A new study has raised the disturbing question of whether we are substantially under-estiminating the annual death toll from air pollution, which currently stands at around 3.4 million a year. The reason is the failure to measure the lethality of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), emitted during fossil fuel burning.
The fact that we underestimate the deaths seems clear. Current estimates focus on deaths linked to fine particles, less than 2.5mm in diameter (PM2.5) have been estimated.
I have discussed before how people still do not associate air pollution with real numbers of fatalities. When we debate pollution controls, we measure concrete numbers of jobs and taxes but rarely put a figure on the resulting deaths associated with rising pollution. Indeed, those numbers are rising. The 3.4 million deaths found by the Global Burden of Disease study from the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle was an increase from 3 million in 1990. That is just from outdoor pollution. When you add indoor pollution, the number rises to seven million a year according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
In Europe alone, some 500,000 people die prematurely as a result of air pollution every year without even considering N02. It seems to me that, whatever we decided about the acceptable levels of pollution, we should be unified in our demand for more accurate and holistic figures of the estimated cost in health and fatalities. There are real health impacts associated with air pollution that are left as mere generalities in our public debate. The lack of solid figures makes the cost-benefit arguments rather artificial and superficial. It also suggests that, putting aside the need to address global warming, pollution abatement has direct, measurable and immediate benefits for the population at large.
Source: Guardian
I bet more people died of disappointment that some baker did not make them a gay wedding cake. I also am sure that there are several studies that will back that up.
The Repub/Corptocratic response will be to:
1) Pull back any funding to the University of Washington.
2) Prohibit the use of the following phrases by all government employees: Nitrogen; nitrogen dioxide; fossil fuels; air pollution; pollution controls; and death, unless used in conjunction with death taxes.
3) Denounce the World Health Organization for foisting Sharia law on American freedom.
The point of the studies are to stimulate discussion. They provide facts. You can argue whether they are strongly supported facts or not, but odds are that the study corrected for factors like cigarette smoking and lifestyle. The results of the longevity study cited in discussion thread are certainly related to other factors like improvements in healthcare, diet, and lifestyle rather than industrial processes. Industrial workers themselves do not fair as well as their countrymen in general.
Only a foolish person would dismiss these studies because they don’t happen to know anyone who died from air pollution. For decades, it’s been known that industrial processes pollute the common resources of water and air with substances that cause illness and death.
If it’s not the government’s role to regulate industrial polluters, then who should? The hapless consumer, from whom relevant information is withheld or who lacks any real alternative in the marketplace? No. Will it be the entrenched business interests that have been reaping the benefits of cost shifting the deleterious effects onto society. It’s the role of our government to enforce the Social Contract, which says that producers must not take unfair advantage of society. Otherwise, in essence, we become China.
Compressed air turbines. We get all the convicts in the country to use their life energy to pump up compressed air chambers, then we run everything on them. They have some cool cars in Paris that run on compressed air. Kills a couple of birds with one stone. People who refuse to contribute to society do so, and it’s clean. Kind of like the matrix, just serving the unincarcerated… (seems like that number would grow though based on demand…)
Ethanol from corn sounds just wonderful, doesn’t it? Yet it uses GMO corn which is wind pollinated, and the vast acreage devoted to it contaminates all other fields downwind. Then Monsanto shows up with their lawyers and sues the hapless farmer for . . . farming downwind and violating their patent.
Plus it corrodes engine parts, consumes vast amounts of pesticide and fertilizer which pollutes the environment and groundwater, and does zero to reduce the environmental impact of fuels.
But when it was in its infancy, people were just so excited about it. Many wanted it to replace fossil fuels now. Right now. Cities out here in CA converted their bus and much of its government vehicle fleet to ethanol. Now it turns out that was a mistake.
See what I mean about being wary about throwing all in when technology is still in its beta phase?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2014/04/20/its-final-corn-ethanol-is-of-no-use/
http://b3cfuel.com/resources/education/the-problem-with-ethanol
Isaac – the Koch brothers have their faults. But I am quite sure they are not responsible for wind energy killing birds or making that horrible thumping feeling to the air. It is not their fault that clean renewables are still far more expensive than fossil fuels. Or that solar panel manufacturing releases toxic waste. We’ve got to stop being in denial and take clean renewables out of the beta phase FIRST.
Isaac, you make a lot of sense. Uh, until “… Koch bros. are the puppet masters…” At that point, you lost credibility. As a result, your whole argument became tainted. It’s a shame that the proponents of “clean energy” also carry paranoid disdain of others. Makes them look like fools.
I had friends who lived in Hong Kong. They would sometimes post the daily air quality, which was always red zone. People wore dust masks. Models wore them on catwalks. China doesn’t have our pollution standards, and their smog drifts over to HK, in addition to their own pollution.
As an asthmatic, smoke from fires is one of my own triggers, which is unfortunate living in a fire state. So are chemical fumes.
Squeaky – the industrialized vs non industrialized also includes plagues, famines, tribal wars, and other violence. Sub Sahara Africa accounts for something like 70% of AIDS deaths. Plus, many polluters set up shop in other countries. Electronic waste from the US is shipped to India, where child scavengers crawl over leaking mercury and arsenic to pick out anything of value. Plus, Russia, China and the US are industrialized, but we all take very different views over the environment. I would compare the death rates among industrialized nations.
Air pollution exacerbates chronic conditions such as asthma and COPD. Those are listed as the cause of death, because it is difficult to list the exact trigger.
