating in winter, those who have high air-exchange rates (the rates at which outside air replaces indoor air) have heating bills to match. By having your house weatherized and tightened, you can significantly decrease both. (You can never render a home completely airtight.) But indoor air pollution increases—and available oxygen decreases—as the air-exchange rate goes down. Thus, although weatherizing usually allows enough fresh air to enter for adequate ventilation, and weatherizing your home is almost always safe and beneficial, authorities recommend against tightening homes with inadequate ventilation or specific pollution problems such as unvented gas cooking stoves, unvented heating stoves, potential radon accumulations, or urea-formaldehyde foam insulation or other significant formaldehyde-emitting sources.

Home centers and hardware stores sell bags of absorbent crystals you can hang in closets or other problem areas. A lightbulb left burning in a damp closet will help dry it out. But don’t create a fire hazard; be sure nothing is left touching or near the bulb. Exhaust fans vented to the outdoors effectively remove excess humidity and indoor air pollutants in bathrooms and kitchens. Every home should have these, but many do not. Ventilating or placing moisture barriers in crawl spaces, basements, and attics can prevent excessive humidity buildup. Dehumidifiers are said to help significantly anywhere in the home, including the basement. Like most other air-treating machines, dehumidifiers have trays that must be emptied and cleaned at recommended intervals to prevent molds and microorganisms from growing.


pages: 312 words: 108,194

Invention: A Life by James Dyson

3D printing, additive manufacturing, augmented reality, Boris Johnson, Buckminster Fuller, car-free, carbon footprint, coronavirus, country house hotel, COVID-19, electricity market, Elon Musk, Etonian, Fellow of the Royal Society, Ford Model T, global supply chain, Google Glasses, Indoor air pollution, James Dyson, James Watt: steam engine, lockdown, microplastics / micro fibres, mittelstand, remote working, rewilding, Saturday Night Live, side project, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, social distancing, sovereign wealth fund, uranium enrichment, warehouse automation, Winter of Discontent, Yom Kippur War, young professional

This uses our Cryptomic technology through which formaldehyde particles are captured by a catalyst and broken down into tiny amounts of harmless water and CO2. Cryptomelane is characterized by billions of atom-sized tunnels with the ability to destroy formaldehyde. People spend the majority of their day inside, and indoor air pollution can be up to five times worse than the outdoor kind. The Dyson Pure Hot + Cool purifier cleanses the air of pollutants and even tells you what these are in a real-time display both on the machine and in your app. Formaldehyde is released from many sources inside the home, including furniture, paint, wood floors, scented candles, cooking, cleaning products, decorating products, and plants, presenting considerable concern, particularly in China, where it is seen as a cause not just of skin irritation and conditions like asthma but of certain cancers, too.

As with other people in Southeast Asia, the Chinese are particularly keen on air purifiers. This is not as many might assume because the pollution levels are higher than anywhere else in the world. Rather, it is because they are educated to be acutely aware of the dangers. They are much better informed about the dangers of indoor air pollution, with the effects of formaldehyde and other VOCs registering high in their consciousness. Quite right, too. Other countries have yet to catch up. When we developed air purifiers, these had to perform to a very high standard to meet local expectations. Where British companies used to create products for export markets at home, today we are living and working in those markets, viscerally aware of what people might want, working in direct collaboration with them on research, development, and production.


pages: 127 words: 38,674

Simple Matters: Living With Less and Ending Up With More by Erin Boyle

big-box store, Indoor air pollution, lateral thinking, Mason jar, Pepto Bismol, place-making, Ralph Waldo Emerson, sharing economy

Chapter 06: Getting Dressed 1 Elizabeth Cline, Overdressed (New York: Penguin, 2012), 102. 2 Cline, Overdressed, 5. 3 Cline, Overdressed, 5. Chapter 08: Cleaning 1 “Take Out Toxics,” Natural Resources Defense Council, http://www.nrdc.org/health/toxics.asp Chapter 09: Thriving 1 “Interior Landscape Plants for Indoor Air Pollution Abatement” (report, NASA, September 15, 1989), B.C. Wolverton, Anne Johnson, and Keith Bounds, http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19930073077.pdf. Further Reading: Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids by Kim John Payne Family Herbal: A Guide to Living Life with Energy, Health, and Vitality by Rosemary Gladstar Herbs for Natural Beauty by Rosemary Gladstar Make Your Place: Affordable, Sustainable Nesting Skills by Raleigh Briggs The Home Apothecary: Cold Spring Apothecary’s Cookbook of Hand-crafted Remedies and Recipes for the Hair, Skin, Body, and Home by Stacey Dugliss-Wesselman The Naturally Clean Home by Karyn Siegel-Maier The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan Skin Cleanse by Adina Grigore For more of my thoughts on simple living, visit my blog, Reading My Tea Leaves (www.readingmytealeaves.com).


pages: 412 words: 113,782

Business Lessons From a Radical Industrialist by Ray C. Anderson

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", addicted to oil, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, An Inconvenient Truth, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, biodiversity loss, business cycle, carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon tax, centralized clearinghouse, clean tech, clean water, corporate social responsibility, Credit Default Swap, dematerialisation, distributed generation, do well by doing good, Easter island, energy security, Exxon Valdez, fear of failure, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, Indoor air pollution, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), intermodal, invisible hand, junk bonds, late fees, Mahatma Gandhi, market bubble, music of the spheres, Negawatt, Neil Armstrong, new economy, off-the-grid, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, old-boy network, peak oil, precautionary principle, renewable energy credits, retail therapy, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, six sigma, subprime mortgage crisis, supply-chain management, urban renewal, Y2K

Here’s what we found coming from them: • carbon monoxide, generated by the incomplete burning of fossil fuels; • carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that helps make Venus an oven; • sulfur dioxide, the poisonous precursor to acid rain; • nitrous oxides, potent greenhouse gases in their own right that react with volatile organic compounds and hydrocarbons on hot, humid days to create ground-level ozone (the bad ozone) and smog, and also contribute to acid rain; • particulate matter, tiny specks of “ash” ten microns or less in diameter and able to penetrate lung tissue; • volatile organic compounds, “escape artist” chemicals that are released during the manufacturing process and from the product itself, contributing to indoor air pollution, “sick building” syndrome, and ground level ozone. That is quite a list. And the survey of our nineteen wastewater effluent pipes was also very revealing. We were legally flushing into the rivers: • dyes (sulfonated mono-alkyl glyceride and di-azo aromatics, benzene and ammonium derivatives); • maintenance chemicals (surfactants, butyl cellusolve); • softeners (sulfonated hydrocarbons, fatty amine ethoxylates); • buffers (inorganic phosphates); • pH control agents (ammonium sulfate, ammonia, sodium hydroxide, acetic and citric acids); • chelating agents (ethylene diamine, tetra acetic acid); • stain-resistant additives (sulfonated alkyl succinate).

Have you ever wondered how a gecko lizard can cling upside down to the ceiling? It can even hang from a glass surface, using just a single toe. That is one powerful adhesive! Could we use something similar to hold our carpet tiles in place? After all, carpet adhesives can be nasty chemicals that contribute to indoor air pollution, and we have vowed to rid our product line of them. Is there something we can learn from a lizard? These questions were posed at an out-of-the-box brainstorming session at InterfaceFLOR in 2006. It turned out that a gecko makes use of a powerful adhering mode known as van der Waals forces, a kind of intermolecular bonding that happens between microscopic hairs on the gecko’s feet and the molecular layer of water that’s present on nearly everything.


pages: 480 words: 119,407

Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez

"Hurricane Katrina" Superdome, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, algorithmic bias, augmented reality, Bernie Sanders, Cambridge Analytica, collective bargaining, crowdsourcing, data science, Diane Coyle, Donald Trump, falling living standards, first-past-the-post, gender pay gap, gig economy, glass ceiling, Grace Hopper, Hacker Ethic, independent contractor, Indoor air pollution, informal economy, lifelogging, low skilled workers, mental accounting, meta-analysis, Nate Silver, new economy, obamacare, Oculus Rift, offshore financial centre, pattern recognition, phenotype, post-industrial society, randomized controlled trial, remote working, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, speech recognition, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steven Levy, tech bro, the built environment, urban planning, women in the workforce, work culture , zero-sum game

A woman cooking on a traditional stove in an unventilated room is exposed to the equivalent of more than a hundred cigarettes a day.33 According to a 2016 paper, in countries from Peru to Nigeria, toxic fumes from stoves are between twenty and a hundred times above World Health Organization guideline limits,34 and globally they cause three times more deaths (2.9 million)35 every year than malaria.36 This is all made worse by the inefficiency of traditional stoves: women who cook on them are exposed to these fumes for three to seven hours a day,37 meaning that, worldwide, indoor air pollution is the single largest environmental risk factor for female mortality and the leading killer of children under the age of five.38 Indoor air pollution is also the eighth-leading contributor to the overall global disease burden, causing respiratory and cardiovascular damage, as well as increased susceptibility to infectious illnesses such as tuberculosis and lung cancer.39 However, as is so often the case with health problems that mainly affect women, ‘these adverse health effects have not been studied in an integrated and scientifically rigorous manner’.40 Development agencies have been trying to introduce ‘clean’ stoves since the 1950s, with varying levels of success.


