Laws on pollution in Toronto – failing? Pollution levels haven’t changed despite efforts as indicated by this University of Toronto study.
Looking over the last decade, there has been no overall reduction in smog in the GTA, despite best efforts to control some of the contributing factors,
However, claims of health impacts due to pollution in Toronto and other Canadian cities are up according to some other studies. Ross McKitrick says in a new peer reviewed study that the models and claims don’t add up.
Study Questions Link Between Air Pollution, Serious Health Effects
University of Guelph News Release
Challenging accepted wisdom, a University of Guelph professor says claims about the health effects of air pollution are not supported by data from Canadian cities.
Guelph economist Ross McKitrick, along with Gary Koop of the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow and Lise Tole of the University of Edinburgh, analyzed a new database from 11 Canadian cities over a 20-year period. Unlike most earlier studies, this one included controls for effects of smoking and income.
They found no evidence that air pollution affected either hospital admission rates or time spent in hospitals. However, they did determine that both smoking and income levels directly affect respiratory health. Their findings appear this week in the journal Environmental Modelling and Software.
The researchers compared monthly hospital admission rates between 1974 and 1994 for all lung ailments to ambient levels of five common air contaminants. “We were looking for predictable, common physical effects from standardized exposure levels,” McKitrick said, adding the researchers examined data over a longer time span than most previous studies, and used advanced econometric methods called Bayesian Model Averaging to ensure they considered all possible combinations of effects.
“Our examination of data back to the early 1970s was motivated in part by the fact that air pollution was much higher compared to today,” he said. “If today’s air pollution levels are causing thousands of hospitalizations, the effects should have been even stronger in the 1970s when air quality was much worse.”
“But the data showed no evidence of changing health effects at the pollution levels observed in Canada over recent decades.”
The findings contradict hundreds of studies that have connected urban air pollution levels and respiratory health problems. Such studies have resulted in calls for tighter air pollution regulations and more stringent emission standards.
McKitrick said the discrepancies between this study and earlier research stem from the common practice of not examining long enough data sets and not controlling for model uncertainty, smoking rates and socioeconomic variables. He added that their study drew data samples from the 1970s, when many Canadian cities had high pollution levels, through the 1980s, when steady reductions began, and into the 1990s, when pollution levels were historically low.
“It’s important to get accurate measures of the potential benefits of air pollution regulations, namely improved quality of life and reduced health-care costs, in order to guide regulatory decision-making,” McKitrick said.
“We did find consistent evidence that lower smoking rates lead to fewer hospital admissions and shorter stays,” he said. The researchers also found evidence that, all else being equal, regions with larger economies tend to have higher hospital admission rates. This may indicate more hospitals and longer patient treatment regimens, McKitrick said.
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See the paper and supporting data here in Dr. McKitricks web page.
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Models that predict thousands of smog-related hospitalizations in Toronto don’t hold up
By Ross McKitrick
For many years we have heard that air pollution in Canada is responsible for thousands of annual deaths and hospitalizations. In 2004 Toronto Public Health claimed that 1,700 premature deaths and 6,000 hospitalizations occur each year in Toronto alone, due to air pollution. The Ontario Medical Association, provincial and federal governments, lung associations and other groups regularly cite these kinds of figures in support of calls for new regulatory initiatives. These death and hospitalization rates are astonishing. It is like suffering a 9/11-sized terrorist attack every 10 months.
But is it really true? The estimates are derived by taking correlations in the epidemiological literature between observed pollution levels and health indicators, like hospital admission rates, and then extrapolating across populations to estimate how many deaths and illness diagnoses can, in theory, be attributed to pollution. In other words, the numbers come from statistical models, not from direct observations. That means we need to pay close attention to how the statistical modeling is done.
Together with my coauthors Gary Koop of Strathclyde University and Lise Tole of the University of Edinburgh, I have just published a peer-reviewed study in the journal Environmental Modelling and Software that does just that. What we found gives us reason to believe that the kind of statistical modeling behind common claims about air pollution may need a careful second look.
