Beijing and Delhi often hit the news as two of the most polluted cities in the world, with PM2.5 levels often soaring to tens of times the WHO annual limit (10µg/m3). Smart Air plotted the PM2.5 data from the US Embassy in Delhi and the US Embassy in Beijing to compare how the air quality […]
Category: Air Pollution
Can pollution masks help with India’s air pollution?
Every year when winter rolls around, a billion people in India are left breathing toxic, polluted air when on the streets. Be it in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata or Hyderabad, everyone is forced to become experts in a complicated scientific question to cope with the pollution: Do pollution masks work? I’ve heard doubts from smart, skeptical […]
Is being in a high pollution city like Delhi India really like smoking a pack a day healthwise?
Comparing air pollution to smoking is a dangerous question. Honest observers (like Richard Saint Cyr MD and Richard Muller) have come up with wildly different answers, from 1/6th of a cigarette a day, to four a day, to claims of 21 cigarettes a day. Here’s why they’re all right. Two Fundamentally Different Ways of Asking the Question One of the points […]
Can we measure air pollution simply by looking at the sky?
Sometimes I hear people say air pollution is invisible. But after years of living in Beijing and Delhi, I’ve been amazed at how well we can detect air pollution with our eyes. But it’s a bit complicated. If you’re not thinking about it, it’s easy to overlook. I discovered that when I spent […]
IQAir Atem Review – Is this portable air purifier effective?
The IQAir Atem is a personal, portable air purifier that’s new on the scene. Recently, we were asked by Vincent to review the IQAir Atem – which IQAir calls “the most effective personal air purifier.” Here was Vincent’s question: Being the data nerds that we are, we decided to get some data on the question, and […]
How do people in Beijing exercise with such bad air pollution?
I’m in Beijing right now, and I’m going to exercise today. So what can I do when the world outside my window looks like this? Would exercise do more harm than good? 1. The point where exercise becomes harmful Researchers at Cambridge analyzed studies on the benefits of exercise and the harms of […]
Protect yourself from cities with bad air pollution: A Beginner’s Guide
So you’ve arrived to a polluted city–Beijing or Bangalore, Delhi or Shanghai. What can you do to keep air pollution from trimming years off your life? When I moved to China in 2007, I wasn’t a dummy. I was a college grad, and I knew about air pollution. But I knew almost nothing about protecting […]
Is Molekule really better than similarly priced air purifiers already on the market?
Over this last Christmas, I was at home on the couch, and my dad asked me if I’ve seen this new purifier he saw an ad for. He asked not because he’s interested in purifiers, not because I’m some PhD in fluid mechanics (I’m a cultural psychologist, not a physicist), but because I’ve […]
Chengdu pollution now worse than Beijing
I just analyzed Chengdu’s PM2.5 pollution data for the first half of 2018, and there’s a surprise. Chengdu barely edged out Beijing! Someone get those pandas a mask. The difference is small—1 microgram. But it’s notable because Beijing is famous for its pollution, whereas Chengdu is not. My guess is lots of […]
Do we need add-on air purifiers？
Soon after I started making DIYs, people emailed me asking if we could make a DIY for their car. My initial reaction was, “Great idea!” On the highways, we’re surrounded by all of that awful pollution. Best to purify that air. But as a methodical nerd, I wanted to do some tests first. The results of […]