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Little Bobby-Jo and Billy-Sue not doing so well at their readin' and writin' these days? You might want to think about finding a house a little further from the interstate.

A new study from the Harvard School of Public Health has found that kids who grow up in neighborhoods with lots of traffic pollution score lower in intelligence and memory tests than those who don't. Strong exposure to black carbon (a major particulate component of truck and car exhaust) is linked to an average 3.4 point drop in IQ, as well as poorer scores on memory and cognition tests. The effect is comparable to children who have been exposed to lead, or whose mothers smoked 10 cigarettes a day during pregnancy.

What's surprising is not that constant ingestion of brain-melting toxins can have an impact on a child's IQ, but that it took so long for someone to do a study that proves it. See - one more way that electric cars improve society.

http://www.greendaily.com/category/cars-and-transportation/

Interesting find.

This brings me to a semi-philosophical question that I've discussed numerous times lately:

We built up society, technology, machines, and used the earth as a resource to run our machines, labor saving devices. However we didn't know when to stop - now, we're hopelessly dependent on the devices we've created (and the new devices that were facilitated by the creation of the earlier ones).

But with all the benefits of modern society - technology, culture, and modern medicine - perhaps the society is dragging us back to square one? Obesity is a huge epidemic, more and more of our creations are being linked to heart disease and cancer, lead reduces intelligence, and now this. Is our society really worth all the benefits and costs?

(I could be a philosophy major: I'm just not interested because I'd grow up, and then spend the rest of my life debating with other people why I'm poor.) :p

(I could be a philosophy major: I'm just not interested because I'd grow up, and then spend the rest of my life debating with other people why I'm poor.) :p

And that right there is the exact reason I'm majoring in engineering and not philosophy.

"What's surprising is not that constant ingestion of brain-melting toxins can have an impact on a child's IQ, but that it took so long for someone to do a study that proves it."


This is certainly not a new idea, and this study doesn't prove anything, I've heard this for 20+ years.

The problem is there is a huge co-factor because the housing located closest to traffic is also very undesirable to all people and thus less expensive. If you have the means you don't live there.

It's quite a stretch to conclude that car exhaust, which has gone from horrendous including lead to the current highly regulated and cleaner by several magnitudes, is the driving factor behind lower IQ.

If only zero car emissions could solve all the social ills that create inequities in a subjective scoring system like the IQ test.:rolleyes:

I imagine if those same kids that lived in the higher traffic homes were allowed to attend the same schools as those in the low traffic homes we'd see the IQ difference vanish.

IQ has been linked to genitics.....

Also I tend to believe kids don't do as well in school because parents spend less time working with them on it.

Black carbon is probably not the key variable that associates proximity to traffic with outcomes.

Besides black carbon, there's lead, which has been clearly proven to cause these effects. It's been banned for a couple of decades, but it's still in the soil near busy thoroughfares. Kids play in the dirt and in some cases eat things grown in gardens near busy roadways, and the potential exposure is significant.

Another possible culprit is benzene. Here in the Pacific NW we have ridiculous levels of benzene near roadways. The EPA allows refiners to "trade" benzene levels between regions, so they're allowed to dump benzene in our gasoline as if they remove it from areas with otherwise dirtier air. This stupid system will be phased out in 3 years, but we have to live with it until then. Benzene is highly toxic and a proven carcinogen. Average benzene levels in our urban areas are many time in excess of what is considered safe, and much higher than that near major roadways. I haven't heard whether there's a link to school achievement, but it seems more likely than with black carbon. I wonder if this study looked at regional differences.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/10/washington/10benzene.html

http://rgweb.registerguard.com/news/2006/07/25/a1.benzene.0725.p1.php?section=cityregion

I imagine if those same kids that lived in the higher traffic homes were allowed to attend the same schools as those in the low traffic homes we'd see the IQ difference vanish.

I'm certain that our school board had this in mind when they devised a plan to attract the best teachers and kids to attend schools in higher traffic neighborhoods. My extremely bright ;) kids (9th, 7th, and 3rd grade) each attend school across town in neighborhoods within 2 blocks of higher traffic areas (interstates and 4 lanes) and we live in a low traffic area, so they fit the description, but I concur that:

Also I tend to believe kids don't do as well in school because parents spend less time working with them on it.

Parental involvement is the largest factor in almost everything having to do with their children, not just this.

I want a job where I can just yank crap out of my arse and stir folks up.....

I think they call that a "reporter" or Journalist.

If air pollution is making your kids stupid you must be a real moron.

According to the EPA, air quality in the US today is the best it has been in living memory.

Ambient SO2 concentrations down 70%
Ambient NOx concentrations down 40%
Ambient tropospheric ozone concentrations down 60%
Ambient lead concentration down 98%
Ambient PM10 down 50%

The air quality was much worse when you were a kid so if air pollution makes your kids stupid are you that much more stupid? As a kid you breathed much, much dirtier air.