Car Science 11: cars are making us stupid
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Hey,
This was meant to go out several days ago but then I got mugged so err, sorry about that. Idk why I didn't send it given it was already written, it's hard to explain what brain worms I was succumbing to this week. Other than maybe, thematically, it was breathing the air where I live.
This won't come as a huge revelation to anyone who's ever found themself on Autotrader after 11pm looking at PT Cruisers but cars are impairing our cognitive functions. Not on a small scale, on a massive and nearly instant one, that might be affecting as much as 99% of the world's population.
Dramatic opener this week, yes. But it is, unfortunately, true. Scientists at the University of British Columbia have uncovered the difficult fact that traffic pollution is impairing human brain function. Which would be bad in any circumstance but is particularly terrible when you consider only 1% of the world's population doesn't breathe polluted air so I guess this is just the latest instalment in just how fucked we all really are.
Of course, polluted air and specifically traffic-poisoned air are two separate things. Looking at a list of the most polluted cities on earth has a very different top 10 to most affected by traffic fumes. Regrettably, it doesn't really matter who's worst because almost everyone lives at pollution concentrations massively above what the world health organisation considers a level that wouldn't cause damage, so there's no point really playing who's worst here.
This is far from the first time this has come up. It's been suspected for decades that traffic fumes impair how well we can think and the studies are coming thick-and-fast (much like the pollution) now. MIT has just published research that says traffic pollution noticeably impairs top-level chess players' ability to make decisions so much that their performance actually dipped when exposed to a standard level of air pollution in US cities.
Like, not just dipped according to some electrodes plugged into their brains, they were literally noticeably worse at chess: "The researchers also found that when air pollution was worse, the chess players performed even more poorly when under time constraints. The tournament rules mandated that 40 moves had to be made within 110 minutes; for moves 31-40 in all the matches, an air pollution increase of 10 micrograms per cubic meter led to an increased probability of error of 3.2 percent, with the magnitude of those errors increasing by 17.3 percent."
So an increase in air pollution was making them make mistakes. That's particularly interesting given that pollution from traffic has been identified, as far back as 1997, as affecting drivers three times as much as pedestrians or cyclists. (apologies for the Independent link, can't find the original study online anymore)
That means that car drivers are more likely to make mistakes in traffic, like in cities. Even a tiny increase in the number of mistakes someone might make could be literally lethal, in crowded city streets. There are lots of reasons why we need to reduce car pollutant levels but this is pretty clear cut: you could accidentally kill someone due to an unforced error breathing fumes.
(and yes, it does happen to racing drivers; in 2003 NASCAR driver Rick Mast admitted he had fume poisoning and said it affected a lot more drivers than people thought)
Ok so there's the bad news. Sometimes science is research not breakthroughs, unfortunately, it's identifying problems. But this does answer one pretty immediate question which is: would there be benefits to replacing diesel combustion with hydrogen?
You know me. I think hydrogen isn't all its cracked (from hydrocarbons) up to be. But it does have this one significant advantage which is that if its burned at low enough temperatures it doesn't produce any pollutants when combusted. And converting cars from diesel to hydrogen combustion is really easy, just a few valve changes.
Previously, I've argued that given the hydrogen will come from natural gas there's no good case for doing this, since you're just replacing one pollutant fossil fuel with another (although green hydrogen is possible it's a long way off and needs colossal amounts of power to generate) but this is the case for making the switch, regardless. We're impairing our cognitive functions in a way that could limit decision making in traffic, otherwise.
It's also a strong case against synthetic fuels. After all, they're going to emit the same pollution - doesn't matter how you smashed that hydrocarbon chain together, it's going to come apart the same way and produce the same emissions.
The good news is, the UBC research shows that the cognitive impairments are temporary and reversible. But temporary has limited meaning if you're breathing in the same levels every day.
Clean air initiatives should already be a priority; air pollution related deaths are up to 7 million a year worldwide, a pandemic every single year (COVID killed 6.84 million people in 2020, officially) and here in London air quality costs £1,175 per citizen every year in health terms. Clearly, moving to zero and low emissions vehicles will make a huge difference, especially commercial vehicles and initiatives like London's ULEZ expansion might help somewhat, although the fact it indiscriminately lets any petrol car post-2007 through doesn't really strengthen its case.
(it is better than nothing though and as the owner of a non-ULEZ compliant car I absolutely think it's the right thing to do, just that it doesn't go far enough)
We do have the technology to reduce emissions, it just needs to accelerate adoption and by accelerate adoption I mean legislatively force it. Having an option beyond scrappage, in hydrogen combustion, is good and could be a significant way to get diesel engines (by far the worst for emissions) off our streets and out of our brains.
Cognitive impairment is clearly not the only consequence of air pollution; respiratory conditions, generally poorer health, skin conditions and even cancer are also on the list. But this is one that is specific to emissions from traffic, can't be blamed on industrial pollution and is absolutely a car problem.
That was all a bit 'no good news, everything bad' - but low and zero emissions vehicles do exist and building public transport systems that move people efficiently is the best option of all.
Back next week with a) a new Car Science schedule, b) hopefully something a little cheerier...
Hazel
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