pages: 491 words: 141,690

The Controlled Demolition of the American Empire by Jeff Berwick, Charlie Robinson

2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, airport security, Alan Greenspan, American Legislative Exchange Council, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, bank run, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, big-box store, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, bread and circuses, Bretton Woods, British Empire, call centre, carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Cass Sunstein, Chelsea Manning, clean water, cloud computing, cognitive dissonance, Comet Ping Pong, coronavirus, Corrections Corporation of America, COVID-19, crack epidemic, crisis actor, crony capitalism, cryptocurrency, dark matter, deplatforming, disinformation, Donald Trump, drone strike, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, energy transition, epigenetics, failed state, fake news, false flag, Ferguson, Missouri, fiat currency, financial independence, George Floyd, global pandemic, global supply chain, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, illegal immigration, Indoor air pollution, information security, interest rate swap, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Jeff Bezos, Jeffrey Epstein, Julian Assange, Kickstarter, lockdown, Mahatma Gandhi, mandatory minimum, margin call, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, megacity, microapartment, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, new economy, no-fly zone, offshore financial centre, Oklahoma City bombing, open borders, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, pill mill, planetary scale, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, power law, pre–internet, private military company, Project for a New American Century, quantitative easing, RAND corporation, reserve currency, RFID, ride hailing / ride sharing, Saturday Night Live, security theater, self-driving car, Seymour Hersh, Silicon Valley, smart cities, smart grid, smart meter, Snapchat, social distancing, Social Justice Warrior, South China Sea, stock buybacks, surveillance capitalism, too big to fail, unpaid internship, urban decay, WikiLeaks, working poor

• Over 1.5 million tons of nitrogen pollution flows down the Mississippi River and in the Gulf of Mexico yearly.58 • One trillion gallons of untreated sewage and industrial waste is dumped in the U.S water system annually. • Americans purchase almost 30 million bottles of water every year, with only about 13% of these bottles recycled every year. • Indoor air pollution is 200%-500% more toxic than the air outdoors. • Americans throw away 1.8 billion diapers, 30 billion foam cups, and 220 million tires each year.59 • Although Americans only represent 5% of the world’s population, it produces about 30% of the world’s waste and uses about 25% of the world’s natural resources.60 • 110 million Americans live in areas where pollution is classified as “harmful” by the federal government

Pollution is obviously not limited to America, and the statistics in developing nations is frightening and totally unsustainable: • China is among the countries with the highest air pollution in the world. Breathing air in Beijing is the equivalent of smoking 21 cigarettes every day. • Almost 750,000 people die from air pollution in China every year. 300,000 deaths are attributed to outdoor air pollution, while 400,000 are from indoor air pollutants.63 • Globally, air pollution is the fourth largest killer, causing over 6 million deaths every year.64 • The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is an island of floating plastic and trash in the Pacific Ocean and is estimated to be larger than the United States. • 14 billion pounds of garbage is dumped into the oceans each year


pages: 191 words: 51,242

Unsustainable Inequalities: Social Justice and the Environment by Lucas Chancel

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Anthropocene, behavioural economics, biodiversity loss, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon footprint, carbon tax, centre right, clean water, COVID-19, disinformation, Donald Trump, energy security, energy transition, financial deregulation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Gini coefficient, green new deal, income inequality, Indoor air pollution, job satisfaction, low skilled workers, offshore financial centre, oil shock, price stability, purchasing power parity, Ronald Reagan, Simon Kuznets, The Spirit Level, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Thorstein Veblen, trade liberalization, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, urban planning, very high income, Washington Consensus

All the evidence suggests that very strong corroboration of these results could be obtained in cities such as New Delhi and Lagos, where the difference in levels of household air pollution between the rich and less rich is still more glaring. HOUSEHOLD AIR POLLUTION Even within the same households, not everyone is equal in the face of air pollution. This is especially the case in developing countries, where indoor air pollution is particularly high owing to customary methods of heating water and cooking. In 2017, in the developing world as a whole, three billion people used traditional sources of energy for cooking. Burning wood or wood charcoal for these purposes generates the very microparticles that are responsible for the outdoor pollution discussed above.


The Art of Profitability by Adrian Slywotzky

"World Economic Forum" Davos, business cycle, business process, commoditize, Indoor air pollution, Isaac Newton, pattern recognition, rolodex, Salesforce, shareholder value

“Wait, I think it could be. Just yesterday I was reading a report about some of the new products we’ve been bringing out. Non-allergenic air filters. Eco-friendly supplies for heaters and furnaces. Screens and insulating materials that cut heating and cooling costs as soon as you install them and also reduce indoor air pollution.” “Have you been marketing these products aggressively?” Steve shook his head. “Not really. We let our dealer network know what’s available. Then it’s up to them to move the stuff. Most people still buy the traditional supplies, at one third the price.” A strange look crossed his face. “You know what, there might be the makings of something here.”


pages: 1,157 words: 379,558

Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris by Richard Kluger

air freight, Albert Einstein, book value, California gold rush, cognitive dissonance, confounding variable, corporate raider, desegregation, disinformation, double entry bookkeeping, family office, feminist movement, full employment, ghettoisation, independent contractor, Indoor air pollution, junk bonds, medical malpractice, Mikhail Gorbachev, plutocrats, power law, publication bias, Ralph Nader, Ralph Waldo Emerson, RAND corporation, rent-seeking, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, selection bias, stock buybacks, The Chicago School, the scientific method, Torches of Freedom, trade route, transaction costs, traveling salesman, union organizing, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, vertical integration, War on Poverty

Repace persuasively answered these charges, contending that they were largely beside the point—that the “aging” rate of ETS, for instance, could be calculated as a constant value since it took about three hours to clear 95 percent of the ETS from a room, during which time the smokers in it collectively lighted, smoked, and discarded cigarettes in a more or less continuous process. To the claim that the ETS level could not be inferred from RSP readings because other airborne pollutants were also present, he responded that the indoor pollution level is ten to one hundred times higher when people are smoking, by far the most significant source of respirable indoor air pollution. Published in Science in May 1980, Repace’s article—his first in a major journal—asserted that the RSP levels generated by smokers overwhelmed the effects of existing ventilation systems and that ETS “presents a serious risk to the health of nonsmokers. Since this risk is involuntary, it deserves as much attention as outdoor air pollution.”

But CIAR also sponsored studies of authentic value by reputable investigators, such as the American Health Foundation report “Determination of Nicotine Metabolites by Immunochemical Methods,” a step toward measuring ETS dosages. The industry, though, also crossed to the shady side of the street by contributing millions of dollars, according to reports by NBC News and The New York Times, to a Fairfax County, Virginia-based private company called Healthy Buildings International, which ostensibly conducted objective indoor air pollution tests and reported their findings to owners or tenants. A number of whistle-blowers once employed by the company charged that the data gathered during its inspections, which almost never faulted ETS as a major pollutant, were routinely doctored to reduce the measured level of ambient smoke and that its representatives, coached by tobacco industry personnel, made frequent public appearances during which they downplayed ETS as a serious health threat.

That the agency feared the industry’s wolfish intent, though, was made clear when a high official wrote to the tobacco lawyers in February of 1988, “ … We are neither seeking the advice of the tobacco industry nor opening a formal line of communication.” Yet a month later, EPA sent industry lawyers the draft of a handbook the agency was drawing up for employers and institutional administrators entitled “Understanding Indoor Air Pollution”—a curious procedure in view of the agency’s own concurrent risk assessment of ETS; why not wait for the completion of the latter before undertaking the former? The industry lawyers’ reply to the invitation to review the handbook gave EPA officials a clearer understanding of what they were in for.


