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Just wanted to make you aware that the article is overly long (over 12,000 words). I'm slowly cutting my deduplicating content (harm in harm sections f.i.), and removing undue stuff such as Boris Johnson and the details about fertility.—Femke 🐦 (talk)07:52, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This includes dealing with over citation issues. It's not controversial to say that construction produces air pollution, I don't think. Why the many citations?—Femke 🐦 (talk)07:55, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Em... That last edit was made to add ideas like “refurbishment” and “rehabilitation”. It seems to me that this two, together with construction, demolition, and renovation are all similar ideas. I’m glad that 45154james has combined some of them. Aside from the need to expand on those ideas (they are similar but seems not the same), currently the article lacks mentioning ofUltrafine particulate matter emitted from building activities from the mechanical working on building materials (e.g., wood, plastics, concrete/cement, etc.). As building activities can also involve fuel combustion and emissions of pollutants like NOx, that can be confusing. So, those sources are added to clarify these views and for future article expansion. Currently it’s only mentioned in a few words, all added by me, which is obviously not enough (UFP *is* very problematic, as said in the source the concentrations can rise up to thousands times of background levels during/after building activities. This definitely needs more mentions. It’s on my to-do list, but ... --Dustfreeworld (talk)08:28, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The issue around equity is quite important. I wouldn't like to demote the social science from this article really. For me, these sections can be summarized drastically:
Emissions factors
The initial sections of health (which have poor organisation, and have overlap with the sources section)
Thanks to @Femke (again!) for finally taking this article by the horns and trying to sort it out and to @Dustfreeworld for support. I'm so delighted by this effort! I have wanted to do it for a long time but could never quite find the time.
Yes, it is massively overlong. No typical, college-student reader would ever read the whole thing, so it fails at the first fence, really. Even I have never read the whole thing.
There are really quite a lot of related articles that can take some of the weight off this article (e.g. Air Pollution Measurement, Air Quality Index, Household air pollution, Indoor air pollution), leaving it as more of a manageable overview someone could read in its entirety. I get the impression people have been (and keep) trying to do everything here and forgetting all the related articles where less central topics could be developed at length.
It's great that Femke has been tackling theWP:MEDRS issue - which I see as a major priority.
I started trying to reorganize the Sources section (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution#Human_sources) the other day, but gave up - that's a mess too. The division into static/mobile is absurd IMHO. It needs to be more like combustion/non-combustion, but that doesn't quite work either.
I think quite a few of the citations could disappear because they're redundant - and of theWP:CITEKILL variety (where just one or two fine citations would be better than a stack of three, four, or five).
OK, I have had a go at regrouping the Sources section so it's more logical. If you think it's a disaster, please revert! Some of the points are perhaps now easier to combine so maybe we can prune this down a bit. The stuff about motor vehicles could definitely be trimmed. Also the "Other" points might be removed. The stuff about VOCs could be moved elsewhere and the stuff about nuclear weapons (though true) is a fairly "obscure" source of pollution in the grand scheme. Conventional weapons also pollute.45154james (talk)19:40, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Mostly agree with your suggested trimming, except for motor vehicles, which looks about right / might need some expanding to briefly mention the effect of growing car sizes on air pollution.
I'm going to ease off for a bit now and let the dust (ahem) settle from my recent editing. I think we're getting a bit closer to something more accurate, more logical, and less bloated.45154james (talk)08:54, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @45154james! I’m afraid it’s difficult for the dust to settle … I’ve read that plastic dust suspends in the air for days (much longer than other types of dust, perhaps because it’s lighter). Dust gets resuspended under many situations, for example with road traffic, different weather conditions (e.g., wind), human activities like walking inside a house[1] or public transport (buses, trains, etc.). Re yourcomment below, do you think making over 150 edits in just two weeks is how[2] we should edit a main/vital/important article? --Dustfreeworld (talk)18:53, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Given what I said previously, clearly yes: the quicker it's fixed the better. Just today I added a reference to the Six Cities study - an absolutely glaring omission. The article mentions using air pollution to find aliens... but doesn't mention the Six Cities study! Perfect illustration of why it is C-grade at best. I don't think the number of edits has any bearing on anything at all. When I tagged the article for WP:MEDRS attention many months ago, you commented "... it seems that many sections of this article needs update/improvement, not just this..". So you agreed it needed improving back then. :)45154james (talk)19:17, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the number of edits has any bearing on anything at allSorry I disagree. A large number of edits in a short time makes reviewing and correcting any errors very difficult. We all make mistakes. Even if there are less than 10% errors (say, ten mistakes) out of the 150 edits, that would be too many for this important article. Not to mention the other risks (besides obvious errors) to the real world those may bring. Further, for many Wikipedia articles, just the insertion or removal of one single word can generate hundreds of comments on article’s talk page/RFC, DRN, ANI, COIN, etc. We always see the phrase “gain consensus on talk”. Of course I hope we don’t need those, but as I’ve said, a fast and urgent surgery is not what we need. Of course I agree this article needs improvement (please rereadmy comment) and it’s always on myto do list.I don’t really care about grade. Anyone can give it a grade. I think it’s D-grade now. Just to clarify, I do agree with some of the edits (that I’ve been able to review), e.g., the removal of the Johnson’s paragraphs (suggested by Femke and done by you) and the update of content with secondary sources (e.g., 17:34, 12 January 2025). IMO those are great collaborative editing. I agree with the removal of some obviously unrelated/redundant/repetitive content. I just don’t want any fast and ambitious/contentious changes, especially when involving the removal of causes and effects. This is not a race. It's not aboutWP:WIN either. We should go slow. --Dustfreeworld (talk)20:08, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm happy to slow down a bit. I agree with your comments about mistakes having real-world impact, which to me means editing this article is somewhat urgent. A lot of what I'm removing contains mistakes (f.i. completely underestimating mortality in China).
