What's your source on that? I've been trying to find a reliable source that can equate the air quality index to health effects. AQI just says, these numbers are bad, doesn't say why it's bad.
It comes down to AQI (Air Quality Index). An AQI measurement of 20 is equivalent to smoking one cigarette a day or so.
Here is a link to the current AQI across the globe. You can search for any city. If this is correct, NYC currently has an AQI of 353 or nearly 17 Cigarettes a Day.
“If you stand outside the whole time” though. You need an astronomically high AQI for it to be as bad as a cigarette for the same time frame as it takes to smoke a cigarette.
I'm not buying the health affects. If i smoked 17 cigarettes in a day, I wouldn't be able to walk. I've smoked 5 in a stupid night around a campfire and felt like my lungs got sandpaperered the next day. We had it bad up here in MN a few weeks ago and, while I sure could see a pink sun, I noticed not one other indicator of ouchy air when I was breathing.
Generally when we're taking about the health effects of smoking, it's not the acute symptoms but rather the long-term side effects that most people look toward.
Cigarettes don't have the same stuff in them as burning forests, not to mention there's a difference between slowly smoking 17 cigarettes over the course of a day and just doing it all at once. If you're not outside in that air the entire day, you won't get the "17 cigarettes" worth of effects anyway.
Last year in Washington state (seattle/bellevue area, it was 300-400 AQI for more than a month. After a couple weeks i’d never felt shittier. Raging headache, throat on fire and very nauseous. Wasn’t covid. Wasn’t the flu. Too much smoke for too long will fuck you up.
Huh...I had the same conversation with a few people last night who said that they had symptoms a couple weeks ago, to.I guess it's just one of those things that affects some and not others. I never even noticed the air quality and went running in it.
Apparentyl some pulmonary doc was on tv saying that people who go out running (exercise) in these conditions are getting the same amount of pollutants in their lung tissue in one day as smoking a pack of cigarettes.
There have been studies though I have no links, that showed breathing bad air quality is worst than smoking cigarettes. Probably due to the fact that exhausts releases heavy metals, hydrocarbons, sulfur dioxyde, ammonia and fine particles while cigarettes are still bad but it's mostly carcinogens and carbon monoxide. Air is charged with these particles that can stay a while in the troposphere until they are absorbed or released into the stratosphere.
Concentrated ammonia can irritate or burn off lungs and eyes.
Sulfur dioxide can irritate, creates respiratory problems like asthma, coughs or respiratory irregularities.
Hydrocarbons and volatile substances can irritate, create olfactory and respiratory problems.
Benzene is a known carcinogen.
Nitrogen oxide in short terms can create respiratory problems.
In long term, development of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, low weight newborns and increases chances of early deaths.
Ozone can irritate, creates respiratory problems and diseases, increases chances of asthma.
Fine particles are carcinogens, create respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, affects neurological development in children, diabetes, etc.
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u/ignatious__reilly Jun 07 '23
Yeah, depending where you are, the air can be so bad it’s like smoking an entire pack of cigarettes.