[Stoves] Air pollution and life expectency (previously was (no subject) )

Nikhil Desai pienergy2008 at gmail.com
Thu Nov 30 10:45:06 CST 2017


Paul:

All aggregate statistics have to be considered in their context of i)
computation method and ii) the interpretation assigned to the definitions
of underlying data.

That, in a way, is my general complaint against many such estimates and
reporting of estimates as "data".

It is true of things like "markets" and "prices" as of "global mean surface
temperature" as of "greenhouse gas emissions" as here "premature deaths",
"HAP exposures", and the Integrated Exposure Response. It is only when I
dug into the original sources and debates surrounding the concepts in this
last instance that even as I railed against them, I was able to forgive
those who abuse the concept and derive politically convenient claims from
deliberately ignoring what the definitions and the methods are.

Steve Milloy was an advisor to Scott Pruitt in re-organizing the EPA.
Milloy is seen as a rightwing hack because of his attacks on the PM2.5
theology. I hope there is a thorough re-assessment of how PM2.5 - which is
after all, only an indicator of pollution, NOT pollution itself - under
Pruitt's EPA and the newly reconstituted Science Advisory Board. Tony Cox,
Jr. whose review concluded that there is no basis for finding causality
between PM2.5 exposures and premature mortality, is one of the new members.

Milloy's "Where are the bodies?" is tendentious, but he is correct. Nobody
can find ONE premature death caused by HAP, and nobody can prove that a
switch to LPG from TSF conferred a single DALY. That is the deceit of the
Gold Standard Foundation and Sumi Mehta at GACC.

Did you have a chance to look at the WHO document I gave a link to a couple
of days ago on HAP estimates. WHO has a spreadsheet on HAP attributable
deaths by country and sex for under-5 and 25+ age groups for 2012. The
numbers are given as ranges, which may give an impression that these
reflect uncertainty in the otherwise legitimate estimates. That would be an
incorrect impression. There is no there there, as the WHO document would
itself confirm!

Where are the bodies dead? Or where are the lives saved from "truly health
protective" ISO Tier 4 stoves like gas and electricity?

Conundrums, conundrums. Life is full of manufactured surprises. Not
everybody in public health field takes IHME - Chris Murray, Alan Lopez -
and the "pioneers" of PM2.5 theology such as C. Arden Pope (there are some
other key figures) seriously.

But that is off-topic. To me, the constituents of PM2.5 are hugely
important, beginning with SO2 and PAHs. EPA chose equitoxicity assumption
so it can cook up justification for every new rule after it no longer had
"acid rain" monster to market.


Nikhil
-----------------------------------------


On Thu, Nov 30, 2017 at 9:30 AM, Paul Anderson <psanders at ilstu.edu> wrote:

> Stovers,
> On 11/30/2017 5:40 AM, Philip Lloyd wrote:
>
> An amusing addition to the “air pollution shortens lives” question:
>
> https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/11/28/does-air-pollution-
> really-shorten-life-spans/
>
> Philip Lloyd
>
> Quite a long article with graphs and data.  "Amusing" is maybe not the
> right descriptor.   But certainly interesting.
>
> To get to the point, and letting the article's author make it clearly,
> here are the concluding words.:  The last line is the "amusing" one.
>
> So why the discrepancy between claims that PM2.5 (or air pollution more
> generally) reduces life expectancy, and the reality that life expectancy
> has actually increased, and continues to increase in some of the most
> polluted cities of the world despite increases in PM2.5?
>
> A couple of reasons, which are not mutually exclusive, come to mind:
>
>    - The cumulative direct and indirect effects of economic development
>    (and fossil fuel use) on life expectancy not only outweigh the effects of
>    PM2.5, they also enable populations to reduce PM2.5, once more significant
>    health threats are reduced.[8]
>    <https://wattsupwiththat.com/Users/Anthony/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.IE5/L168EUMU/#_ftn8_4820>
>    - Life expectancy is based on data on real births and real deaths,
>    whereas the mortality effects of PM2.5 are based on “statistical” deaths
>    or, to use a term currently in vogue, “fake” deaths.[9]
>    <https://wattsupwiththat.com/Users/Anthony/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.IE5/L168EUMU/#_ftn9_4820>
>    As Steve Milloy is fond of asking, “Where are the bodies?”[10]
>    <https://wattsupwiththat.com/Users/Anthony/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.IE5/L168EUMU/#_ftn10_4820>
>
> In today’s world, claims of air pollution shortening life expectancy are
> fake news premised on fake deaths.
>
>
> Paul
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20171130/ff248ffe/attachment.html>


More information about the Stoves mailing list