When I think changes might be contentious, I'll leave a talk page message first. As I'm newer to the article, I may not yet have a good feeling for what is and isn't contentious. I've looked at the talk page archives, and didn't discern many sensitive topics.—Femke 🐦 (talk)20:32, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I am far more worried about people being exposed to incorrect, inaccurate, incomplete, or exaggerated information. ~2000 people a day look at this article and they shouldn't be being led astray by well-intentioned misinformation. So that is the urgency, but obviously the argument cuts both ways. I favour being bold, without being reckless, but I understand the difference and respect the concern. Personally, I tend to edit in energetic bursts with long periods of pause in between, which I hope allows other people time to review/improve as they see fit.45154james (talk)11:23, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A quick run through of further improvements we might make?
Putting some of the lists with very long bullet points into prose format.
Rationalization between this article and subsidiary articles (e.g. Indoor air quality with the articles "Indoor air quality", "Household air pollution") - moving some of the excessive detail to those articles so this one can be further pruned into a better-digested summary.
Removing more poorly sourced/primary sourced/random material.
Exposure - Too much detail about working out exposures for microenvironments; confusion over "hazard" (which has a particular meaning when used by e.g. the US EPA).
Other effects - odd material about SETI?
Historical disasters - There are lots more. Perhaps this should become a summary of the (global) history of air pollution, possibly using the chronology by Fowler et al that I added to "Further reading" as a starting point?
Reduction and regulation - This is a real jumble at the moment. Maybe divide into monitoring, measurement, and regulation (on one hand) and pollution control (on the other)? "Pollution control" and "Energy transition" are thoroughly muddled up. Pollution control has far too many bullet point links, many of which relate to scrubbers and take you via redirects or non-intuitive links to the Scrubbers article.
Emission factors - in the wrong place?
Cities - Out of date.
Indigenous people - Missing citations. There are social justice aspects of air pollution far beyond this aspect (touched on under Hotspots underneath - e.g. disproportionate burden on Black/Latino communities), so the sections on Hotspots and Indigenous people might be looked at together? Maybe a section on "Social justice" instead with "Hotspots" and "Cities" merged?45154james (talk)11:28, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with most of the above (have numbered them for ease of discussion, hope you don't mind).
6. A history section probably makes sense, towards the end of the article? Or a relatively short one at the start?
7. I haven't yet had the opportunity to look at how sources talk about regulation, but measurement feels like more of a scientific topic that may require a separate heading? Whereas monitoring is clearly part of regulation.
10. I'm not sure if "social justice" works as a section heading. Many people will only know that term as a part of the derogatory "social justice warrior". Social impacts perhaps?—Femke 🐦 (talk)20:08, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your thoughts. This was just a quick list of possible, longer-term improvements to encourage others who might like to help out but maybe don't know where to start. I'm sure there are many other items we could add and some we could remove. Your thoughts (on things like "social justice") are spot on - and better than mine! An all this is lower priority and can wait until later...45154james (talk)11:26, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies for the late reply to the above discussions. While I really appreciate the recent efforts/enthusiasm in improving the article, I don’t agree with any further big changes. This is a main article with very high traffic. AFAICT, as ofearly this year, this article has a *very* stable version. Air pollution is a very complex topic. Changing it can have significant real life effects. It has many sub-articles, and many aren’t even included in here as hatnotes. If we are really going to rewrite the whole article like what’s said above, we should improve those sun-articles *first*, and then add their summaries to this main article. For example, inPollutants,Lead, a very important pollutant IMO, is only mentioned once, and it’s in the “Regulation” section only. InIndoor air quality, renovation is also only mentioned once without any further elaboration. There are many other related articles that are much much worser than the main article and need improvement, e.g.,Ultrafine particle,Particle pollution,Dust,Ash,Construction dust,Welding fumes[3],On-tool extraction,Open burning,Airborne microplastics,Template:Pollution, etc.
