BAD NEWS for California children with asthma.
Image: Flickr/Sierra Club - GA
In the middle of the night, Casandra Cabrera stopped breathing. She doubled over in bed, gasping for air. In the panic that followed, her lungs constricted. Her eyes filled with tears. The asthma attack continued for 10 long minutes.
"I keep an inhaler with me everywhere. I have one in my purse, in my sports bag, and in my truck and by my bedside," the San Joaquin Valley, Calif., teenager said. "I've never really imagined life without it. It's kind of normal for me."
It's normal for many children, especially those in California, home to the country's worst air pollution. More than 5 million people in the state have been diagnosed with asthma, which is caused, in part, by contamination from nitrogen compounds, pollutants that stem from the farming and transportation industries.
Climate change is expected to compound the issue, according to a new body of work published in the journal Issues in Ecology. Higher temperatures and an increased risk of drought on the West Coast essentially "cook" the nitrogen, resulting in nitrous oxide and ozone. These nitrogen byproducts cause cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, especially among the region's rural and urban poor who don't have the money to move away and reduce their exposure.
"We have a lot of poverty. This is one of the poorest regions in the country. We have a fairly high fraction of vulnerable people in the population," said David Lighthall, a health science adviser for the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District. "Kids with asthma aren't getting access to care, and, of course, we have the high levels of exposure. That's a bad combination."
In 2007, about 25 million Americans had asthma, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Costs for the chronic disease increased from an estimated $53 billion in 2002 to about $56 billion in 2007. The condition is distinctly prevalent in California's Central Valley, where one out of every six children have asthmatic symptoms -- a contemporary warning of how dire this issue could become in the near future.
Nitrous oxide leads to more ozone
It's not nitrogen gas by itself that's the problem. Eighty percent of the world's atmosphere is made up of the gaseous form. Nitrous oxide is a different story. The combination of nitrogen and oxygen molecules creates a powerful gas. In small quantities, nitrous oxide is used as "laughing gas" in dentist offices. On a larger scale, the vapor traps heat and contributes to global warming.
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22 Comments
Add CommentClimatewire and unScientific American once again publish pure propaganda on the issue of climate change with no scientific merit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy God! How can a "Scientific" magazine publish such trash? "Higher temperatures and an increased risk of drought on the West Coast essentially "cook" the nitrogen, resulting in nitrous oxide and ozone." Is a total fabrication or a comical misunderstanding of chemistry and biological activity. Nitrogen is a stable gas. Nitrous oxide is mostly produced by plants and animals. It can also be produced by the very high temperature exposure of nitrogen to oxygen, such as in internal combustion engines.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOzone is not a result of high ground temperatures. Ozone is the radical O3, which is formed mostly in the upper atmosphere as the result of sunlight (Gamma rays) interacting with the normal oxygen content of the atmosphere. Ozone can be formed at ground level by high voltage electrical discharge. Ozone is dangerous only in that it supports oxidation (corrosion) of materials. Ozone has been thought for centuries to be beneficial to human health by supporting oxygen delivery to the lungs.
The authors state: "Climate change is expected to compound the issue, according to a new body of work published in the journal Issues in Ecology." but do not name the study or provide a link. A Google search could not find the referenced study.
Then again, "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." - Joseph Goebbels.
That is certainly the case with the so-called global warming and climate change. http://www.newswithviews.com/Coffman/mike132.htm
There is no scientific proof that man-made global warming exists. In fact, the science that first proposed it has been thoroughly debunked. So why are we still hearing about it? Because it is big money, that's why! The US government and governments around the world stand to reap trillions in new taxes due to Cap and Trade legislation. These new taxes will do nothing to curtail "global warming." If they did, then there would be no need for the tax. Ever see a tax, once in place go away?
I sure wish Scientific American would hire scientifically educated editors so that political propaganda such as this would not be published.
