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Comment by G3rn0ti | Hacker News Reader

> These statistics are just not passing the smell test.

These numbers are derived from estimations, for sure. But they are sophisticated estimations and serve to rank other health risks in life. In rich countries we usually obsesses about things like pesticides in food or „small particulate matter“ to an extent that it is absurd. Air quality is a real threat in many countries but not anymore in the US or most of Europe for sure.

As the article shows obesity is the killer number 1 in the US. A healthy diet is something which is totally under our control. And for sure smoke generated at a BBQ for example is not very healthy and can be avoided by using a gas grill.

These are things usually ignored and thus underestimated in our health obsession.

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“Air quality is a real threat in many countries but not anymore in the US”

Couldn’t be more wrong.

As the author casually admits, we know nothing without experiments. End of story.

What makes your statement so wrong is that it takes decades for the consequences to show up, if they are measurable at all, in non experimental studies. That is exactly the same reason that cigarettes were considered safe for so long. Health consequences take decades to show up and without experiments all we get are loose correlations. Air quality in many places in America is getting worse, the size of the population in these areas is massive. To declare to potential health consequences 60 years in the future without any solid experimental evidence is the same as the doctors of the 50’s telling patients to smoke up, there’s no evidence cigarettes are bad. Exactly the same.

> What makes your statement so wrong is that it takes decades for the consequences to show up, if they are measurable at all, in non experimental studies.

So, you're telling me the air quality is getting worse despite this trend not being observed, yet? There is a logical fallacy somewhere. Furthermore, the link between lung cancer and cigarette smoking was well observed already in the 50s but the tobacco industry naturally downplayed the risks.

BTW: It is an established fact that air quality in the cities of 19th century was way worse -- mainly due to the fact that people cooked and heated their places with open fires and coal. For some insight on the UK: https://theconversation.com/air-pollution-in-victorian-era-b...

Define “air quality” as a single metric is crude at best, but arguably dishonest. The nature of pollution and the pollutants themselves have changed have they not?

Edit: To illustrate the point, assume that getting regular physical is more important now than 100 years ago, due to on average more sedentary contemporary lifestyles. Assume heavy air pollution decreases outdoor activity, which seems plausible if not certain. How long would it take for a body of scientific literature to develop to document the problem? Given measurement problems and the difficulty of doing simulation heavy research, we might never be able to prove such a linkage exists, even if it did.

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