The Orbital Perspective: Lessons in Seeing the Big Picture From a Journey of 71 Million Miles by Astronaut Ron Garan, Muhammad Yunus

Airbnb, Apollo 13, barriers to entry, book scanning, Buckminster Fuller, carbon credits, clean water, corporate social responsibility, crowdsourcing, fake it until you make it, global village, Google Earth, Indoor air pollution, jimmy wales, low earth orbit, optical character recognition, overview effect, private spaceflight, ride hailing / ride sharing, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart transportation, Stephen Hawking, transaction costs, Turing test, Uber for X, web of trust

Manna Energy Ltd. installed a large-capacity water purification system that utilizes gravel and sand filters and solar-powered ultraviolet purification, ensuring that all the children are drinking safe water. Engineers Without Borders also has worked with the community to construct open-air kitchens that use high-efficiency cookstoves, reducing wood use and the respiratory illnesses caused by indoor air pollution. These are just a few of the interventions that have improved the orphanage’s ability to care for the children. The first step toward effecting this kind of real change is to believe that real change is possible, and I believe it is possible 8â•…  I n t r o d u c t io n because we already have accomplished some things that were once thought impossible.


pages: 272 words: 71,487

Getting Better: Why Global Development Is Succeeding--And How We Can Improve the World Even More by Charles Kenny

agricultural Revolution, Berlin Wall, British Empire, Charles Lindbergh, clean water, demographic transition, double entry bookkeeping, Edward Jenner, experimental subject, Fall of the Berlin Wall, germ theory of disease, Golden arches theory, Great Leap Forward, Gunnar Myrdal, income inequality, income per capita, Indoor air pollution, inventory management, Kickstarter, Milgram experiment, off grid, open borders, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, randomized controlled trial, Robert Solow, seminal paper, structural adjustment programs, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, total factor productivity, Toyota Production System, trade liberalization, transaction costs, Tyler Cowen, very high income, Washington Consensus, X Prize

“Trends in Global Income Distribution, 1970–2000, and Scenarios for 2015.” Human Development Report Office Occasional Paper. Djankov, S., and M. Reynal-Querol. 2008. “Poverty and Civil War: Revisiting the Evidence.” CEPR Working Paper DP6980. Donohoe, M., and E. Garner. 2008. “Health Effects of Indoor Air Pollution from Biomass Cooking Stoves.” Medscape Public Health & Prevention: Public Health Perspective. Accessed online at http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/572069 on November 3, 2008. Doucouliagos, H., and M. Paldam. 2005. “Aid Effectiveness on Growth: A Meta-Study.” University of Aarhus Department of Economics Working Paper 2005–15/6.


pages: 278 words: 74,880

A World of Three Zeros: The New Economics of Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, and Zero Carbon Emissions by Muhammad Yunus

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", active measures, Bernie Sanders, biodiversity loss, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, clean water, conceptual framework, crony capitalism, data science, distributed generation, Donald Trump, financial engineering, financial independence, fixed income, full employment, high net worth, income inequality, Indoor air pollution, Internet of things, invisible hand, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Lean Startup, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, megacity, microcredit, new economy, Occupy movement, profit maximization, Silicon Valley, the market place, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, Tragedy of the Commons, unbanked and underbanked, underbanked, urban sprawl, young professional

It can also be timed to an individual user’s due date so that it provides appropriate health care information and advice at the right moments; there are some eighty health messages to be delivered at a rate of about two per week. Coel’s benefits don’t stop there. The bangle is also designed to monitor and test the quality of the air that its female wearer is breathing. In particular, it can detect indoor air pollution, particularly carbon monoxide, which is often generated during cooking with fuels like wood, charcoal, or dung. Millions of women in Bangladesh and other developing countries inhale such dangerous fumes every day, often with dire health consequences for their babies. Coel will provide alerts when this is happening so that women will know it’s time to step outside for fresh air.


pages: 245 words: 78,125

Happy Inside: How to Harness the Power of Home for Health and Happiness by Michelle Ogundehin

clean water, fake it until you make it, financial independence, Indoor air pollution, Jeff Bezos, Kickstarter, Lao Tzu, McMansion, microplastics / micro fibres, Own Your Own Home, placebo effect, sharing economy

Should you prefer your toast a little crisper, burnt toast propels those emissions up to a heady 3,000–4,000 micrograms per cubic metre! This is more than 150 times the WHO limits. No wonder we might start to feel a little lethargic if we stay indoors too much, and all we’ve done so far is make breakfast. Other common indoor air pollutants (covered in detail in the next section) include fumes from freshly dry-cleaned clothes and volatile organic compounds (or VOCs – carbon-based solvents that evaporate at room temperature) released by some household paint as it dries, as well as medium-density fibreboard (MDF), new carpets (or the adhesives used to fix them) and some upholstery.


Energy and Civilization: A History by Vaclav Smil

8-hour work day, additive manufacturing, agricultural Revolution, animal electricity, Apollo 11, Boeing 747, business cycle, carbon-based life, centre right, Charles Babbage, decarbonisation, dematerialisation, Deng Xiaoping, Easter island, en.wikipedia.org, energy security, energy transition, epigenetics, Exxon Valdez, Fairchild Semiconductor, Ford Model T, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, hydraulic fracturing, income inequality, Indoor air pollution, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of gunpowder, James Watt: steam engine, Jevons paradox, John Harrison: Longitude, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Just-in-time delivery, Kaizen: continuous improvement, Kibera, knowledge economy, land tenure, language acquisition, Lewis Mumford, lone genius, Louis Blériot, mass immigration, megacity, megaproject, Menlo Park, mutually assured destruction, North Sea oil, ocean acidification, oil shale / tar sands, peak oil, phenotype, precision agriculture, purchasing power parity, QWERTY keyboard, Richard Feynman, scientific management, Silicon Valley, Suez canal 1869, Toyota Production System, transcontinental railway, uranium enrichment, Yom Kippur War

Now as earlier, one must weigh the dismal state of urban environments—aesthetic affronts, air and water pollution, noise, crowding, dismal living conditions in slums—against their often no less objectionable rural counterparts. Common rural environmental burdens include very high concentrations of indoor air pollutants (particularly fine particulate matter) from unvented biomass combustion, inadequate heating in colder climates, unsafe water supplies, poor personal hygiene, dilapidated, overcrowded housing, and minimal or no opportunities to see the children properly educated. Moreover, the drudgery of field labor in the open is seldom preferable even to unskilled industrial work in a factory.

Feeding the city: Food consumption and flow of nitrogen, Paris, 1801–1914. Science of the Total Environment 375:48–58. Barles, S., and L. Lestel. 2007. The nitrogen question: Urbanization, industrialization, and river quality in Paris 1830–1939. Journal of Urban History 33:794–812. Barnes, B. R. 2014. Behavioural change, indoor air pollution and child respiratory health in developing countries: A review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 11:4607–4618. Barro, R. J. 1997. Determinants of Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Study. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bartosiewicz, L. et al. 1997. Draught Cattle: Their Osteological Identification and History.


pages: 289 words: 86,165

Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria

"there is no alternative" (TINA), 15-minute city, AlphaGo, An Inconvenient Truth, anti-fragile, Asian financial crisis, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Boris Johnson, butterfly effect, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, car-free, carbon tax, central bank independence, clean water, cloud computing, colonial rule, contact tracing, coronavirus, COVID-19, Credit Default Swap, David Graeber, Day of the Dead, deep learning, DeepMind, deglobalization, Demis Hassabis, Deng Xiaoping, digital divide, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, Edward Jenner, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, failed state, financial engineering, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, gentrification, George Floyd, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, global reserve currency, global supply chain, green new deal, hiring and firing, housing crisis, imperial preference, income inequality, Indoor air pollution, invention of the wheel, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Snow's cholera map, junk bonds, lockdown, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, means of production, megacity, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, middle-income trap, Monroe Doctrine, Nate Silver, Nick Bostrom, oil shock, open borders, out of africa, Parag Khanna, Paris climate accords, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, popular capitalism, Productivity paradox, purchasing power parity, remote working, reserve currency, reshoring, restrictive zoning, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, social distancing, software is eating the world, South China Sea, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, Suez crisis 1956, TED Talk, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, Tim Cook: Apple, trade route, UNCLOS, universal basic income, urban planning, Washington Consensus, white flight, Works Progress Administration, zoonotic diseases

Average,” Wall Street Journal, December 28, 2011, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203479104577125151628468014. 133 “If you want to live longer and healthier than the average American”: Stu Loeser, Samantha Levine, Susan Craig, and Alexandra Waldhorn, “Mayor Bloomberg, Deputy Mayor Gibbs, Health Commissioner Farley Announce New Yorkers Living Longer Than Ever, Outpacing National Trend,” Official Website of the City of New York, December 7, 2011, https://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/453-11/mayor-bloomberg-deputy-mayor-gibbs-health-commissioner-farley-new-yorkers-living-longer#/4. 134 3% of the earth’s surface: Liu Zhifeng et al., “How Much of the World’s Land Has Been Urbanized, Really? A Hierarchical Framework for Avoiding Confusion,” Landscape Ecology 29 (2014): 763–71. 134 pollution is sometimes worse in rural areas: H. E. S. Mestl, K. Aunan, H. M. Seip et al., “Urban and Rural Exposure to Indoor Air Pollution from Domestic Biomass and Coal Burning Across China,” Science of the Total Environment 377, no. 1 (May 2007): 12–26, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2007.01.087. 134 reliance on dirty fossil fuels: “Country Living, Dirty Air: Oil & Gas Pollution in Rural America,” Earthworks and Clean Air Taskforce, https://www.scribd.com/document/383729903/Country-Living-Dirty-Air; see also, for example, Liz Ruskin, “Alaska Remote Diesel Generators Win Exemption from Pollution Rule,” Alaska Public Media, September 18, 2019, https://www.alaskapublic.org/2019/09/18/alaska-remote-diesel-generators-win-exemption-from-pollution-rule/. 134 “Cancer Alley”: Tristan Baurick, Lylla Younes, and Joan Meiners, “Welcome to ‘Cancer Alley,’ Where Toxic Air Is About to Get Worse,” ProPublica, October 30, 2019, https://www.propublica.org/article/welcome-to-cancer-alley-where-toxic-air-is-about-to-get-worse. 134 mountains of garbage on New York’s streets: New York City’s infamous problem of garbage on the sidewalk is an artifact of its dense grid plan.


