It took decades for us to comprehend that smoking in one room or section of a vehicle or building exposes all inhabitants to health harm. Of course, tobacco companies invested billions to muddy the obvious connection and maintain apathy for years after facts were clear. It was not until massive class-action lawsuits for damages went public that laws for tighter controls and warnings were finally mandated. We need to broaden this revelation.
Fine particulate matter in the air from fossil fuel emissions can damage our respiratory system, accumulate in the brain and send people to the emergency room. Soaring autism and asthma in children are some of the costs. In older people, rising dementia and cognitive decline have also been linked to PM2.5 concentration in the air. Aware or not, we all pay a heavy price in our taxpayer-funded sick care system, as well as lost productivity and diminished quality of life.
Emissions are cumulative and not contained by borders. The map below shows the level of small particulate air pollution in America in 2014. It’s gotten worse since and, naturally, we’re breathing these emissions all over Canada even as we compound them with unnecessary emissions of our own.
In 2018 alone, eroding air quality was linked to nearly 10,000 additional deaths in the U.S. relative to the 2016 benchmark. According to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, the primary culprits were rising natural gas use as well as more use of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, which more than offset the benefits realized by less coal burned for electricity generation.
In 2018, the US EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler disbanded the expert academic panel that reviewed and advised the agency on its standards for small-particle air pollution and replaced them with hired consultants linked to the fossil fuel, pharmaceutical and tobacco industries.
You don’t need to believe in climate change to appreciate the fundamental importance of clean air and the need to transform our transportation and electricity systems to run on emission-free energy.
On top of all the health benefits and productivity savings, it is now cheaper to operate electric vehicles than ICE and to build wind, solar and storage than new fossil fuel-powered systems. There is no smart business case to do otherwise. We have the technology, it’s time to mandate it.
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