1d ago

Inhalers drive carbon emissions equivalent to 530,000 cars each year, study shows

Inhalers are the frontline treatment for asthma and COPD, but they come with a steep environmental cost, according to a new UCLA Health study—the largest to date quantifying inhaler-related emissions in the United States.
Researchers found that inhalers have generated over 2 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually over the past decade, equivalent to the emissions of roughly 530,000 gas-powered cars on the road each year.

32 comments

This is way up there with "smokers have a smaller impact on the environment than non smokers".
Fuck right off. Decommission one oil tanker, problem solved.
wtf? people have no choice to use an inhaler. people gave a choice to drive a gas guzzling truck.
- The fuck is that only some inhaler types have been proven to be problematic, the hydrofluoroalkane propellant inhalers in contrast to the dry and powder inhalers, but I do think the language of the article and the headlines is terrible.
  
  Oh so HFCs not the drugs contained within
And one of the biggest (if not the biggest) irritants to asthmatics? Car pollution. Cut down emissions and the inhalers won't be as necessary.
Kind of seems dumb to compare an entire industry to equivalent number of cars. The headline almost reads like 1 inhaler could equal hundreds of thousands of cars, but clearly nobody would be that stupid to think that.
Well. Maybe a few.
- Its also incorrect because this clearly only considers fuel consumption which is much much less than the carbon created in the production of the car and all the other infrastructure
- Kind of seems dumb to compare an entire industry to equivalent number of cars.
  Why? Its more equivalent emissions than several states total vehicle emissions. CO2e is a consistent measure when looking at greenhouse gas emissions and cars are something people are familiar with.
  From the articles page:
  Results A total of 1.6 billion inhalers were dispensed in the US from 2014 to 2024, generating an estimated 24.9 million metric tons of CO2e (mtCO2e). Annual emissions increased by 24% from 1.9 million mtCO2e in 2014 to 2.3 million mtCO2e in 2024. Metered-dose inhalers were responsible for 98% of all emissions during the study period, and emissions were heavily concentrated among short-acting β-agonist, inhaled corticosteroid–long-acting β-agonist, and inhaled corticosteroid classes. Albuterol, budesonide-formoterol, and fluticasone propionate inhalers accounted for 87% of total emissions. The estimated social costs of emissions were $5.7 billion (lower bound, $3.5 billion; upper bound, $10.0 billion).
  Its an enormous amount of emissions.
  
  It's also only 5% of the new cars registered in California alone, by your own data.
  And that's why it's bad to compare things to cars. Framing is an argument. Comparing something to the equivalent car emissions frames the issue a certain way. By providing an absolute number of cars it makes it seem like it impacts emissions the same as a significant chunk of the car industry (it does not, it is, again by your count, 0.1% of the total).
  The headline "Inhalers drive carbon emissions equivalent to 530,000 cars each year, study shows" reads very differently to "Inhalers drive carbon emissions equivalent to 0.1% of the cars sold each year, study shows", which in turn doesn't read the same as "Inhalers emit 2.5 million tons of CO2 each year". All of which don't cover the main takeaway from the study, which is that specifically metered dose inhalers are surprisingly pollutant and more research should be done on how to effectively replace them.
  I can't tell you how easily they could switch to low emission inhalers, but I can tell you what a bad headline looks like, and this is one.
  
  Several states have lower than a million pop out of the USA's total 340 Million people, my point is that this is equivalent to measuring things in murican units like hamburgers, football fields, and Olympic swimming pools. I think drawing comparison to cars and other pollution sources totals is helpful and showing a precise per unit amount of pollution is good and informative, but taking the entire industry and measuring it in cars is stupid.
That's okay. Just means we need to reduce emissions even more elsewhere, in things that don't keep people alive.
- The article says there are alternatives to the polluting inhalers that the industry can shift towards. So its kind of a win, because now we have an easy way to reduce current emissions.
  
  But also a kind reminder that if individual peoples' carbon emissions were completely eliminated from the planet, that would only decrease the amount of pollution being pumped into the air by like 10 to 20% at the very most.
  80 to 90% of the carbon pumped in the air is done by corporations, and regulating the corporations would do more to decrease the CO2 emissions and pollution in the atmosphere than every single human on the planet being perfect, carbon negative saints.
  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/since-2016-80-percent-of-global-co2-emissions-come-from-just-57-companies-report-shows-180984118/
If you add 530,000 cars to the worlds total of ~1.5 billion cars that's a drop in the bucket.
https://www.thedrive.com/guides-and-gear/how-many-cars-are-there-in-the-world
Edit: what I'm trying to say let's focus on replacing them with EVs and improve public transportation. And let the asthmatics have their inhalers.
- On top of that, we have that automobiles are less than a quarter of total emissions.
This is the dumbest thing I've read all day.
- Title is dumb, the article itself is fine
  It found that metered-dose inhalers were the most harmful to the environment, accounting for 98% of emissions over the 10-year period. Metered-dose inhalers contain hydrofluoroalkane (HFA) propellants, which are potent greenhouse gases that were widely used in products such as aerosol sprays.
  "On the upside, there is a tremendous opportunity to make changes that protect both patients and the planet by utilizing lower-emission alternatives."
  "A key first step to driving change is understanding the true scale of the problem," Feldman said. "From there, we can identify what's fueling these emissions and develop targeted strategies to reduce them—benefiting both patients and the environment."
  
  I mean, they could do stuff like stop putting those dangerous hydrofluorocarbons into the inhalers.
  I mean, it kinda seems like the solution suggests itself.
  If you wanted to get really fancy, I'm sure that there's some sort of lithium battery powered motor pump contraption that could easily compress air and use that as the accelerator for the medicine.
  Then all you would need to do is deploy a new medicine cartridge for your inhaler, and you get rid of the hydrofluorocarbons completely.
I knew it! It was those Asthma people!
Or 1 billionaire
I knew it was the athmatics this whole time.
It's important to know the side effects of life saving items so we can see if there's a better alternative. Not the most important fight in climate change, but if there's improvements that can be made I don't see why not, as long as it's just as effective for the people that rely on it.

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