IMO the long-standing version has been reviewed by many others and doesn’t contain much errors. Conversely, it seems to me that there are some issues that are introduced to the article recently, for example, manufacturing facilities (factories), construction , waste incineration, transportation, etc. all involve fuel combustion and energy use, I don’t think we should have a separate “Combustion and energy use” section (although that looks reasonable at first glance and I thought of making that change myself, too). I think the original version (divide by mobile / non-mobile sources) is better. Another issue for example is that, I don’t think whether sources are primary or secondary is the determinant of content exclusion. As long as they are *not* conflicted by more recent sources, the content they supported only needs to be updated with newer/better(secondary) sources. While I agree that the article should be at a reasonable length that everyone can finish reading, I don’t think a shorter article is necessarily better than a longer one. If I were to choose between content and ideal length, I think content come first. I may not be able to address to the other issues very soon. My apologies again that I may not be able to come back to this swiftly due to RL issues. I hope I’ve made my point clear. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 08:15, 20 January 2025 (UTC); --Dustfreeworld (talk) 11:41, 20 January 2025 (UTC); --Dustfreeworld (talk)18:49, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with your assessment on quality. The article is a complete mess and has never been reviewed at DYK/GA/FAC: many statements are not supported by their sources, there is a lot of repetition, a lot of focus on subsubtopics at the expense of major topics like household air pollution.
The distinction between mobile sources and stationary sources is too technical for a widely-read article like this. It also led to an overly long subsection, causing readability issues, so I'm happy with the new subsections. I'm open to tweaking it based on how overview sources categorise this, of course.
There is no obligation to work on low-pageview articles first or at all. I don't typically find it worth my time to work on those articles.
Normally, there is a bit of a preference for secondary articles to ensure information is neutral andWP:DUE. For medical content, however, the long-standing guideline is to almost completely avoid primary sources perWP:MEDRS. For now, I'm only removing text based on that guideline.
In terms ofWP:LENGTH: the recommendation is around 8,000 words, but with a wide variation. While I prefer articles to be shorter than that, to ensure everybody can read that, there isn't consensus to lower that number. I won't cut down just for the sake of cutting down the article, but only to remove repetition, unsourced or poorly sourced information and extremely niche information.—Femke 🐦 (talk)09:04, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I’m not saying that the stable version is perfect. There’s no such thing as perfect. Even a GA/FA isn’t. I just believe in the expertise and knowledge of the former contributors and editors who have watchlisted the page. I know the article needs improvement, but we don’t want “big, fast and urgent surgery” to content that isn’t obviously wrong (and that’s one of the reasons why I haven’t edit it substantially in the past 2 years). OTOH, if we make it wrong, the impacts to the real world would be too huge.
WRT to some recent edits, do you think carbon monoxide and sulphur dioxide are “repetition, unsourced or poorly sourced information and extremely niche information” for the lead? Not to mention that reduced IQ is important in that if people’s IQ is reduced and become stupid, the air pollution problem can never be solved; if people can’t have babies, human will come to extinction … --Dustfreeworld (talk) 11:25, 20 January 2025 (UTC); --Dustfreeworld (talk)04:59, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For the lead, the criterion is whether it's a good summary of the rest of the article. CO and SO2 are minor aspects of the overall article. I removed them as the lead was a bit too wordy and has overly long sentences. Happy for them to be reinserted. When the article update is further along, I'll propose a full new lead here on talk, so that we can work on it together.
The sentence about reduced IQ seemed more clearly undue. That's not how sources frame it (e.g.EEA,gov.uk).This recent review mentions cognitive issues as a subcategory of mental disorders, for which they notice limited research. If we find a good source, I'm open to replacing it with something more general which has better evidence (Along the lines of "There is more tentative evidence that air pollution causes neurological problems, such as an increased risk of Alzheimers, and poses risks during pregnancy.)—Femke 🐦 (talk)17:30, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Dustfreeworld! Sorry to say that I agree with the "complete mess" assessement. :/ It's marked as B, but I'd say it was a C - either way, well short of "good".
It's not so much that things are glaringly incorrect (some are), but... there are many inaccuracies; a lot of the health material (possibly the majority?) has fallen short of WP:MEDRS; the structure is a mess; many random snippets have been added without being fully digested or properly incorporated; it doesn't give a proper global perspective (too western); and there's a lot of imbalance (some trivial things, such as searching for extraterrestrials, getting more space than major things, such as links between air pollution and dementia, or the historic rise and fall of lead pollution). So I think it's hard for a typical, uninformed reader (I always picture a 16-year old doing a school project on the kitchen table...) to know what's important and what isn't.
