Smoke-Related Chemical Discovered in the Atmosphere Could Have Health Implications

ScienceDaily (May 17, 2011) — Cigarette smoking, forest fires and woodburning can release a chemical that may be at least partly responsible for human health problems related to smoke exposure, according to a new study by NOAA researchers and their colleagues.

Using a custom mass spectrometer designed by the researchers, the NOAA-led team was able get the first look at levels of the chemical, isocyanic acid, in the atmosphere. Isocyanic acid has been difficult to detect with conventional measurement techniques.

"We found isocyanic acid in a number of places, from air in downtown Los Angeles and air downwind of a Colorado wildfire, to cigarette smoke," said Jim Roberts, lead author of the new paper and a chemist with NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo. "We also demonstrated that it dissolves readily in water, which means that humans can be exposed directly if it gets into eyes or lungs."

The health effects of such exposure are not fully known. In the body isocyanic acid, described by the chemical formula HNCO, is part of a biochemical pathway linked with cataracts and inflammation that can trigger cardiovascular disease and rheumatoid arthritis. Until now, the acid had not been measured in air outdoors or in tobacco smoke.

The research team made four separate measurements of HNCO: in the air in urban Los Angeles; in the air in Boulder downwind of the fall 2010 Fourmile Canyon wildfire; in laboratory burning experiments at high concentrations; and in cigarette smoke. The team also made the first measurements of the acid's ability to dissolve in water, which determines the chemical's tendency to dissolve into moist tissues in the body.

"There are literally billions of people in the world who burn biomass for cooking and heating," Roberts said. "If these indoor fires release similar levels of isocyanic acid as the fires we studied in the laboratory, families could be exposed to high levels of the chemical."

Roberts and colleagues from NOAA and University of Colorado at Boulder's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, the, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and the University of Montana published their paper in the May 17 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The research project started in the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory, where scientists burned brush, tree branches and other vegetation, to better understand the air quality effects of wildfires. They used a new, specialized instrument -- a mass spectrometer built by Roberts and several colleagues -- to measure the amounts of a suite of organic acids, which are emitted by burning vegetation. Such acids are involved in chemistry that can degrade air quality.

During simulated wildfires in the Montana laboratory, levels of HNCO approached 600 parts per billion volume (ppbv). The HNCO was a few thousand times less concentrated in both the air in Los Angeles during a time without recent fires, and in the air in Boulder when the Fourmile Canyon fire was burning upwind.

At about 1 ppbv, the research team calculated that enough HNCO would dissolve into exposed tissues -- lungs and eyes -- that those tissues could be vulnerable to "carbamylation," part of the chemical process triggering inflammation and cataract development. People could experience higher exposure to HNCO near wildfires or in indoor environments where coal, wood or other biomass is burned for heating or cooking. The health effects of chronic exposure to lower-level amounts isocyanic acid, such as those found in the California and Colorado air are not known.

The extreme sensitivity of the new instrument to low concentrations of HNCO made it impossible to quantify the very high levels of isocyanic acid in cigarette smoke.

"We conclude that tobacco-derived HNCO needs to be measured more extensively and potential exposure to it quantified," the scientists wrote, adding that the acid is not currently listed as a "harmful" or "potentially harmful" constituent in tobacco products or smoke.

In their paper, researchers noted other sources of atmospheric HNCO, including pollution-control equipment that is being introduced in California and Europe to reduce emissions by diesel trucks. The systems are designed to reduce nitrogen oxides, which contribute to air quality problems, but they emit HNCO as a by-product. This new source could increase human exposure to the chemical in urban areas.

Moreover, climate change is expected to bring hotter temperatures and drier conditions to some regions of the world, with accompanying increases in biomass burning, including wildfire. "We may be facing a future of higher amounts of HNCO in the atmosphere," said Roberts. "It is fortunate that now we can measure it."

Capitalism, environment and a reluctance to change

“So many problems, so little time” has become the catch-phrase of environmental scientists in many academic circles. What’s more frustrating is the fact that the intellectual and monetary resources are available to solve the world’s major sustainability issues, but governments and institutions are prioritizing propping up failing banks and funding military campaigns.

Environmentalist David Bellamy sums it up nicely when saying; “Environmental scientists know how to solve all the major environmental problems of the world, but too many people are still making too much money from doing things the wrong way”.

What the capitalists, along with the submissive public and deleterious regimes which support this system of environmental abuse fail to understand is that the economy, held aloft in importance, is completely dependant on ecology and healthy ecosystems for survival.

Think about all the life-support systems that we rely on, without really having them on our conscious minds. The plants producing our air, the filtering of our water, the food chains that we over-exploit; all of this is under-valued and forgotten, but if any of it were to fail, the consequences would be dire for life on this planet.

Climate changes have occurred often over the 4 + billion year geological time span, but there is no doubt that the current warming and sea level rise has been caused by human greenhouse gas emissions. However, as oil is the blood of capitalism, we must realise that depletion of this resource and subsequent crisis may occur before any negative effects of global warming are felt.

Oil itself is actually a chemical rich resource of hydrocarbon molecules that can be molecularly ‘designed’ in such a way to fit many industrial applications. Synthetic fibres, fertilisers, medicines and plastics, plus many, many more, are all derived from crude oil and it is obvious that the above are all mainstays of modern human existence.

Unless we begin to find alternatives now, human society will face annihilation in the near future. While the old elites live it up on our blood sweat and tears, they know that squeezing out a few more years of debauchery won’t matter as they won’t be around when crisis hits. All the while, we experience price hikes, GST and don’t forget the burden on future generations due to this ecological mismanagement.

Why is it that we find it so hard to force change and take these problems seriously? Personally, I feel that there is a failure to transmit ecological and environmental knowledge to the masses. Instead, the knowledge = power paradigm holds sway, whereby a privileged, educated few hold the keys to our collective problems.

As socialists and leftists I feel there has been a tendency to steer away from science in general, placing more of a focus on learning and understanding the liberal arts. Even though these areas are vitally important, basic scientific understanding, especially of the environment, will be essential in any new world order.

Ultimately, most of the problems we face, environmental or social, come from science being taken hostage by capitalist interests. Our great minds and thinkers are swayed by the higher pays offered by corporations whose only interest is in using science to further environmental degradation.

We as socialists must also become more environmentally aware as individuals. One of the reasons that change has been so slow in coming is the fact that city life has limited our perspective. We are made to feel ‘safe’ from the elements in its confines and therefore disconnected from our true habitat.

Environmental activism and socialism go hand-in-hand, as the problems faced by society are issues of sustainability and resource limitation. How do we use the limited resources of this planet to ensure equality for generations ahead? Although it is a difficult question to answer, the current generation, with its access to information and ideas, has the power to make change happen.