Update on the annual death toll from air pollution.
There are certain links I just keep on file for use here when discussing the external costs - costs to the environment and to human health - of our continued and rapidly growing use of dangerous fossil fuels.
Here is the link I routinely produce whenever I'm discussing hot topics like, um, Fukushima and/or Chernobyl and/or Three Mile Island, none of which actually matter, on scale:
A comparative risk assessment of burden of disease and injury attributable to 67 risk factors and risk factor clusters in 21 regions, 1990–2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 (Lancet 2012, 380, 2224–60: For air pollution mortality figures see Table 3, page 2238 and the text on page 2240.)
The actual figures given in the table are:
For ambient (outdoor) particulate matter: 3,223,540 deaths in 2010, with the uncertainty expressed as a range, (2,828,854–3,619,148).
For household (indoor) solid fuels (primarily "renewable" biomass but also some coal): 3,478,773 deaths in 2010; the uncertainty range, (2,638,548–4,386,590)
Ozone: 152,434 deaths in 2010, uncertainty range, (52,272–267,431).
The overstated precision in these figures is annoying, somewhat ameliorated by the error bars, but nonetheless, I think the data represented an excellent estimate.
I generally in my arguments rounded up to 7 million air pollution deaths per year.
The Global Burden of Disease surveys are an ongoing project funded by the Gates Foundation, and more recent figures have been published, but lazy person that I am, I haven't been using the more recent version.
The most recent full report from the Global Burden of Disease survey was published in 2016.
It is here:
Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990–2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015 (Lancet 2016; 388: 1659–724)
The new report suggests that deaths from "renewable" biomass have actually fallen to 2,854,000 deaths per year from the previously reported figure from the 2012 study's report of 3,478,773 deaths. This improvement undoubtedly is tied to some success in the UN Global Sustainable Development Goals, which includes, among other things, improved stoves for indoor use by poor people.
It is surely the case that "development" has involved the displacement of indoor solid fuel combustion with the use of dangerous fossil fuels. If this offends you, I submit you are offended by reality. Even in the case where the change involves improved stoves with elaborate modern devices like, um, chimneys, the effect is still to move indoor pollution to outdoor pollution: The latter is suggested by an increase in the death toll related to outdoor particulate air pollution, which has risen to 4,241,000 deaths, as compared to 3,223,540 deaths reported in the 2012 study which refers to 2010.
Ozone deaths have risen to 207,000.
I can still round down to 7 million deaths per year. This is a holocaust every year, more or less, and every decade, more deaths than all deaths, combat, bombing, starvation, genocide etc than recorded in all of World War II for all countries involved.
We couldn't care less.
The death toll from what is sometimes represented as the only energy disaster to actually matter, particularly by people with their heads up their asses, Fukushima, does not appear in this list of causes of global mortality, probably on the grounds, realistically, that on scale, it doesn't matter.
Nuclear energy saves lives. Another bit I link often:
Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)
I wish you a wonderful weekend and hope that you will vote next week. It has never been more important, with the possible exception of the 1864 election. My vote is already in, straight Democratic, although I had to abandon some principles to vote for one local Democrat, but did it anyway.
I wish I could vote, by the way, for the environment, rather than simply against racism, ignorance and fear, but I can't. Neither political party in this country actually gets it, though more on our side do than on their side do. It's small comfort but President Obama for instance, once appointed Steven Chu to be Secretary of Energy, a role in which he served with the great intelligence one would expect from a Nobel Laureate. Dr. Chu tried, but he didn't get there. Presidents Kennedy and Johnson essentially gave Nobel Laureate Glenn Seaborg effective cabinet rank.
I still can believe in hope and change. More serious than anything that happens on Tuesday though is the condition of our planet, whether anyone gets it or not.