This will always be a long article, and it should really be as long as it needs to be. But it shouldn't be allowed to become overlong to the point of unusable, by default, because no-one ever takes an overview and cleans up. Hopefully, by making the structure more logical, grouping/rationalizing duplicate info, and moving or removing irrelevant or distracting things, we can expand some key sections (vehicle pollution, indoor pollution, and things like the history of air pollution), which aren't really covered enough, while keeping it a readable, well-digested summary that my imaginary 16-year-old won't be put off reading in its entirety. We all agree this is an important article both in Wikipedia and beyond. I think we have a great opportunity to work together to create something way, way better. Your input (and everyone else's) is always hugely welcome!45154james (talk)15:56, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would love for this article to be a GA towards the end of 2025. I'll start with a complete update of the health section, then slowly make my way to other parts of the article. Happy to work with all the folks here to make that a reality.—Femke 🐦 (talk)09:09, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it is one of the most important articles in the whole of Wikipedia I think. When you get as far as needing a copyedit feel free to contact me.Chidgk1 (talk)14:49, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For this important article, I think we probably should aim at FA, not just GA. For that I believe we need a morecomprehensive article, not a simpler one. Also note that even forGA, we need to followsummary style, which clearly stated thatSections of long articles should be spun off into their own articles, leaving summaries in their place. I noticed that some of the recent edits have a whole section (almost 10000 bytes) moved without any summary left (e.g., rev 16:42, 25 January 2025). I’m afraid edits like that won’t get us any closer to our goal. --Dustfreeworld (talk)05:02, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Dustfreeworld. I'm not sure any mention about IVF is due in this article. Do you see it mentioned in any overview article? Fertility more widely is mentioned once, without elaboration, in the 1000-page tome "Fundamentals of air pollution" by Vallero. To me, that indicates it'sWP:undue to mention it in our article at all.
At FAC (which I'm not against pursuing if I'm still interested in 6 months), people are usually quite strict in total article length, and we will get opposes if we don't manage to go below 10,000 words, and even above 9,000, there may be grumbling.
I think climate change should be in the last paragraph of the lead as less important than health. Perhaps I am jumping the gun in thinking about the lead before the body is done. If so just put the following not very grammatical first draft aside and come back to it later as a starting point for discussion.
Although the main greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is not always called pollution, most policies to reduce air pollution also help limit climate change.[1] Because burning fossil fuels often pollutes nearby air as well as spreading carbon dioxide worldwide. Such as a diesel-fuelled truck. Similarly methane may leak beforehand and blanket the Earth, or burn in a cooker and dirty indoor air.[2] However the relationship between local air pollution and climate change is complicated. For example ships burning cleaner fuel are less smoky, so more sunshine reaches the Earth’s surface.Chidgk1 (talk)12:37, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would be against a climate change paragraph in the lead. There is so much around air pollution itself that is more important to talk about. For instance, we don't yet talk about concrete action against pollution (cooking with LPG, scrubbers, active travel, etc..). We talk very clumsily about major pollutants (in the first paragraph, just an extremely long enumeration, rather than context).
Thanks Chidgk. I think this --> "most policies to reduce air pollution also help limit climate change" is an absolutely key thought that should be explored, explicitly, somewhere in the "what people can do about air pollution" part of the article. (It's touched on inhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution#Energy_transition, but not very clearly). I think we do have to be a bit careful about the confusion between air pollution and climate change, which is, as you say, complex. Also if/how/whether/why carbon dioxide is defined as a "pollutant" (which we touch on inhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution#Carbon_dioxide), which was a highly political point for the Biden administration in the United States.45154james (talk) 14:02, 26 January 2025 (UTC) [Edited to clarify bit about Biden45154james (talk)14:06, 26 January 2025 (UTC)][reply]
Looking back through the archives of this page, there have been several debates/arguments about whether carbon dioxide qualifies as an air pollutant. See for example the entries:
I guess we should create a “definition” section or subsection to quote the WHO definition below but explain that the US is leaving the WHO and also quote the US definition (I don’t know where that is - do you?)Chidgk1 (talk)06:39, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
“Air pollution is contamination of the indoor or outdoor environment by any chemical, physical or biological agent that modifies the natural characteristics of the atmosphere.”
