Tag: pollution

The Effects of Pollution on Human Cognition & Performance

jkottke:

While I am not a big fan of shifting to an economic argument for things that are already plenty bad for other better reasons (see diversity in the workplace, immigration policy, healthcare, etc.), this article by Austin Frakt on the economic cost of pollution reports on the results of a number of studies linking pollution to low performance in work and school. This study of baseball umpires was particularly troubling:

Pollution may also affect the quality of work, which is much harder to measure. An intriguing study in the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists got at this issue by examining how accurately baseball umpires called balls and strikes under different pollution conditions.

Since 2008, pitch calls have been checked by Major League Baseball with an electronic system. In a typical game, an umpire makes 140 ball/strike calls. When there was a 150 percent increase over average carbon monoxide levels or the same increase in small particulate matter, the study found an average of 1.4 additional incorrect calls. Levels of pollution that high occur in about one in 10 games.

Imagine what the rest of us, especially kids, are getting wrong when we’re in polluted areas (i.e. many American cities). (via @tylercowen)

The Zika “risk” is vastly exaggerated. In the Brazil case, what went unreported in the MSM was that in Colombia a similarly large number of women who caught the Zika virus had healthy pregnancies which has historically been the case for the last few decades. There is research showing that the brain deformities are more likely to be related to the PESTICIDE pumped into the water sources in Zika areas,

motherofbulldogs:

anonymoushouseplantfan:

Most of the pregnancy risks are exaggerated and people still take precautions/

👆re: pesticides and Zika.

newyorker:

The summer of 2010 was the hottest ever recorded in the city. By July, heat reflected from the pavement had scorched the leaves of street trees, creating a false, uncolorful fall. In gardens, blossoms dried and withered, and the weeds by highway entrances took on the appearance of twisted wire. As summer progressed, to add a further touch of the apocalyptic, bees returning at the end of the day to hives in Red Hook began to glow an incandescent red. Some local beekeepers found the sight of red bees flying in the sunset strangely beautiful. All of them had noticed that their honey was turning red, too.

Read the full story, “The Maraschino Mogul’s Secret Life,” here.