Volkswagen’s (VW) diesel deception unleashed tonnes of extra pollutants in the US, pollutants that can harm human health. While many commentators have been quick to say that the rigged engines are not a highway safety concern, safety — as in health — is still an issue.
Unlike the at least 124 people who died in car crashes linked to the General Motors vehicles with ignition defects, pollution created by these VW vehicles is harder to link to individual deaths, but it is clear to public health researchers that the air pollutants these cars illegally emitted damage health and the researchers have formulas for the number of lives lost from excess pollution in general. After consulting with experts in calculating the health effects of air pollutants, a possible death toll was reached — based on an estimate of the extra pollutants emitted by the VW’s in the US — that, at its upper range, is not too far below the toll caused by the GM defect.
VW said last week that it had installed software in 11 million diesel cars that deceived emissions tests, allowing the vehicles to emit far more pollutants than regulations allowed. The estimates examine only the impact on public health in the US, but the effects were probably substantially higher in Europe, where the cars are much more common.
Illustration: Tania Chou
The chemicals that spewed illegally from the VW diesel cars — known as nitrogen oxides or NOx — have been linked to a host of respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses, as well as premature deaths. Nitrogen oxides are a by-product of burning fossil fuels at high temperature, whether in cars, power plants or other machines like industrial boilers. The chemicals can be harmful to humans, and in warm, sunny conditions, they can also turn into ground-level ozone, or smog and particle pollution.
The American Lung Association estimates that nearly 41 percent of Americans live in areas with unhealthy levels of ozone. And that is with reductions resulting from national air quality standards and regulation. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that from 1980 to last year nitrogen dioxide levels in the air fell by more than half. US President Barack Obama’s administration has increased its regulation of emissions from power plants and tightened standards for vehicles. A still tougher ozone standard is expected this month.
The part of the country that might have been most harmed by the VW fraud is California, which has the worst air quality in the nation. About 7,200 premature deaths per year are caused by air pollution there, according to the California Air Resources Board, and 73 percent of the state’s population, or 28 million people, live in counties with unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution.
California also has the largest number of diesel passenger cars — about 50,000 of them, said Dave Clegern, a spokesman for the state’s air resources board, which regulates its air quality. Regulation has helped, Clegern said, but “we still have a significant problem.”
If other automakers were to cheat to avoid regulation — as VW did with its defeat device that allowed it to evade pollution rules since 2008 — then the consequences for air pollution and to human health would be significant.
VW diesel cars represent fewer than 1 percent of cars on the road in the US.
“Beijing comes to mind,” American Lung Association senior vice president Paul Billings said.
In Beijing, air pollution is so bad that readings are frequently off the global charts used to measure it and many residents wear masks when they go outdoors.
To estimate the possible harm done by these VW in the US, two scientific models were used to calculate the effects of nitrogen oxide pollution on human health.
One estimate comes from examining existing circumstances: new regulations on power plant pollution that caused some counties in states that were subject to this new regulation, but not others, to cut back on nitrogen oxide pollution. The counties subject to the regulations reduced their nitrogen oxides emissions by 350 tonnes per year.
A team of three researchers — Olivier Deschenes, Joseph Shapiro and Michael Greenstone — looked at the mortality rates and medical spending before and after the change. In a working paper, they found the extra pollution was responsible for about five more deaths for every 100,000 people in the affected counties each year, as well as for a decrease in spending on prescription drugs. Most of the excess deaths came among older Americans, though other health impacts reached the young as well as the old.
The estimated VW pollution, about 46,000 tonnes since late 2008, is the equivalent of about 4 percent of the power plant pollution they measured, meaning it could be expected to cause an estimated 106 deaths if it had similar effects.
Greenstone, who is a professor of economics and director of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, said the numbers seemed sensible as an estimate, but “the magnifying glass is really close.”
Noelle Eckley Selin, an associate professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ran the numbers a slightly different way. She looked at the mortality effects of the particulate pollution produced by nitrogen oxides, using the numbers the EPA uses to make health estimates. She concluded the effects to be about 40 additional deaths over the period when VW was polluting, in addition to some other non-fatal health consequences.
However, that might undercount the impact since it does not consider the effects of direct nitrogen oxide pollution or smog.
The estimates for the amount of nitrogen oxide pollution are rough. They were calculated by using data from Kelley Blue Book on the number of VW diesel cars registered each year and a standard number of kilometers driven by each car was applied, based on a government average, to arrive at a total number of vehicle-kilometers traveled.
The EPA has said that the vehicles emitted up to 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxides, but earlier research suggests that the pollution levels ranged widely among the vehicles and their driving conditions. The estimates used 39 times the legal standard, but that might be a high assumption. (If you want to estimate the effects for emissions at 29 times the legal limit, you can adjust the numbers down accordingly.)
Because smog is worse in the summer, Greenstone recommends looking at pollution from five months each year. Selin’s approach was based on year-round pollution levels.
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