Good catch it's not quite the same. I don't see an appropriate license at the WHO for straight copying. Furthermore, I find the definition even more technical than our current definition ('modifies the natural characteristics' is overly abstract. The word agent is very technical. I would love for us to go into the direction of[4] this (overly niche) source: "An air pollutant is any substance in the air that could harm people or the ecosystem."—Femke 🐦 (talk)08:05, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It would be great to have something so clear and simple. However, it needs to include potentially any living thing (e.g. effect of ground-level ozone on food crops or acid rain on trees) and any non-living one (e.g. effect of deposition on buildings).45154james (talk) 11:22, 27 January 2025 (UTC) / fixing typo45154james (talk)11:23, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The google definition of air pollution fromhttps://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/ is "the presence in or introduction into the air of a substance which has harmful or poisonous effects." Well duh poisonous is obviously harmful. I like Femkes idea of defining "air pollutant" rather than "air pollution" as that simplifies the problem grammatically. How about:
"An air pollutant is a harmful substance in the air."
or
"An air pollutant is a substance in the air which is harmful either indoors or outdoors."
or
"An air pollutant is a harmful substance in the air. Some indoor air pollution becomes less harmful as it spreads outside."
or
"Harmful substances in indoor or outdoor air are called air pollutants."
Yes, quite possibly! :) I'm just trying to anticipate other people's objections. Sorry, I missed see the Victorian definition. That's a good find and perhaps the best of all of them, because it talks about levels, which, for me, is key. It would be great to have an opener that is very concrete and meaningful to student-level readers that is broad enough to describe everything in the article, isn't inaccurate or vague, and isn't as abstract and mysterious as the WHO definition. Let's see what others think.
There are quite a lot of country-specific articles called things like Air pollution in the United States/Canada/Germany/South Korea/Turkey... and so on around the world. But there is no clue that these articles exist from our mainAir pollution article. Even if you expand the "Pollution" template at the bottom of the page, you don't find a list of the country articles. How could we improve this? Amend the template? Add in a category?45154james (talk)07:59, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's perfect, thank you! I didn't know you could do that. It just needs the red link removing, but I'm not very good with templates either so I will leave it alone.45154james (talk)17:22, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, no, not a good thing. A wikilink would suffice as a cross-article connection, or a brief summary if the quantity and significance of the material justifies it, but generally, no.VelellaVelella Talk08:27, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
While copying itself doesn't have to be a bad thing, it did increase our Global North bias. I would like the article to talk more about South and East Asia, and Africa, where air pollution problems are worst.—Femke 🐦 (talk)18:56, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's a good-faith contribution and perhaps it can be absorbed and edited into a more useful and relevant form when we get around to working on that bit of the article. But I'd prefer country-specific examples to "earn their place" in a globally-minded article by demonstrating relevance to readers in all parts of the world and, as you say, we need a better global balance.45154james (talk)11:01, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Structure of the reduction and legislation section
I've finished my initial rewrite of the health section. Next up is the first half of the reduction and legislation section. It's based on haphazard sourcing, partially per the above discussion, and not structured well. I'm planning to do a thorough rewrite of the first three subsections, based onthis UNEP report andthis Royal Society paper. My suggested new subsections, mostly following UNEP (all without subsubsections) would be:
Industry (including scrubbers and the like, as well as power sector transition)
Transport (mode shifting, land vehicles, shipping, air)
Waste and agriculture (not merged into one section at UNEP, but I don't know how much we can say about them)
Cooking (mostly focused on solid fuel cooking -> LPG, but possibly also about gas cooking --> induction).
The Royal Society paper has the categories "air pollution regulation", "energy", "agriculture" and "food" (figure 13), which perhaps justifies not taking waste as a separate category.
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between15 January 2025 and7 May 2025. Further details are availableon the course page. Student editor(s):PurpleFish2025 (article contribs).
If I understand table 1 in the study right then in 2010 nine out of ten premature deaths in China were from air polltion. Surely that cannot be still true nowadays unless you include deaths of smokers. Moved from article to here as China much cleaner than in 2010 but still exports a lot to other G20 countries. India still dirty but does not export much goods so not really “free trade” related but hurts own people. Also confusing as some G20 countries developing.
A study concluded that PM2.5 air pollutioninduced by the contemporary free trade and consumption by the19 G20 nations causes two million premature deaths annually, suggesting that the average lifetime consumption of about ~28 people in these countries causes at least one premature death (average age ~67) while developing countries "cannot be expected" to implement or be able to implement countermeasures without external support or internationally coordinated efforts.[1][2]Chidgk1 (talk)09:39, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Presumably illness and death to smokers themselves is not included as the smoke in their lungs is not in the atmosphere at that time. Whereas the death and illness numbers would include passive smoking?Chidgk1 (talk)09:56, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion is closed.Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
In general, the article introduces most terms and concepts – but not in the order they first appear in the text. In particular, the "Sources of air pollution" is not easy to follow because it names a lot of pollutants and processes that are only introduced in the next section ("major pollutants"). To solve this, you could switch these sections (first introduce the pollutants, then discuss where they are coming from). Alternatively, you could condense the "Sources of air pollution" section and keep only the general statements, with pollutant-specific information moved down to the "Major pollutants" section.