pages: 295 words: 87,204

The Capitalist Manifesto by Johan Norberg

AltaVista, anti-communist, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Boris Johnson, business climate, business cycle, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Charles Babbage, computer age, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, crony capitalism, data is not the new oil, data is the new oil, David Graeber, DeepMind, degrowth, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, digital map, disinformation, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, energy transition, Erik Brynjolfsson, export processing zone, failed state, Filter Bubble, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, Google Glasses, Greta Thunberg, Gunnar Myrdal, Hans Rosling, Hernando de Soto, Howard Zinn, income inequality, independent contractor, index fund, Indoor air pollution, industrial robot, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of the printing press, invisible hand, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, job satisfaction, Joseph Schumpeter, land reform, liberal capitalism, lockdown, low cost airline, low interest rates, low skilled workers, Lyft, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, meta-analysis, Minecraft, multiplanetary species, Naomi Klein, Neal Stephenson, Nelson Mandela, Network effects, open economy, passive income, Paul Graham, Paul Samuelson, payday loans, planned obsolescence, precariat, profit motive, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, rent control, rewilding, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Coase, Rosa Parks, Salesforce, Sam Bankman-Fried, Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, Snapchat, social distancing, social intelligence, South China Sea, Stephen Fry, Steve Jobs, tech billionaire, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, TikTok, Tim Cook: Apple, total factor productivity, trade liberalization, transatlantic slave trade, Tyler Cowen, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, ultimatum game, Virgin Galactic, Washington Consensus, working-age population, World Values Survey, X Prize, you are the product, zero-sum game

Globally, from 1990 to 2017, the number of DALYs lost to air pollution has decreased by 49 per cent and to water pollution by 65 per cent.9 Environmental damage to life and health10 One important exception is CO2 emissions, which have continued to increase as more parts of the world have been electrified. However, this electrification has been crucial in reducing the number of people who cook with biofuels. Between 1990 and 2019, the number of deaths from indoor air pollution decreased by more than two million. The death rate has dropped by two-thirds, one of the biggest health triumphs of recent decades.11 Yet biodiversity is under increasing threat as humans encroach on the wilderness, mainly to turn it into agricultural land. It is often said that we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, this time a man-made one.


pages: 1,199 words: 332,563

Golden Holocaust: Origins of the Cigarette Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition by Robert N. Proctor

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", bioinformatics, carbon footprint, clean water, corporate social responsibility, Deng Xiaoping, desegregation, disinformation, Dr. Strangelove, facts on the ground, friendly fire, germ theory of disease, global pandemic, index card, Indoor air pollution, information retrieval, invention of gunpowder, John Snow's cholera map, language of flowers, life extension, New Journalism, optical character recognition, pink-collar, Ponzi scheme, Potemkin village, precautionary principle, publication bias, Ralph Nader, Ronald Reagan, selection bias, speech recognition, stem cell, telemarketer, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, Upton Sinclair, vertical integration, Yogi Berra

Sterling, for example, a professor of applied mathematics at Washington University in St. Louis, testified before this same House committee, opining that the conclusions drawn by the Surgeon General about smoking and cancer were “probably invalid.” In the 1960s and early 1970s Sterling received about $4 million to conduct research for the industry, mainly on indoor air pollution but also to develop statistical methods useful for challenging the smoking–cancer link. As late as the 1990s Sterling was ridiculing calculations of hundreds of thousands of U.S. deaths from smoking as “exaggerated propaganda” bordering on “the ludicrous”; he also accused health authorities of “resorting to misinformation to encourage people to stop smoking.”

Philip Morris distinguishes screamers “soft” and “hard”: “soft” screamers are simply people who request being removed from such lists, whereas “hard” screamers (also known as “mass mob screamers”) include direct mail targets who are underage or otherwise troublesome from a legal point of view. sick building syndrome (SBS) Concept created by Gray Robertson of Healthy Buildings International—a tobacco industry front—to distract from the hazards of secondhand smoke in indoor spaces. The idea was that buildings suffering from indoor air pollution (from carpet fumes and the like) could be healed by proper ventilation—rather than bans on smoking. SBS becomes a centerpiece of tobacco industry effort to minimize and/or deny the reality of harms caused by breathing indoor smoke. statistics Generally suspect, or “mere.” Invectives against statistics appear by the thousands in tobacco industry propaganda.

A technique to lower machine-measured tar and nicotine deliveries by cutting tiny slits in the mouth end of a cigarette. Ventilation slits were strategically placed so that while smoking robots would record lower yields, smokers could cover them to obtain their requisite dosages (“self-titration”). “Ventilation” was also a term used to distract from cigarettes as a cause of indoor air pollution: rooms had not “too much smoke” but rather “too little ventilation.” virile market Term for military and/or macho market targets. “Virile females” included female soldiers but also “NASCAR girls.” weaning Big Tobacco term for withdrawal from nicotine—smoking cessation—and something to be feared.


pages: 268 words: 89,761

Unhealthy societies: the afflictions of inequality by Richard G. Wilkinson

attribution theory, business cycle, clean water, correlation coefficient, experimental subject, full employment, fundamental attribution error, Gini coefficient, income inequality, income per capita, Indoor air pollution, invisible hand, land reform, longitudinal study, means of production, purchasing power parity, rising living standards, twin studies, upwardly mobile

For countries on the horizontal part of the curves in figure 3.1 (which becomes more horizontal in the light of the inadequate quality adjustments), the onus for explaining the upward shift of the life expectancy curve is on the qualitative improvements in living standards which take place over time. If one were to suggest ways in which qualitative change might improve health, one might point to cleaner central heating, which avoids the problems of indoor air pollution and fire hazards associated with open fires; 42 The health of societies freezers which enable people to eat food with less bacterial contamination; a whole host of developments (including washing machines, electric kettles and disposable nappies) which have made baby and childcare not only easier but also more hygienic and safe; lead-free petrol which reduces environmental pollution; increases in car safety, which have reduced road deaths despite increased car ownership; and the wider provision of phones, which enables families and friends to overcome some of the social dislocation caused by geographical separation (relevant to the powerful influence of social support on health).


pages: 340 words: 94,464

Randomistas: How Radical Researchers Changed Our World by Andrew Leigh

Albert Einstein, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Anton Chekhov, Atul Gawande, basic income, behavioural economics, Black Swan, correlation does not imply causation, crowdsourcing, data science, David Brooks, Donald Trump, ending welfare as we know it, Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science, experimental economics, Flynn Effect, germ theory of disease, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, Indoor air pollution, Isaac Newton, It's morning again in America, Kickstarter, longitudinal study, loss aversion, Lyft, Marshall McLuhan, meta-analysis, microcredit, Netflix Prize, nudge unit, offshore financial centre, p-value, Paradox of Choice, placebo effect, price mechanism, publication bias, RAND corporation, randomized controlled trial, recommendation engine, Richard Feynman, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Metcalfe, Ronald Reagan, Sheryl Sandberg, statistical model, Steven Pinker, sugar pill, TED Talk, uber lyft, universal basic income, War on Poverty

Researchers in the Netherlands randomly assigned primary school students to a sports program run by one of the nation’s top soccer teams, to see if it helped them perform better in maths and reading (it didn’t).16 In Washington DC, researchers randomly offered a Washington Post subscription to households to see how it affected their political views (it made them more likely to vote Democrat).17 A French experiment found that winning a spot in a boarding school boosted test scores for disadvantaged students.18 A team of economists used a randomised trial in India to test whether better cooking stoves would improve health by reducing indoor air pollution (the effect was temporary, lasting only a year or so).19 In Ethiopia, a randomised trial tested whether getting a job in a sweatshop improved people’s lives (most quit within a few months).20 In Oregon, trials have compared whether delinquent youths do better in foster care or group care (foster care seems to be better, particularly for girls).21 Randomised trials are in your life, whether you like it or not.


pages: 297 words: 95,518

Ten Technologies to Save the Planet: Energy Options for a Low-Carbon Future by Chris Goodall

barriers to entry, carbon footprint, carbon tax, congestion charging, decarbonisation, electricity market, energy security, Indoor air pollution, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Kickstarter, land tenure, load shedding, New Urbanism, oil shock, profit maximization, Silicon Valley, smart grid, smart meter, statistical model, undersea cable

The absence of respiration (the return of water vapor from trees to the atmosphere) increases the threat of drought. Equally importantly, Flanagan’s stoves burn extremely cleanly, improving the air quality in homes. The World Health Organization reports that a million and a half people die every year from the effects of indoor air pollution, which is mostly caused by smoke from open fires in poorer communities. Like the other experimental scientists working in the field, Flanagan isn’t sure why biochar adds to the soil’s fertility. When I chatted to him by e-mail, he described this puzzle as the “million-dollar question.” The fertilization effects of charcoal are clearest in the tropics, but many researchers are now seeing similar improvements in the soils of temperate lands.


Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes

book value, commoditize, Donald Trump, index card, Indoor air pollution, Maui Hawaii, telemarketer

We were wondering if there was anything we could do to help with that story." Often at that point, you'll be asked to resend your press release. Or you'll be bmshed off, but the following month, when you call about the five million dust mites in everyone's living room, the editor will start to remember: you're the guy who knows about indoor air pollution. If a story comes up along those lines, guess who they are going to call first? Also, editors are just like anyone else. They respect someone who continues to call them with story ideas on a regular basis. Earlier I mentioned American Art Resources (AAR), the people who sell art to hospitals.


pages: 1,034 words: 241,773

Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker

3D printing, Abraham Maslow, access to a mobile phone, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, Alfred Russel Wallace, Alignment Problem, An Inconvenient Truth, anti-communist, Anton Chekhov, Arthur Eddington, artificial general intelligence, availability heuristic, Ayatollah Khomeini, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, biodiversity loss, Black Swan, Bonfire of the Vanities, Brexit referendum, business cycle, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Charlie Hebdo massacre, classic study, clean water, clockwork universe, cognitive bias, cognitive dissonance, Columbine, conceptual framework, confounding variable, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, cuban missile crisis, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, dark matter, data science, decarbonisation, degrowth, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, distributed generation, diversified portfolio, Donald Trump, Doomsday Clock, double helix, Eddington experiment, Edward Jenner, effective altruism, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, end world poverty, endogenous growth, energy transition, European colonialism, experimental subject, Exxon Valdez, facts on the ground, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, first-past-the-post, Flynn Effect, food miles, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, frictionless, frictionless market, Garrett Hardin, germ theory of disease, Gini coefficient, Great Leap Forward, Hacker Conference 1984, Hans Rosling, hedonic treadmill, helicopter parent, Herbert Marcuse, Herman Kahn, Hobbesian trap, humanitarian revolution, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, income inequality, income per capita, Indoor air pollution, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of writing, Jaron Lanier, Joan Didion, job automation, Johannes Kepler, John Snow's cholera map, Kevin Kelly, Khan Academy, knowledge economy, l'esprit de l'escalier, Laplace demon, launch on warning, life extension, long peace, longitudinal study, Louis Pasteur, Mahbub ul Haq, Martin Wolf, mass incarceration, meta-analysis, Michael Shellenberger, microaggression, Mikhail Gorbachev, minimum wage unemployment, moral hazard, mutually assured destruction, Naomi Klein, Nate Silver, Nathan Meyer Rothschild: antibiotics, negative emissions, Nelson Mandela, New Journalism, Norman Mailer, nuclear taboo, nuclear winter, obamacare, ocean acidification, Oklahoma City bombing, open economy, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, paperclip maximiser, Paris climate accords, Paul Graham, peak oil, Peter Singer: altruism, Peter Thiel, post-truth, power law, precautionary principle, precision agriculture, prediction markets, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, radical life extension, Ralph Nader, randomized controlled trial, Ray Kurzweil, rent control, Republic of Letters, Richard Feynman, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Rodney Brooks, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Rory Sutherland, Saturday Night Live, science of happiness, Scientific racism, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Simon Kuznets, Skype, smart grid, Social Justice Warrior, sovereign wealth fund, sparse data, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Bannon, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, Stuxnet, supervolcano, synthetic biology, tech billionaire, technological determinism, technological singularity, Ted Kaczynski, Ted Nordhaus, TED Talk, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the scientific method, The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, The Wisdom of Crowds, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thomas Malthus, total factor productivity, Tragedy of the Commons, union organizing, universal basic income, University of East Anglia, Unsafe at Any Speed, Upton Sinclair, uranium enrichment, urban renewal, W. E. B. Du Bois, War on Poverty, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, women in the workforce, working poor, World Values Survey, Y2K

Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/human-rights/. Roser, M. 2016j. Hunger and undernourishment. Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment/. Roser, M. 2016k. Income inequality. Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/income-inequality/. Roser, M. 2016l. Indoor air pollution. Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/indoor-air-pollution/. Roser, M. 2016m. Land use in agriculture. Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-in-agriculture/. Roser, M. 2016n. Life expectancy. Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy/. Roser, M. 2016o. Light. Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/light/.


pages: 438 words: 103,983

Dirty Genes: A Breakthrough Program to Treat the Root Cause of Illness and Optimize Your Health by Ben Lynch Nd.

23andMe, clean water, double helix, epigenetics, Helicobacter pylori, Indoor air pollution, microbiome, post-work, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI)

She was a teacher, so eventually I had her call in inspectors to evaluate her school. Turns out the building was so contaminated by mold that they had to demolish it! I could have just treated her congestion, but as it turned out, I helped thousands of people. Please, check for mold—and also for a number of other common indoor air pollutants, including radon, carbon monoxide, dust mites, and formaldehyde (to name just a few). A good starting point is often an at-home mold test kit, available at your local hardware store and online (see below for one recommendation). If this doesn’t work, call in the professionals to make an evaluation.


pages: 289 words: 112,697

The new village green: living light, living local, living large by Stephen Morris

Alan Greenspan, An Inconvenient Truth, back-to-the-land, Buckminster Fuller, carbon tax, clean tech, clean water, collective bargaining, Columbine, Community Supported Agriculture, company town, computer age, cuban missile crisis, David Sedaris, deindustrialization, discovery of penicillin, distributed generation, Easter island, energy security, energy transition, Fellow of the Royal Society, financial independence, Firefox, Hacker Conference 1984, index card, Indoor air pollution, intentional community, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, John Elkington, Kevin Kelly, Louis Pasteur, low interest rates, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, McMansion, Menlo Park, messenger bag, Negawatt, off grid, off-the-grid, peak oil, precautionary principle, rolodex, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, systems thinking, Whole Earth Catalog, Whole Earth Review

Fifty-one percent 168 chapter 7 : Whole Earth Catalog of all American homes have one of these time- and labor-saving devices, yet it surprises many to learn that they’re the most toxic appliance in the modern home. Over the course of approximately 30 experiments, researchers at the EPA and the University of Texas recently documented the dishwasher’s role as a leading cause of indoor air pollution. Pollutants released by dishwashers include the chlorine added to both public water supplies and dishwasher detergents, volatile organic compounds like chloroform, radioactive radon naturally present in some water sources, and other volatile contaminants that have worked their way into public water supplies.


pages: 353 words: 106,704

Choked: Life and Breath in the Age of Air Pollution by Beth Gardiner

barriers to entry, Boris Johnson, call centre, carbon footprint, clean water, connected car, Crossrail, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, epigenetics, Exxon Valdez, failed state, Hyperloop, index card, Indoor air pollution, Mahatma Gandhi, megacity, meta-analysis, rolling blackouts, Ronald Reagan, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Skype, statistical model, Steve Jobs, TED Talk, white picket fence

More than 40 percent of humanity—33 billion people—lives in households that cook this way.1 As economic growth has lifted many from the direst poverty, and as villagers everywhere have migrated to cities, that percentage has declined. But because the global population has been rising at the same time, the absolute number of people living with the smoke of open cooking fires remains stubbornly high. Scientists used to call this “indoor air pollution,” to distinguish it from the more familiar “outdoor” sources. But the jargon has recently changed, reflecting a new realization: that the two problems are deeply intertwined, because the smoke of cooking fires floats from kitchens and adds to an entire region’s, or a nation’s, dirty air. That the problem can’t be solved just by venting smoke from homes, and that the cooks and their families don’t escape it when they step outside—it follows them through their neighborhoods, through their days and their lives.


pages: 413 words: 128,093

On the Grand Trunk Road: A Journey Into South Asia by Steve Coll

affirmative action, airport security, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, back-to-the-land, Berlin Wall, British Empire, colonial rule, disinformation, Fall of the Berlin Wall, foreign exchange controls, full employment, global village, income inequality, income per capita, Indoor air pollution, Khyber Pass, land reform, Mahatma Gandhi, market bubble, mass immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, New Urbanism, Ponzi scheme, Ronald Reagan, upwardly mobile, urban sprawl, yellow journalism

