smog tinted glasses

This morning I put on some citrus smelling oil (it helps me focus) and walked to work. While waiting at lights and inhaling toxic fumes, I realised, the emissions from the car beside me was overriding my delicious citrus mix (finally understanding why all the ladies at my work carry their perfume with them - to cover the toxic film on their skin and clothes). And now, for the rest of the day, exhaust will be my perfume (and I thought the smell of sweat was embarassing).

Driving a car is the most polluting act the average citizen commits. Yet, governments are ignoring their responsibility to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions. Since people seem to refuse to buy smaller cars and drive less (the only real solution, other than buying electric cars), for the sake of the environment, maybe if we understand the real effects exhaust has on our bodies, our self-centred attitudes will become a little more conscious.

A short list of the likely pathogens in car exhaust:
Carbon Monoxide
Nitrogen dioxide
Sulphur dioxide
Suspended particles including PM-10, particles less than 10 microns in size.
Benzene
Formaldehyde
Polycyclic hydrocarbons

"Air pollution is the source of many materials that may enter the human bloodstream through the nose, mouth, skin, and the digestive tract. Chemicals known to be harmful, such as benzene, lead and other heavy metals, carbon monoxide, volatile nitrites, pesticides, and herbicides. These substances have been shown to produce harmful effects on the blood, bone marrow, spleen, and lymph nodes. Blood cells are constantly undergoing turnover, with new blood cells entering the circulation as mature cells are lost, making the blood system especially vulnerable to environmental poisoning. For example, lead interferes with normal red blood cell formation by inhibiting important enzymes. In addition, lead damages red blood cell membranes and interferes with cell metabolism in a way that shortens the survival of each individual cell. Each of these harmful effects can result in clinical anemia.
Benzene and other less known hydrocarbons are produced in petroleum refining, and are widely used as solvents and as materials in the production of various industrial products and pesticides. Benzene also is found in gasoline and in cigarette smoke. It has been shown that exposure to benzene is related to the development of leukemia and lymphoma. Benzene has a suppressive effect on bone marrow and it impairs blood cell maturation and amplification. Benzene exposure may result in a diminished number of blood cells (cytopenia) or total bone marrow loss. A number of metabolites appear to be involved in this process, and there may be several targets of toxicity, including stem, progenitor, and some stromal cells.
Common air pollutants also have an affect on blood and thus on organs of the body. For example, carbon monoxide, arising from incomplete combustion of carbonaceous materials, binds to the hemoglobin over two hundred times more avidly than oxygen and distorts the release to the tissues of any remaining oxygen. Thus, CO poisoning is akin to suffocation. In addition, it has been observed that carbon monoxide can exacerbate cardiovascular disease in humans.
The toxic chemicals in environmental air pollution stimulate the immune system to activate leukocytes and macrophages that can produce tissue damage, especially to the cells that line human blood vessels. Although the damage is initially slight and may not produce significant limitation to blood flow, repetitive exposure to toxic substances interferes with the ability of these lining cells to release a substance called endothelial-derived relaxing factor (EDRF). EDRF relaxes the smooth muscle in blood vessel walls, and blocking the release of EDRF leads to systemic hypertension. At the same time, leukocytes on the endothelium's surface appear to play a part in promoting the arteriosclerotic disease process. The combined effect of these events is to accelerate the changes that eventually lead to hypertension and ischemic heart disease. "