I've gone for the option of focussing the sources section better, removing references to pollutants I expect people are less familiar with.—Femke 🐦 (talk)11:14, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agricultural emissions, both from crops and from animal agriculture – wording is not great. I suggest "domestic animals" instead of "animal agriculture", because that fits with "crops".
What about "both from plant and animal agriculture"? "Plant agriculture" is the counterpart of "animal agriculture", so that makes more sense if you want to keep "animal agriculture". --Jens Lallensack (talk)10:48, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
PM2.5 outdoor air pollution – One example of the structure problem: At this point in the article, the reader has no idea what PM2.5 is.
Replaced with 'fine particle pollution'
NOx. – as above.
Removed
Los Angeles basin – Needs link, but as this is a geological term I am unsure why it is used in the first place; is there an alternative?
removed, and reworded, as I'm not convinced this was a good summary of the original paper
and dust from the Sahara reaches the Mediterranean – this is pretty unsurprising, since the Sahara is directly bordering the Mediterranean Sea, at least in Tunisia.
Other sources of indoor air pollution are radon, building materials – radon is the pollutant, not a source, though?
Removed.
volatile organic compounds (VOCs) – after reading the article, it is still not clear to me what precisely falls under this term, and what makes pollutants like CO a "volatile organic compound". C02 does not seem to be a volatile organic compound? Why not, if CO is? This could be much better explained (an alternative would be to avoid the term and refer to the specific pollutants directly).
Back from the rabbit hole: There are apparently many contradictory definitions of VOCs..Organic compounds are either defined as compounds with carbon, or those with a C-C bond or C-H bond. So it's ambiguous if CO falls under it. In Pearson's book, VOCs are defined as "A wide range of compounds including hydrocarbons and oxygenates that form ozone in sunlight-driven photochemical reactions in the presence of nitrogen oxides." As CO2 is quite inert, it does not fall under the heading, whereas CO does contribute to ozone formation. However, CO is not included in the large table of VOCs in the book and the book contradicts itself later by describing unreactive VOCs, which are not regulated as much.EPA explicitly excludes CO and CO2 from the definition, as does theUK gov. Most sources exclude CO, so have removed it from the list. I've also given a new definition of VOCs.—Femke 🐦 (talk)09:31, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The VOC production from these species result in ozone levels up to eight times higher than the low-impact tree species. – Unclear what trees have to do with ozone at this point in the article.
Have clarified that these gases cause ozone formation
In the "Major pollutants" section, it is not stated how much the specific pollutants contribute to air pollution. How much is Ammonia contributing to particle pollution, for example? How important is it compared to other sources?
It really depends on the location. I can't find global numbers. Most of my overview sources use local measurements in different geographies if they give any numbers at all. I have added that most PM comes from precursor gases, and what some key ones are.—Femke 🐦 (talk)10:20, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why are the major pollutants discussed in this particular order? Why is particulate matter within the gasses?
I've restored alphabetical order (I renamed ozone to ground-level ozone, but forgot to change order). Not married to the keeping gases and PM mixed, but with some of them a bit of both (ammonia, heavy metals in other pollutants), it seems reasonable to list them like this.—Femke 🐦 (talk)10:00, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
forests, wild plants and crops. – I suggest to just write "plants". Forests can be either crops (when we should actually call it a "plantation") or wild plants, for example.
Done
form photochemical smog – explain?
It seems like the source was wrong, and it's the biggest part of photochemical smog. Do you think this is sufficiently clear now, or should I spell it out.—Femke 🐦 (talk)20:14, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The group includes methane, CO, acetone and toluene – Why is "VOC" a separate section when CO was already had its own section?
especially in developing countries where cities are experiencing rapid growth and environmental regulations are relatively lax or nonexistent. This sentence has a lot of overlap withExposure to outdoor air pollution is worst in lower-middle income countries in line with the environmental Kuznets curve, which postulates that pollution is worst in economies that rely on manufacturing but have not yet been able to prioritize environmental regulation. – Could be condensend to avoid these redundancies.
especially in developing countries where cities are experiencing rapid growth and environmental regulations are relatively lax or nonexistent – I would remove the "where cities are experiencing rapid growth", it does not really make sense to me (air pollution is not high because cities are growing rapidly, but because they are large).
Done.
First you use "heart disease", then "ischaemic heart disease", but the latter linked only at second mention. Do we need the "ischaemic" at all?
I've replaced ischaemic with coronary, which is a simpler synonym here. I've unlinked the more generic heart disease in the first mention, and linked the first two mentions. I didn't know what this word meant before reading this literature, so want to link it in the most pertinent section (which seems permissible by the note inWP:REPEATLINK, as it's a long subsection and it's plausible people would click on this subsection from the TOC).—Femke 🐦 (talk)06:39, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
India and China have the higher number of deaths from air pollution. In India, it contributed to 2.1 million deaths in 2021, whereas China saw 2.4 million deaths. – This is misleading, those are the most populous countries, so they can be expected to have more deaths from whatever source.