They rise at five in the morning in a clatter of gossip and banging pots, cook breakfast, feed and dress the children, milk the cows, fetch water from drying springs, grind grain, work the fields, cook lunch, grind more grain, march off to gather firewood, clean the house, work the fields again, cook dinner, wash the dishes, and put the children to bed. The women manage the grain stocks and the harvests. They spend long hours squatting on the straw mats in their kitchens, which are filled with smoke from cooking fires. “Indoor air pollution,” the environmental scientists in New Delhi call it, as if it were a symptom of faulty valves. The women usually fall asleep around eleven at night and rise again at dawn to do it all again, seven days a week. Their husbands help them out by getting them pregnant with great frequency. The cycle plays out like a game of Russian roulette.


pages: 451 words: 125,201

What We Owe the Future: A Million-Year View by William MacAskill

Ada Lovelace, agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, Alignment Problem, AlphaGo, artificial general intelligence, Bartolomé de las Casas, Bletchley Park, British Empire, Brownian motion, carbon footprint, carbon tax, charter city, clean tech, coronavirus, COVID-19, cuban missile crisis, decarbonisation, deep learning, DeepMind, Deng Xiaoping, different worldview, effective altruism, endogenous growth, European colonialism, experimental subject, feminist movement, framing effect, friendly AI, global pandemic, GPT-3, hedonic treadmill, Higgs boson, income inequality, income per capita, Indoor air pollution, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Isaac Newton, Islamic Golden Age, iterative process, Jeff Bezos, job satisfaction, lab leak, Lao Tzu, Large Hadron Collider, life extension, lockdown, long peace, low skilled workers, machine translation, Mars Rover, negative emissions, Nick Bostrom, nuclear winter, OpenAI, Peter Singer: altruism, Peter Thiel, QWERTY keyboard, Robert Gordon, Rutger Bregman, Sam Altman, seminal paper, Shenzhen special economic zone , Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, special economic zone, speech recognition, Stanislav Petrov, stem cell, Steven Pinker, strong AI, synthetic biology, total factor productivity, transatlantic slave trade, Tyler Cowen, William MacAskill, women in the workforce, working-age population, World Values Survey, Y Combinator

Clark et al. 2016, Figure 6. 45. See whatweowethefuture.com/notes. 46. Our World in Data 2020a, based on Lelieveld et al. 2019. This only includes deaths from outdoor air pollution. An additional 1.6 million (Stanaway et al. 2018) to 3.8 million (WHO 2021) excess deaths per year are due to indoor air pollution, much of which is caused by lack of access to electricity and clean fuels for cooking, heating, and lighting (H. Ritchie and Roser 2019). More than 2.5 billion people are able to cook only by burning coal, kerosene, charcoal, wood, dung, or crop waste using inefficient and unsafe technology such as open fires (WHO 2021). 47.


Making Globalization Work by Joseph E. Stiglitz

"World Economic Forum" Davos, affirmative action, Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, Asian financial crisis, banking crisis, barriers to entry, benefit corporation, Berlin Wall, blood diamond, business process, capital controls, carbon tax, central bank independence, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, currency manipulation / currency intervention, Doha Development Round, Exxon Valdez, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Firefox, full employment, Garrett Hardin, Gini coefficient, global reserve currency, Global Witness, Great Leap Forward, Gunnar Myrdal, happiness index / gross national happiness, illegal immigration, income inequality, income per capita, incomplete markets, Indoor air pollution, informal economy, information asymmetry, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), inventory management, invisible hand, John Markoff, Jones Act, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, low interest rates, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, microcredit, moral hazard, negative emissions, new economy, North Sea oil, offshore financial centre, oil rush, open borders, open economy, price stability, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, race to the bottom, reserve currency, rising living standards, risk tolerance, Seymour Hersh, Silicon Valley, special drawing rights, statistical model, the market place, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, trade liberalization, Tragedy of the Commons, trickle-down economics, union organizing, Washington Consensus, zero-sum game

Now it is also being viewed as a way up, enhancing income even for those who remain in the rural sector. Education can be used to promote health and the environment as well as to impart technical skills. Students can learn in school the dangers of locating latrines uphill from their source of drinking water, or the dangers of indoor air pollution—the choking smoke in huts without ventilation—and what can be done about it. With education, a broad approach is important. Too often, international development institutions such as the World Bank focused narrowly on primary education. This was understandable: the returns are high, and many countries were spending a disproportionate part of their education budgets on university education for children of the elite.


pages: 519 words: 136,708

Vertical: The City From Satellites to Bunkers by Stephen Graham

1960s counterculture, Anthropocene, Bandra-Worli Sea Link, Berlin Wall, Boris Johnson, Buckminster Fuller, Buy land – they’re not making it any more, Chelsea Manning, commodity super cycle, creative destruction, Crossrail, deindustrialization, digital capitalism, digital divide, digital map, Dr. Strangelove, drone strike, Edward Glaeser, Edward Snowden, Elisha Otis, energy security, Frank Gehry, gentrification, ghettoisation, Google Earth, Gunnar Myrdal, high net worth, housing crisis, Howard Zinn, illegal immigration, Indoor air pollution, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Jane Jacobs, late capitalism, Leo Hollis, Lewis Mumford, low earth orbit, mass immigration, means of production, megacity, megaproject, megastructure, military-industrial complex, moral panic, mutually assured destruction, new economy, New Urbanism, no-fly zone, nuclear winter, oil shale / tar sands, planetary scale, plutocrats, post-industrial society, Project Plowshare, rent control, Richard Florida, Right to Buy, Ronald Reagan, security theater, Skype, South China Sea, space junk, Strategic Defense Initiative, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, trickle-down economics, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, vertical integration, Virgin Galactic, white flight, WikiLeaks, William Langewiesche

‘The risks from air pollution are now far greater than previously thought or understood, particularly for heart disease and strokes’, argued the WHO’s Maria Neira. ‘Few risks have a greater impact on global health today than air pollution; the evidence signals the need for concerted action to clean up the air we all breathe.’25 The WHO estimated that 4.3 million of total deaths were due to indoor air pollution (mainly from lit stoves), and 3.7 million were due to bad external air tainted by fossil fuel combustion. The most lethal aspects of the latter involves sulphur and nitrogen dioxide (major causes of chronic respiratory and cardiovascular ailments); poisonous ozone (formed when sunlight reacts with pollutants); carbon monoxide (which prevents the blood from transporting oxygen properly); various forms of airborne particulate matter (from diesel engines and coal fired power stations); carcinogens such as benzene and lead; and airborne dust created by construction work.


pages: 538 words: 138,544

The Story of Stuff: The Impact of Overconsumption on the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-And How We Can Make It Better by Annie Leonard

air freight, banking crisis, big-box store, blood diamond, Bretton Woods, business logic, California gold rush, carbon footprint, carbon tax, clean water, Community Supported Agriculture, cotton gin, dematerialisation, employer provided health coverage, energy security, European colonialism, export processing zone, Firefox, Food sovereignty, Ford paid five dollars a day, full employment, global supply chain, Global Witness, income inequality, independent contractor, Indoor air pollution, intermodal, Jeff Bezos, job satisfaction, Kickstarter, liberation theology, McMansion, megaproject, Nelson Mandela, new economy, oil shale / tar sands, peak oil, planned obsolescence, Ralph Nader, renewable energy credits, Silicon Valley, special economic zone, supply-chain management, systems thinking, TED Talk, the built environment, trade liberalization, trickle-down economics, union organizing, Wall-E, Whole Earth Review, Zipcar

Leading scientists around the world have identified 350 ppm as the maximum level that the atmosphere can contain for the planet to remain as we know it.6 Toxic industrial and agricultural chemicals now show up in every body tested anywhere in the world, including in newborn babies.7 Source: W. Steffen at al, Global Change and the Earth System: A Planet Under Pressure, 2005. Indoor air pollution kills 1.6 million people per year, with outdoor air pollution taking another 800,000 lives each year.8 About one-fifth of the world’s population—more than 1.2 billion people—experience water scarcity, and this resource is becoming increasingly scarce.9 Global income inequality is staggering.


pages: 469 words: 132,438

Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet by Varun Sivaram

"World Economic Forum" Davos, accelerated depreciation, addicted to oil, Albert Einstein, An Inconvenient Truth, asset light, asset-backed security, autonomous vehicles, bitcoin, blockchain, carbon footprint, carbon tax, clean tech, collateralized debt obligation, Colonization of Mars, currency risk, decarbonisation, deep learning, demand response, disruptive innovation, distributed generation, diversified portfolio, Donald Trump, electricity market, Elon Musk, energy security, energy transition, financial engineering, financial innovation, fixed income, gigafactory, global supply chain, global village, Google Earth, hive mind, hydrogen economy, index fund, Indoor air pollution, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, low interest rates, M-Pesa, market clearing, market design, Masayoshi Son, mass immigration, megacity, Michael Shellenberger, mobile money, Negawatt, ocean acidification, off grid, off-the-grid, oil shock, peer-to-peer lending, performance metric, renewable energy transition, Richard Feynman, ride hailing / ride sharing, rolling blackouts, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, smart grid, smart meter, SoftBank, Solyndra, sovereign wealth fund, Ted Nordhaus, Tesla Model S, time value of money, undersea cable, vertical integration, wikimedia commons

Contrary to received wisdom, people at the bottom of the pyramid are not necessarily too poor to pay for energy. In fact, those without access to electricity spend about $27 billion every year just on lighting and mobile phone charging. But their current sources of energy have clear drawbacks. In addition to being expensive, light from kerosene lamps or candles is poor quality and causes deadly indoor air pollution. And phone charging can often entail arduous treks, like Patrick’s, to a communal charging station miles away. Many such customers are able and willing to pay for electricity access at home.13 Surprisingly, they are willing to pay much more per unit of electricity than customers in a developed country.


