Volkswagen's Emissions Directly Responsible for 60 Early Deaths in U.S.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Volkswagen's Emissions Directly Responsible for 60 Early Deaths in U.S.

A study published in Environmental Research Letters says the excess pollution directly contributed to the deaths of 60 people in the U.S.

Oct 29, 2015

A new study published in Environmental Research Letters estimates that the excess emissions from the Volkswagen scandal have directly contributed to the premature deaths of 60 people in the U.S. alone.

According to the Newsweek report, cars emitted an extra 36.7 million kg of NOx emissions from 2008 to 2015. This pollution is associated with early death, respiratory diseases and heart disease. Because of the health risks associated, it is considered a genuine public health threat.

Researchers also calculated that the excess pollution will directly contribute to 31 cases of chronic bronchitis and 34 hospital admissions for heart and respiratory conditions in the U.S. In total, the number of sick U.S. citizens will cost the country $450 million.

[luvspeas]

1. VW's business practices suck

I had a VW Golf that got creamed in an accident and the airbags deployed. It sat in the garage for 3 months because they couldn't get the airbags to replace the ones that had deployed and the garage could not give me the car without them. While doing massive googling to find replacement airbags I discovered that the factory in South America that made the airbags went of strike over inadequate pay and poor working conditions. The VW instead of negotiating closed down the entire factory leaving hundreds of people without work and me and who knows how many people without airbags. Miraculously, I found a junked 2 year old golf that had intact airbags and got my car back but I had to rent a car for months and VW did nothing for me.

[DetlefK]

2. HAHAHAHA! No, they are not. Read the paper. The estimation ranges from 4.6 deaths to 130 deaths.

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/11/114005
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/11/114005/pdf

We conduct the analysis in a probabilistic framework given the significant uncertainties in estimating early deaths and associated cost.

...

Uncertainty in input variables such as the total under-reported NOx is propagated throughout the calculation using Monte Carlo Simulation. Ten thousand independent draws of each variable are performed, resulting in ten thousand independent estimates of the
total mortality and morbidity impacts. The same draws are used to estimate the impacts in each year and under each scenario. Where not explicitly stated otherwise, reported results correspond to the median value of the the output distribution, i.e. there is equal probability that our central estimate is low or high. When monetizing mortality impacts, the economic value of statistical life is treated as an additional uncertain parameter with ten draws (i.e. 100 000 draws in total).


The results are on page 8.

[DetlefK]

3. And some more goodies from the paper:

In addition to increased premature mortalities, this increase in the population exposure to PM2.5 and ozone is estimated to result in 31 (95% CI: ?38 to 170) cases of chronic bronchitis and 34 (95% CI: ?1.9 to 100) hospital admissions.

That means that there is a probability of LESS people getting bronchitis and LESS people going to hospital because of the exhaust fumes.



Always be careful when handling statistics. The statistics say that on average you lose money on gambling, yet some people win at gambling.