I've added more relative numbers, which are also shown in the graph, and have removed some absolute numbers. I believe absolute numbers are easier to grasp, and do not believe they are misleading with the added context.—Femke 🐦 (talk)08:29, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Air pollution deaths are high in middle-income countries due to industry and in low-income countries due to the use of solid fuels for cooking. – Already mentioned.
Annual premature European deaths from air pollution are estimated at 416,000[115] to 800,000.[111] – Again, the whole paragraph gives absolute numbers without takimg into account population size.
See above
A study concluded that PM2.5 air pollution induced by the contemporary free trade and consumption by the 19 G20 nations causes two million premature deaths annually – Needs a date. Also, effects of climate change are not included here, right?
There are a lot of duplicated refs in the references list.This script can highlight them.
Done. Note that the remaining sources the script flags all have different cited pages.
Social and economic effects: Climate change not mentioned? It is unclear if the article treat greenhouse gasses as air pollution or not, this seems a bit inconsistent.
So, this one is difficult. Most sources about air pollution mention climate change, but don't really go into any details. There are also quite a few sources called something like 'air pollution and climate change'. I've followed the structure of the more reliable sources by keeping in the middle if it is air pollution, and not really going into any details in other places.—Femke 🐦 (talk)20:14, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
At first, the extra nutrients help plants grow, but dense plant growth blocks sunlight from reaching the bottom. Plants in the lower layers then die, and with fewer plants producing oxygen, the oxygen level drops. This harms organisms that need oxygen to live. – I don't think that is the point though. This could happen in lakes. More generally and importantly, eutrophication leads to biodiversity loss, I think that should be mentioned.
I've searched the sources on eutrophication and air pollution, which do mention species loss, but not biodiversity, so have added that. I'm sure if I search eutrophication + air pollution + biodiversity I can get a source, but I prefer to determine content based on overview sources rather than targeted search to ensure things are due weight.—Femke 🐦 (talk)10:05, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Air pollution further decreases the productivity of labourers via health impacts. – Not sure if that needs to be pointed out at this point, when the "health" section basically covers it already.
Not sure if that's quite true. The health section focuses a lot of who is most impacted (newborns, pregnant people, old people). It doesn't follow directly that this has a more general impact on the working population.—Femke 🐦 (talk)10:05, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
with the positive response of vegetation to reduce air pollution was dominant in croplands – please reword, I can't follow.
In terms the welfare cost on human health – also, please fix this.
Done
air pollution became a problem with the rise of cities – But even before, burning and natural sources were a problem? Cooking with wood indoors must have been a problem for much longer?
The source makes a distinction between indoor and outdoor air pollution. This sentence only applies to outdoor air pollution, whereas the previous ones discuss indoor air pollution. The source call it a 'major issue', which I've paraphrased as 'problem', but can instead say 'large problem', which I find less elegant.—Femke 🐦 (talk)09:31, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In the section on indoor pollution reduction, why is ventilation not mentioned?
anthrax spores – virus were never mentioned before; does this fall under "air pollution"? Maybe the article needs a definition of the term: Does CO2 fall under air pollution? Doesnuclear fallout fall under air pollution? Do viruses? This (and therefore, the precise scope of the article) does not become clear.
I've removed anthrax, as the cited source didn't mention air pollution. I've looked for a definition of air pollution, but could not find one in high-quality sourcing that would clearly define the scope. Most sources just assume you know what it is, or give very general definitions ('Air pollutants are things that contaminate the air'). I've mostly stuck to what sources included in their lists of air pollutants, which does not include nuclear fallout and viruses. CO2 is sometimes mentioned, and I hope the discussion now more clearly highlights the debate (I've removed the more niche discussion around CO2 as directly toxic).
sea salt pollution is mentioned in the image caption but not discussed in text, so I wonder what that even is.
It's simply sea salt in the air, which is technically PM10.. Not sure how to better explain, but I can leave it out, as it's not really harmful.—Femke 🐦 (talk)19:32, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For instance, by increasing the cost of car parking or offering free public transport. – not a complete sentence
The section "Pollution reduction by sector" seems a bit narrow. Maybe it could also incorporate some discussion on how exposure to air pollution can be reduced; e.g., ventilation of buildings, the effects of greenery/nearby forests, face masks and that they don't help against fine particulate matter (big thing in Asia), etc.