The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good by William Easterly

"World Economic Forum" Davos, airport security, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, bank run, banking crisis, Bob Geldof, Bretton Woods, British Empire, call centre, clean water, colonial exploitation, colonial rule, Edward Glaeser, end world poverty, European colonialism, failed state, farmers can use mobile phones to check market prices, George Akerlof, Gunnar Myrdal, guns versus butter model, Hernando de Soto, income inequality, income per capita, Indoor air pollution, intentional community, invisible hand, Kenneth Rogoff, laissez-faire capitalism, land bank, land reform, land tenure, Live Aid, microcredit, moral hazard, Naomi Klein, Nelson Mandela, publication bias, purchasing power parity, randomized controlled trial, Ronald Reagan, Scramble for Africa, structural adjustment programs, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, TSMC, War on Poverty, Xiaogang Anhui farmers

During a recent trip to Africa, I saw a young girl cooking in an unventilated hut all day long, in smoke so thick I could not stand to stay in the hut for more than a few seconds. This scene is common in homes throughout Africa, multiplying many times children’s chances of dying from respiratory infections. The World Health Organization estimates that indoor air pollution in a smoky hut exceeds by a factor of sixty the European Union’s standard maximum for outdoor air pollution.57 The sufferings from acute respiratory infections are hard to convey to people in rich societies, who no longer experience them. The lungs fill with pus, some of which the patient coughs out.


Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All by Michael Shellenberger

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Albert Einstein, An Inconvenient Truth, Anthropocene, Asperger Syndrome, Bernie Sanders, Bob Geldof, Boeing 747, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Cesare Marchetti: Marchetti’s constant, clean tech, clean water, climate anxiety, Corn Laws, coronavirus, corporate social responsibility, correlation does not imply causation, cuban missile crisis, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, disinformation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, Elon Musk, energy transition, Extinction Rebellion, failed state, Garrett Hardin, Gary Taubes, gentleman farmer, global value chain, Google Earth, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, hydraulic fracturing, index fund, Indoor air pollution, indoor plumbing, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet Archive, land tenure, Live Aid, LNG terminal, long peace, manufacturing employment, mass immigration, meta-analysis, Michael Shellenberger, microplastics / micro fibres, Murray Bookchin, ocean acidification, off grid, oil shale / tar sands, Potemkin village, precautionary principle, purchasing power parity, Ralph Nader, renewable energy transition, Rupert Read, School Strike for Climate, Solyndra, Stephen Fry, Steven Pinker, supervolcano, Ted Nordhaus, TED Talk, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, union organizing, WikiLeaks, Y2K

Globally, the history of human evolution and development is one of converting ever-larger amounts of energy into wealth and power in ways that allow human societies to grow more complex. 6. Energy Density Matters When you interview women who are small farmers about what it’s like to cook with wood you might assume they would complain about the toxic smoke they must breathe. After all, such indoor air pollution shortens the lives of four million people per year, according to the World Health Organization.61 But, around the world, what they complain about more often is how much time it takes to chop wood, haul wood, start fires, and maintain them. After Suparti moved to the city, she was able to use liquefied petroleum gas as cooking fuel instead of rice husks.


pages: 505 words: 138,917

Open: The Story of Human Progress by Johan Norberg

Abraham Maslow, additive manufacturing, affirmative action, Albert Einstein, anti-globalists, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Bletchley Park, Brexit referendum, British Empire, business cycle, business process, California gold rush, carbon tax, citizen journalism, classic study, Clayton Christensen, clean water, cognitive dissonance, collective bargaining, Corn Laws, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, crony capitalism, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, digital map, Donald Trump, Edward Jenner, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, Filter Bubble, financial innovation, flying shuttle, Flynn Effect, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, Galaxy Zoo, George Gilder, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, global supply chain, global village, green new deal, humanitarian revolution, illegal immigration, income per capita, Indoor air pollution, indoor plumbing, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Islamic Golden Age, James Watt: steam engine, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John von Neumann, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, labour mobility, Lao Tzu, liberal capitalism, manufacturing employment, mass immigration, negative emissions, Network effects, open borders, open economy, Pax Mongolica, place-making, profit motive, RAND corporation, regulatory arbitrage, rent control, Republic of Letters, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Schrödinger's Cat, sharing economy, side project, Silicon Valley, Solyndra, spice trade, stem cell, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Pinker, tacit knowledge, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, too big to fail, trade liberalization, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, Tyler Cowen, Uber for X, ultimatum game, universal basic income, World Values Survey, Xiaogang Anhui farmers, zero-sum game

And even though war fatalities and homicide rates have halved in the last three decades, there is always a war and a serial killer somewhere in the world, and then that will top the news cycle everywhere and give us the impression that it’s becoming more frequent. The problem is not fake news, it’s real news without context or reflection. Ironically, this thirst for drama also makes us blind to some of the worst ongoing tragedies on the planet, like chronic undernourishment or deaths from indoor air pollution, because they are not sudden and explosive, they are just there all the time in the background. And then came social media, which further exposes us to new threats every second. As someone put it (I don’t remember who, I saw it somewhere on social media), human horrors are not new but the mobile phone camera is.


India's Long Road by Vijay Joshi

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, barriers to entry, Basel III, basic income, blue-collar work, book value, Bretton Woods, business climate, capital controls, carbon tax, central bank independence, clean water, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, colonial rule, congestion charging, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate governance, creative destruction, crony capitalism, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, demographic dividend, demographic transition, Doha Development Round, eurozone crisis, facts on the ground, failed state, financial intermediation, financial repression, first-past-the-post, floating exchange rates, foreign exchange controls, full employment, germ theory of disease, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, global value chain, hiring and firing, income inequality, Indoor air pollution, Induced demand, inflation targeting, invisible hand, land reform, low interest rates, Mahatma Gandhi, manufacturing employment, Martin Wolf, means of production, microcredit, moral hazard, obamacare, Pareto efficiency, price elasticity of demand, price mechanism, price stability, principal–agent problem, profit maximization, profit motive, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, randomized controlled trial, rent-seeking, reserve currency, rising living standards, school choice, school vouchers, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, smart cities, South China Sea, special drawing rights, The Future of Employment, The Market for Lemons, too big to fail, total factor productivity, trade liberalization, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, universal basic income, urban sprawl, vertical integration, working-age population

See Tables 3.16 and 3.17 of Planning Commission (2013a). 30. See Yale Centre for Environmental Law & Policy (2014). 31. See World Health Organization (2014). Delhi’s measured PM2.5 levels are 15 times the WHO guideline. PM2.5 pollution can lead to life-​threatening heart and lung conditions. 32. Indoor air pollution due to the burning of solid fuels for cooking, especially prevalent in India’s rural areas, is also enormously harmful and accounts for a million premature deaths a year in the country. 33. See Greenstone and Jack (2015), Figures 1 and 2, and the sources therein, for the much of the data referred to in this paragraph. 34.


pages: 462 words: 150,129

The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 23andMe, Abraham Maslow, agricultural Revolution, air freight, back-to-the-land, banking crisis, barriers to entry, Bernie Madoff, British Empire, call centre, carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Cesare Marchetti: Marchetti’s constant, charter city, clean water, cloud computing, cognitive dissonance, collateralized debt obligation, colonial exploitation, colonial rule, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, cotton gin, creative destruction, credit crunch, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, decarbonisation, dematerialisation, demographic dividend, demographic transition, double entry bookkeeping, Easter island, Edward Glaeser, Edward Jenner, electricity market, en.wikipedia.org, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, falling living standards, feminist movement, financial innovation, flying shuttle, Flynn Effect, food miles, Ford Model T, Garrett Hardin, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, Hans Rosling, happiness index / gross national happiness, haute cuisine, hedonic treadmill, Herbert Marcuse, Hernando de Soto, income inequality, income per capita, Indoor air pollution, informal economy, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of agriculture, invisible hand, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, Jane Jacobs, Jevons paradox, John Nash: game theory, joint-stock limited liability company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, Kula ring, Large Hadron Collider, Mark Zuckerberg, Medieval Warm Period, meta-analysis, mutually assured destruction, Naomi Klein, Northern Rock, nuclear winter, ocean acidification, oil shale / tar sands, out of africa, packet switching, patent troll, Pax Mongolica, Peter Thiel, phenotype, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, precautionary principle, Productivity paradox, profit motive, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, Ray Kurzweil, rent-seeking, rising living standards, Robert Solow, Silicon Valley, spice trade, spinning jenny, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, supervolcano, technological singularity, Thales and the olive presses, Thales of Miletus, the long tail, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, ultimatum game, upwardly mobile, urban sprawl, Vernor Vinge, Vilfredo Pareto, wage slave, working poor, working-age population, world market for maybe five computers, Y2K, Yogi Berra, zero-sum game

