We have previously discussed studies that show the number of people killed by pollution each year — a concrete cost rarely discussed in debates like the current outcry over the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Accord. In a new study published in Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews (DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2017.05.119), researchers from Michigan Technological University found that switching over to photovotaics from coal would prevent 51,999 premature deaths a year and potentially making as much as $2.5 million for each life saved. What is interesting is that those people opposing environmental controls clearly do not view themselves in one of these groups of fatalities even though pollution tends to impact everyone fairly evenly.
Each year coal causes tens of thousands of Americans premature deaths in the United States. The Paris Accord is often discussed in terms of temperature control. Indeed, President Trump referred to the small decrease that would be attained from carbon reductions. What was missed is that the Accord is designed to stop the worsening of the atmosphere as the first priority. This study shows that there are also concrete benefits in terms of lives.
I was critical of the Paris Accord as not going far enough (even though the Accord has a provision for interim adjustments to attain greater reductions). However, I still believe that the Trump Administration has placed this country on a path that will cost both health and economic benefits. As noted earlier, the alternative fuel industry employs more people than coal, oil, and gas operations combined in this country. Green technology and alternative fuels are the expanding economy and market around the world. We are now moving aggressively away from the new economy and it will cost not just jobs but lives in the long run in my view.
Here is the study: Carbon Pollution study
The claim that coal plants cause asthma? Mayo and WebMD say “Nobody really knows what causes asthma”. Mr Turley, your legal writings are very much respected. And when it comes to climate science we should read Steve Koonin, director of NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP). He wrote, in a 1914 WSJ essay, “We are very far from the knowledge needed to make good climate policy,”
Cheers,
Richard
I’m dubious of these studies (outside of peer reviewed medical ones) that claim if we do or don’t do something it will save lives. This one is nine pages and talks not at all about other competing sources of “premature death” such a environmental and/or non-environmental ones. Where are the controls for all the other fatal activities? If I live near a toxic waste dump but also see a coal smokestack from my porch, who is to say which increased my relative risk? The study sure doesn’t nor does it account for these superseding, intervening risks. These studies feel like political bumper stickers: “Save the Children” and “I Brake for Animals.” Fun to read in the moment, but severely lacking in substance and hence credibility.
Mespo,
“Where are the controls for all the other fatal activities?”
I noticed that, too. I did not read that they controlled for smoking and other lifestyle factors. If we put a map of smoking prevalence or obesity prevalence with this study, I wonder how that would compare.
Pollution does increase inflammation in the body, but other factors also increase it and fail to decrease it.
Do you want a reliable and relatively cheap source of electricity to replace coal, and thereby saving thousands in the short term and mitigating climate change in the long term?
Solar, wind? No, too much intermittent. Dams? Good idea but it is geographically limited.
What?
Two words: nuclear reactors.
France produces 75% of its energy by this means and don’t pollute; electricity is cheap there, and would be even less costly if the consumer wasn’t forced to subsidy solar and wind.
Meanwhile, Germany closes its nuclear reactors and replaced them by coal.
Given the United States has the uranium and the scientists needed to pull this, I think America can nuclearise its power production.
Unfortunately, I isn’t really popular among greenies.
Making the World Safe for Coal – The History of the Antinuclear Movement