Wikipedia is full of trash too, facts with a liberal bias, just like you would get earning a degree in chemistry.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLiked that sentence "The match was intense, and by the end of it, she was out of breath". I fortunately never suffered from Asthma, but after intense exercise I am also out of breath. One of the major causes of asthma is an allergy to pollen. And in California pollen is released by one plant or another nearly all year round.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHealthy soils contain soil bacteria which naturally produce the majority of the Earth's atmospheric N20 -- aided by oceanic life, which produces the rest. The San Joaquin Valley is a prime agricultural area of California, the purpose of which is producing food from the abundant healthy soils there. The healthier the soil, the more bacterial life, the more N20. (The rainforests and the oceans, of course, produce the majority of the N20 found on Earth.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat said, 30% of N2O is 'human caused'. This mostly means agriculture--the growing of plants and commercial production of animals and their products--which account for over 2/3rds of the N2O attributed to human activity. Of course, no one ever mentions that most of this is simply activity that Nature would have carried out on her own--herds of bison instead of cattle, forests, grasslands, and plains instead of corn and wheat fields. How much humans have 'added' is debatable.
Nonetheless, N2O plus sunlight--for which California is famous--increases local ozone. It is a perfectly natural chemical/energy reaction. Drought, contrary to the claims of this article, reduce N2O production thus ozone, by suppressing bacterial activity.
The valley's problem is caused by the geophysical configuration of the SJV -- air gets trapped in there, similar to the way it gets trapped in the Los Angeles Basin.
"Warming"--whether global or not--will have little to no effect on the situation, as it is sunlight, not heat, that converts some of the N2O to ozone.
If anyone questions the validity of scientific reports you should at least identify your qualifications. Otherwise you just sound like some republican anti science wacko.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDennis:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDid you read the whole article? Do you know any organic chemistry? even high school chemistry? Did you study biology in university? Have you lived in California? Are you familiar with the San Joaquin Valley? Do you even know how it is pronounced? I can answer "yes" to all these questions. (plus --> Five years of hard science in University of California in the late 1960's, when they still taught science.)
You may have mistaken this opinion/advocacy piece as a science report. Actual science reports (reports on science studies, investigations or experiments) contain data and measurements, rely on previous rigorously established scientific knowledge, and draw careful conclusions based only on evidence in hand.
Actual science reports do not use anecdotes, opinions, mis- or incorrect information in forming conclusions, nor do they draw conclusions not supported by the material in the report.
I grew up in LA when smog (humidity mixed with N2O, diesel smoke, car exhaust and the resultant ozone) was so bad recess was cancelled in schools on some days to protect our health. I thus have followed the science of atmospheric pollutants, particularly in California, for over 40 years, including in my university studies.
Readers are cautioned that the 'report' (more correctly, an article), though published on the SciAm blog, is not peer-reviewed science. No scientist or science journalist would mistake it for such. It has no more validity for being published in the SciAm blog than if it had been published in Popular Weird Science.
One rule of critical reading is to first identify the material being read by type: Opinion piece, single-issue advocate screed, 2-party political piece, science-related general readership article, or hard science peer-reviewed paper. (There are lots of other categories, these are just examples.)
In this case, my read is a science-related combination opinion piece/SIA screed, attempting to masquerade as a science report by choice of publishing venue.
There are so many serious basic science errors that reading it was painful -- and would have been painful to me in the eighth grade.
Regarding claims of significant anthropogenic-caused global warming, every reader should look at the very brief (but very effective) summary at the link below:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://joannenova.com.au/2012/10/man-made-global-warming-disproved/
Scientific American is bottom feeding. The lack of any scientific diligence is pathetic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow. The lack of scientific thought and/or evidence on this comment thread is pathetic. So many AGW denialists and trolls.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisboth Gatnos and Kip Hanson offered science based opinions. They definitely showed scientific thought, quite unlike the the author, but you just attack the messengers, don't let any facts get into the way. You are the one that is pathetic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDude, I don't know whether your grasp of chemistry of human physiology is more appaling.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"""Ozone is not a result of high ground temperatures. Ozone is the radical O3, which is formed mostly in the upper atmosphere as the result of sunlight (Gamma rays) interacting with the normal oxygen content of the atmosphere. Ozone can be formed at ground level by high voltage electrical discharge. Ozone is dangerous only in that it supports oxidation (corrosion) of materials. Ozone has been thought for centuries to be beneficial to human health by supporting oxygen delivery to the lungs."""