So you’re right that there are good and bad aspects of industrialization. One of the best effects is that the more technologically advanced, the more they are capable of cleaning up pollution. For instance, many of our energy sources pollute less than if everyone burned trees or peat for warmth and cooking.
I am very excited to see the advances in clean renewables. Fossil fuels are finite, and for that reason alone they will be replaced. But I am wary of those who get over excited and want us to get off of fossil fuels now. Right now. Because as I’ve pointed out before, we are not quite there yet. If energy costs too much, the average person is going to go back to chopping down trees, which is a net negative. Wind farms are so loud and annoying and they decimate bird populations. I really want to go solar. But it’s produced, mainly in China, using very toxic substances. American made is very expensive. Concentrating solar arrays literally fry birds. We don’t have the infrastructure, having addressed all the problems, and haven’t brought down the unsubsidized price enough YET. But we will.
Squeeky,
Industrialization is good. Pollution is bad. Repeat that over and over.
The switch from fossil fuels as an energy source, which almost all people understand and agree are detrimental to humans, the environment, etc. to renewable energy sources would parallel or even eclipse any of the great revolutions that advanced the human condition. There are untold trillions to be made, millions of jobs to be created, and a better environment to be had, not to mention the wonderment of the advancement of man’s ingenuity. Intake, Compression, Power, Exhaust is becoming a little pathetic.
The big obstacle is the status quo. The trillions to be made will not be made by people like the Koch brothers. People like the Koch bros. are the puppet masters of our supposedly elected leaders. So, it will go slow, especially as there are still so many with their heads stuck up where the sun don’t shine.
But, the change is coming. What is most remarkable is that even technology and advancement to curb emissions of coal burning is thwarted by the oligarchs in this country.
Corwith, while I have nothing to present as far as evidence, I feel that a large percentage of cancers are caused by the genetic damage from the constant and direct introduction of pollutants into the lungs by air pollution. It’s not hard to see that these pollutants that don’t get filtered out on the way in to our bodies make contact with systems that may be much more susceptible to genetic damage. I think the death rate could be multitudes higher than seven million.
Come on Nick, it’s not hard to see how air pollution wears down an organism over time. The chart above demonstrates that factors that fight the debilitating effects of air pollution in the industrialized nations would be better quality food and diet along with regular health care more common. I personally feel outright pollution is more of an emergency situation than the discussion of climate change. There may be a point where the pollution level overcomes the more healthy industrial populations and a major spike in illness and deaths will occur rapidly. Kind of like Beijing. That said. Don’t know a solution. Depend on more corporatist government to cut back door deals with industry to undermine laws set up to protect us??
WELL I think we should take immediate action. DISPERSE THE EPA WORLDWIDE.
Bjorn Lomborg (sp?) wrote an article in the last year or so in which he observed that the (roughly seven million annual) deaths from air pollution, particularly indoor air pollution, are to a very large extent the result of burning of fuels such as dung and wood. He observed this is particularly true for indoor pollution. He further argued there (or elsewhere) that fossil fuels are the only practical means of reducing such pollution since it tends to characterize societies which have neither the inclination nor the ability to fund more speculative and expensive alternatives.
As an aside, I may have have materially mischaracterized his argument and its conclusions since it was some time age; but I think not since he is probably considered a heretic for a reason.
I’ve read hundreds of autopsy reports, maybe a thousand. Never saw “air pollution” under cause of death.
Puuuhlease! How can such a smart man be hoodwinked so easily?
Reblogged this on Alina's Blog.
Of those who died of air pollution how many of them were smokers are exposed to second hand tobacco smoke? How many of those who did the study were smokers and did not think that there is a cause and effect of tobacco smoke and death by same? How many people who are smokers who read the blog think that their smoking will kill them?
You will note that nations of the world which pollute the most are also populated with a high percentage of tobacco smokers. China is the main culprit.
But, on the other hand, it is kind of related to the one child policy in China. We have to keep the population down and so smoking and air pollution will do that.
I think that we ought to provide free tobacco to the Muslim terrorist territories to weed them out so to speak.
While the column raises good questions, I hesitate to ask government to regulate us more based on the thin evidence.
Remember Twain’s comment: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.”
On a tangential note, government and liberals have pushed the specter of “climate change” so far that many people just plain don’t believe the Chicken Littles.
To recap, in the 70’s, we were warned about a new ice age. When that didn’t happen, the alarmists switched to global warming. When the the tides didn’t rise (remember Al Gore’s predictions), the alarmists switched to just plain climate change.
What is the next crisis – climate stability?
Yes, it is difficult to just accept the data on this one. Common sense tells you that a bunch of smoke and chemicals circulating in the air and getting your lungs is not healthy. But, life spans in developed countries mostly keeps going up, and life spans in non-industrialized countries are about 20+ years less. There are a lot of factors that could account for this, but still it seems there are significant differences across the board.
Sooo, maybe there is more good from the industrialization than bad as a net thing???
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b2/Comparison_gender_life_expectancy_CIA_factbook.svg/398px-Comparison_gender_life_expectancy_CIA_factbook.svg.png
Link in case the picture doesn’t show right:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
This looks like another great opportunity for government to get involved.
Even in the case of a single individual, it can be hard to determine cause of death with certainty. To do so at the level of the world’s population is even more fraught with difficulty. While this is no reason to stop trying to measure the impact of air pollution, to treat these studies as facts and to base aggressive policy measures on them, often leads to serious and unintended consequences.