Ventilation now added. In terms ofphytoremediation, the evidence for it is weakaccording to this 2021 review and I don't see it mentioned in any of my overview sources, so I prefer to not mention it for now. Masking and air purifiers now added to the exposure section, which already included some individual-level behaviours.—Femke 🐦 (talk)19:32, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Some air pollution action has been successful at the international level, such as the Montreal Protocol,[207] which reduced the release of harmful ozone-depleting chemicals. It was ratified worldwide. On the other hand, international action on climate change, have been less successful, as levels of greenhouses gases have continued to rise since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 2015 Paris Agreement.[208] – We already had a very similar paragraph I think.
I've kept the discussion in both places, but now focus more on the historical context in history and mechanisms of the regulation in the regulation section.—Femke 🐦 (talk)10:05, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Some air pollution laws put limits on emissions (e.g. from vehicles), as well as air standards. – Strange sentence and partly repeating what was stated previously.
I've got a bit of a long COVID crash and am prioritising preparations for the admin elections. Should hopefully finish next weekend.—Femke 🐦 (talk)14:04, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
HiUser:Jens Lallensack. I think I've got all now. Thanks so much for an in-depth review! I had parked the idea to bring it to FA, but I think the article is now in a state where the most structural issues are resolved, and I'm now more confident of the sourcing. So, perhaps this could be a 2026 project :).—Femke 🐦 (talk)10:20, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed.Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below.Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such asthis nomination's talk page,the article's talk page orWikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page.No further edits should be made to this page.
@Femke: Article is newly made into a GA, hook is interesting. The citation regarding miscarriages isn't placed on the end of the sentence though. I think that'll be the only issue that needs to be addressed.Arconning (talk)04:38, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at the "Pregnancy and children" there seem to be a bunch of claims sourced to a landing page for a UNICEF report, which does not satisfy the requirements ofWP:V. What gives?Bon courage (talk)16:41, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's one of those annoying reports that downloads, rather than opens, when you click it (giving like a C:// 'url'). I'm giving page numbers, so I hoped it was clear that the readers needs to click on the report to go the the actual pages. Is there a better way to format that citation? Or are you able to find a direct link to the report?—Femke 🐦 (talk)17:25, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What I could do is convert the entire article to my preferred citation style. That is: sfns for reports and books, 'normal' citations for all the other sources. (like what I'm starting atpolycystic ovary syndrome). That way, the page numbers are more obvious?—Femke 🐦 (talk)17:31, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have no objection to changing the referencing style, but in the short-termthis link to the PDF (assuming this one is meant) works, and the format=pdf paramater can be used in reference for completeness.Bon courage (talk)01:21, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion has been closed.Please do not modify it.
I would like to raise a potential conflict of interest regarding the Air pollution article.
This page is significantly expanded in the last few months by userFemke who is associated with a European-based grant-receiving institute that focuses on action-oriented research in areas such as climate change, alternative energy use, electric vehicle deployment, climate intervention, and carbon emissions. This suggests that the article may have been edited to promote or publicize activities in these areas. This user's edit history also appears to be focused on promoting or defending narratives in these areas.
Concerns include:
Fact picking and failure to assign due weight to viewpoints. Selecting information without including contradictory or significant qualifying information and consequently misrepresenting what the source says. For more description:Wikipedia:Coatrack#Fact picking,Wikipedia:Cherrypicking.
Use of publications from think tanks and activists, such as the Mercator Research Institute, as source for unusual claims.
Lack of coverage from reliable, secondary and latest sources that would demonstrate neutrality.
Given this pattern, I recommend:
A review of the article for neutral tone and promotional content,
Careful scrutiny of fact picking, source reliability, source misrepresentation and the use of advocative source,
Considering whether tags for COI, NPOV, or Undisclosed paid are appropriate.
Well, there's this:I support User:TatjanaBaleta, who works as a Wikimedia Visiting Fellow at the University of Exeter, as part of my job. I will generally not edit directly for this project, but will be organising a edit-a-thon as part of the module I teach, and may improve edits from students. If you have any concerns over this (This user's edit history also appears to be focused on promoting or defending narratives in these areas), I would take it to theconflict of interest noticeboard instead of pointing it out here.ChildrenWillListen (🐄 talk,🫘 contribs)05:28, 3 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion is closed.Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I do not think that these tags are appropriate here - especially the first one, as air pollution is not a company or person. Do you have specific examples/sentences of these?DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk)05:35, 3 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed.Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
level-4 vital article is ratedGA-class on Wikipedia'scontent assessment scale.
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between15 January 2025 and7 May 2025. Further details are availableon the course page. Student editor(s):PurpleFish2025 (article contribs).
@Femke: Article is newly made into a GA, hook is interesting. The citation regarding miscarriages isn't placed on the end of the sentence though. I think that'll be the only issue that needs to be addressed.Arconning (talk)04:38, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Approved. :)Arconning (talk)08:57, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