You are wrong on so many levels. First, ozone regularly forms as a result of oxygen reacting on extremely hot ground. It can inflame asthma and damage the lungs. It does not support human health when inhaled.
"""There is no scientific proof that man-made global warming exists. In fact, the science that first proposed it has been thoroughly debunked. """
Blatantly wrong. Please do at least a modicum of research before assuming yourself an expert. I don't have the time to give you the exact data, but again, Wikipedia is your friend.
You're right to call this article an advocacy piece. Whether or not you are a denialist (hard to tell), the main problem is ozone and nitrous. Carbon dioxide doesn't have a serious impact on asthma, to the best of my knowledge (freshman chem, 5 on the AP, some org/biochem training, accidentally burning a hole in the floor with magnesium sulfate and hydrochloric acid*)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this*I love to tell that story. It brings back good memories (and some bad ones).
"""http://joannenova.com.au/2012/10/man-made-global-warming-disproved/"""
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPainful to read, quote-mined, and baseless. Your idea of an reference is a blog post by a virulent denialist? Seriously?
Adding to Fanandala: Another irritation of Asthma is from increased ozone. What I wonder is why anyone with Asthma would play an intense vollyball match when Ozone levels are rising? That's like not evacuating New Orleans, La. when a hurricaine is coming. It's sortive goofy it seems. In terms of climate change and life style changes, I think the latter is easier to control. And in the short term, the only thing that can be controlled. People who moved out during the dust bowl often saved their life. Those who hoped that the weather would change when the trend was contradicting their needs, stayed there and met the consequences. It's easier to have a scape goat. But it's more practical to save your own life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGatnos: Why do you keep reading this magazine if you don't like to beleive in it? Maybe you should write your own. You know a critic only defines himself and not the other person.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGatnos is a troll. He's reading SciAm to make us miserable for fun.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne of the major causes of asthma incidents is indeed allergens. That isn't the only major cause. Pollution, which includes Nitrous Oxide, is also a major cause of asthma incidents. This is why there has long been established regular tracking of asthma rates in most industrialized cities. The highest asthma rates are in the most polluted cities. This has been well documented for decades. I have no idea if global warming has anything to do with it but pollution and respiratory irritants certainly do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps if you made a realistic, unbiased argument discussing all of the known asthma triggers you would have risen above the very article you criticize. You didn't so you appear to be a bigoted hack pushing a political agenda.
I was curious about the "Baking" nitrogen part of the article so I read up some on nitrous oxide. Apparently major sources of nitrous oxide are internal combustion engines, nitrogen rich household cleaners and other common household products, commercial agriculture. The use of nitrogen rich fertilizer does indeed lead to an increase in airborne volatile organic compounds which are a precursor to nitrous oxide being formed. Where there are more V.O.C.s there is more ozone formed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe use of the term "baked" appears to be a poor choice because it isn't ambient heat creating ozone directly. The ambient heat causes more rapid evaporation of V.O.C.s so the ozone precursors increase as temperature increases. Sunlight then converts a larger amount of V.O.C.s into nitrous oxide which is a major factor in smog which was recognized in the 1970s as a contributor to asthma.
The funny thing is that the sources that indicated this include NASA, EPA, CDC, WHO and a variety of strong chemistry oriented colleges. The sources that I found that disagreed were either fossil fuel companies or extremist religious groups or obvious crazies.
My conclusion is that the authors attempt to dumb down the article a little caused some poor wording choices but the basic content is essentially correct. Not being a chemist I am taking the words of the reliable organizational sources and a couple of chemistry text books and a college professor or two.
also important to replace air filters. Good article on protecting your indoor air quality: What http://bit.ly/VTdglA
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmen!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswhat pray tell, does being a Republican has to do with anti-science? By the wayM there are lots of wacko Hippocratic scratch that Democratic so-called "environmentalists"
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