But even if you accept these guesses, the WHO’s own figures showed that climate change was dwarfed as a cause of death by iron deficiency, cholesterol, unsafe sex, tobacco, traffic accidents and other things, not to mention ‘ordinary’ diarrhoea and malaria. Even obesity, according to the same report, was killing more than twice as many people as climate change. Nor was any attempt made to estimate the number of lives saved by carbon emissions – by the provision of electric power to a village where people suffer from ill health due to indoor air pollution from cooking over open fires, say, or the deaths from malnutrition prevented by the higher productivity of agriculture using fertiliser made from natural gas. In 2009 Kofi Annan’s Global Humanitarian Forum doubled the number of climate deaths to 315,000 a year, but only by ignoring these points, arbitrarily doubling the diarrhoea deaths caused by climate, and adding in ludicrous assumptions about how climate change was responsible for ‘inter-clan fighting in Somalia’, Hurricane Katrina and other disasters.


pages: 470 words: 148,730

Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems by Abhijit V. Banerjee, Esther Duflo

3D printing, accelerated depreciation, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, air traffic controllers' union, Airbnb, basic income, behavioural economics, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, business cycle, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon credits, carbon tax, Cass Sunstein, charter city, company town, congestion pricing, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, decarbonisation, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, en.wikipedia.org, endowment effect, energy transition, Erik Brynjolfsson, experimental economics, experimental subject, facts on the ground, fake news, fear of failure, financial innovation, flying shuttle, gentrification, George Akerlof, Great Leap Forward, green new deal, high net worth, immigration reform, income inequality, Indoor air pollution, industrial cluster, industrial robot, information asymmetry, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Jane Jacobs, Jean Tirole, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, Kevin Roose, labor-force participation, land reform, Les Trente Glorieuses, loss aversion, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, middle-income trap, Network effects, new economy, New Urbanism, no-fly zone, non-tariff barriers, obamacare, off-the-grid, offshore financial centre, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), open economy, Paul Samuelson, place-making, post-truth, price stability, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, randomized controlled trial, restrictive zoning, Richard Thaler, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, school choice, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, self-driving car, shareholder value, short selling, Silicon Valley, smart meter, social graph, spinning jenny, Steve Jobs, systematic bias, Tax Reform Act of 1986, tech worker, technology bubble, The Chicago School, The Future of Employment, The Market for Lemons, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, total factor productivity, trade liberalization, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, Twitter Arab Spring, universal basic income, urban sprawl, very high income, War on Poverty, women in the workforce, working-age population, Y2K

But there is also a lack of awareness that air pollution is a health issue. A recent Lancet study found that a large part of the deaths due to outdoor air pollution can be attributed to the burning of biomass (leaves, wood, etc.).35 But a significant part of this biomass is burnt on indoor stoves, which also generate a tremendous amount of indoor air pollution. It would therefore seem there would be a strong private demand for better cooking devices, which would improve both indoor and outdoor air. But there appears to be no such demand. Study after study finds that the demand for cleaner stoves is very low.36 Even when an NGO distributed cleaner stoves for free, people were not interested enough to get them fixed when they broke.37 Low demand for clean air may come from a failure of many of the poorest households to connect clean air to a healthy, happy, and productive life.


pages: 1,324 words: 159,290

Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made by Vaclav Smil

8-hour work day, agricultural Revolution, AltaVista, Anthropocene, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, biodiversity loss, Biosphere 2, Boeing 747, caloric restriction, caloric restriction, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon footprint, carbon tax, circular economy, clean water, complexity theory, correlation does not imply causation, COVID-19, decarbonisation, degrowth, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, demographic dividend, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, disruptive innovation, energy transition, European colonialism, Extinction Rebellion, Ford Model T, garden city movement, general purpose technology, Gini coefficient, Google Hangouts, Great Leap Forward, Haber-Bosch Process, Hans Rosling, hydraulic fracturing, hydrogen economy, income inequality, income per capita, Indoor air pollution, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of movable type, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Just-in-time delivery, knowledge economy, Law of Accelerating Returns, manufacturing employment, mass immigration, megacity, meta-analysis, microplastics / micro fibres, ocean acidification, oil shale / tar sands, old age dependency ratio, peak oil, planetary scale, planned obsolescence, power law, precision agriculture, purchasing power parity, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, Republic of Letters, Robert Solow, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, Singularitarianism, Skype, Steven Pinker, Suez canal 1869, the built environment, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, total factor productivity, urban decay, urban planning, urban sprawl, working-age population

Reliance on inefficiently used biomass fuels (wood, charcoal, straw, dried dung) as the only sources of heat was the most obvious universal feature of this stagnation. Combustion of these fuels was done in open fires or in inefficient fireplaces and simple stoves, wasting typically more than 90% of energy and creating high levels of indoor air pollution. This pollution keeps on affecting more than two billion people in low-income countries that still rely on such arrangements for cooking (WHO 2018b). Use of charcoal (nearly pure carbon and hence a smokeless fuel more suitable for indoor uses) had greatly lessened these exposures but its higher cost limited its use.


pages: 651 words: 162,060

The Climate Book: The Facts and the Solutions by Greta Thunberg

"World Economic Forum" Davos, accounting loophole / creative accounting, air freight, Alfred Russel Wallace, Anthropocene, basic income, Bernie Sanders, biodiversity loss, BIPOC, bitcoin, British Empire, car-free, carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon tax, circular economy, clean water, cognitive dissonance, coronavirus, COVID-19, David Attenborough, decarbonisation, degrowth, disinformation, energy transition, Extinction Rebellion, Food sovereignty, global pandemic, global supply chain, Global Witness, green new deal, green transition, Greta Thunberg, housing crisis, Indoor air pollution, informal economy, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Jeff Bezos, land tenure, late capitalism, lockdown, mass immigration, megacity, meta-analysis, microplastics / micro fibres, military-industrial complex, Naomi Klein, negative emissions, ocean acidification, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, out of africa, phenotype, planetary scale, planned obsolescence, retail therapy, rewilding, social distancing, supervolcano, tech billionaire, the built environment, Thorstein Veblen, TikTok, Torches of Freedom, Tragedy of the Commons, universal basic income, urban sprawl, zoonotic diseases

Stopping the burning of fossil fuels for energy is a critical step that yields enormous, immediate air-quality benefits as up to one in five of all premature deaths stem from fossil-fuel-related pollution. Stopping the burning of biofuels for daily cooking (and sometimes heating) by bringing the world’s poorest people access to modern, efficient energy provides outsized health benefits by improving both outdoor and indoor air quality. Indoor air pollution is estimated to kill roughly 3.2 million people prematurely each year, especially women and children who are most often exposed to kitchen smoke. Similarly, stopping the burning of agricultural waste and instead ploughing it under reduces air pollution and returns vital nutrients to the soil.


pages: 743 words: 189,512

The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet by Nina Teicholz

Albert Einstein, caloric restriction, caloric restriction, confounding variable, correlation coefficient, correlation does not imply causation, Gary Taubes, Indoor air pollution, meta-analysis, phenotype, placebo effect, randomized controlled trial, Robert Gordon, selection bias, TED Talk, the scientific method, Upton Sinclair

Zhang, Quing, Ahmed S. M. Saleh, Jing Chen, and Qun Shen. “Chemical Alterations Taken Place During Deep-Fat Frying Based on Certain Reaction Products: A Review.” Chemistry and Physics of Lipids 165, no. 6 (September 2012): 662–681. Zhong, Lijie, Mark S. Goldberg, Yu-Tang Gao, and Fan Jin. “Lung Cancer and Indoor Air Pollution Arising from Chinese-Style Cooking among Nonsmoking Women Living in Shanghai, China.” Epidemiology 10, no. 5 (September 1999): 488–494. Zhong, Lijie, Mark S. Goldberg, Marie-Élise Parent, and James A. Hanley. “Risk of Developing Lung Cancer in Relation to Exposure to Fumes from Chinese-Style Cooking.”