There are hundreds of studies in the epidemiological literature that have reported correlations between air pollution and health measures. But there are some common weaknesses to this literature. First, the results are not consistent across studies. Some studies find particulate matter (PM) affects health, but not sulphur dioxide (SO2) or carbon monoxide (CO). Others reported SO2 has an effect, but not PM. Another reports CO has an effect but not ozone (O3), while another finds O3 matters in some cities but not others. One large U.S. study found PM increased mortality risk a little bit across the U.S., except in 20 out of 88 cities in which it actually reduced mortality risk. These kinds of inconsistencies should not occur if the health effect is based on a real physiological response. This is a second puzzling aspect of the literature: Despite decades of testing, clinical investigations have not found experimental support for the idea that current ambient air pollution levels cause lung disease or mortality.
…
We found, not surprisingly, that smoking is bad for lung health. We found that regions with higher Gross Domestic Product (GDP) tend to have higher hospital admission rates, depending on the model specification, which may indicate that those regions have more hospital services. And we found evidence that hot days with high air pressure tend to produce more hospital admissions.
What we did not find was any evidence that increases in air pollution levels are associated with increased rates of hospital admissions. We looked at the data every which way imaginable. If we were to cherry pick, by looking only at a sub-sample of the time or by picking just the right form of the model, we could find evidence that CO or nitrogen dioxide (NO2) have positive effects on lung disease, but those results do not get strong support in the data. The models that get consistent support either show no pollution effects or — paradoxically — negative effects. In other words, in some cases as air pollution rises, hospital admissions go down. As odd as that sounds, we are by no means the first to report negative coefficients in the literature. Nobody is trying to argue that air pollution is good for you: this is either just noise in the data, or it might be an effect from “averting” behaviour, where people who are susceptible to lung problems stay indoors on days with bad air quality.
Based on our analysis, we could estimate what the effect on hospital admissions would be if all the pollution currently observed in Toronto air were to disappear. Toronto Public Health claims about 6,000 fewer hospitalizations would occur. But this claim gets no support in the data. We found that there would be no reduction in lung-related hospitalizations. If anything there might be somewhere between 20 and 200 more admissions, if we apply the statistical results in a mechanical fashion.
Very few studies over the past decade have controlled for socioeconomic covariates (including smoking), fewer still have looked at long data panels back to the 1970s and fewer still have dealt with model uncertainty. Those that have addressed one or more of these issues typically find the effect of air pollution shrinks or disappears outright. Thus our results are actually quite consistent with the relevant group of previous studies. The popular idea that current ambient air pollution has a powerful effect on lung health might look like it is based on a large empirical foundation, but on closer inspection the pile contains a lot of weak results.
So the bottom line is that, for the purpose of assessing the link between air pollution levels and hospital admissions, one needs to look closely at the kinds of studies being done and how they did the statistical modeling. More studies need to be done using long time series that go back to the 1970s or earlier, more studies need to control for socioeconomic covariates and more studies need to take account of model uncertainty. Based on evidence to date, as these things begin to happen, we should not be surprised if current estimates of the health effects of air pollution turn out to be in need of major revision.
Ross McKitrick is a professor of economics at the University of Guelph.
Read complete article: http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2010/03/17/where-are-the-bodies.aspx#ixzz0in3quaUy
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My walk to work in Leeds is lengthened by detouring around a road underneath the station which is notoriously polluted. Now the pollution doesn’t seem to matter perhaps I can have a few extra minutes in bed and walk that way again!
They say steroids kill. Millions of users and no body count.
They say that there’s lethal levels of mercury in tuna but then how do tuna reach adulthood if there’s so much mercury contamination?
They tried to link the MMR vaccine to autism, but there were no demonstrable cases to count.
They tried to link DDT to cancer, but there were no bodies there too.
They’re now going around saying vaccines are not green because they use trace amounts of mercury during the manufacturing process. Trace amounts that couldn’t kill an insect is still too much for these crazy people.
They have what can only be called post-industrial paranoia and delusions of pre-industrial utopias.
Why stop 16 years ago?
If you have never lived in Shanghai or Hong Kong maybe you will believe this story. I developed a chronic cough that did not leave until I left the area after 5 years, who knows what will happen in 10 years.
Denying the health effects of smog is crossing the line of believability. We should remember that medical science has denied the health effects of asbestos, lead, tobacco and other toxic chemicals in the past.
As for this particular article or study, I would only caution that the absence of evidence is not proof, or disproof. Models can not be trusted. They seem to be assuming that hospital admissions are a good proxy for long term damage due to chronic exposure to air pollution. That guy who develops lung cancer at 50 and is admitted to a hospital on a clean air day after growing up in the polluted 70’s might have something to say.
“We found that regions with higher Gross Domestic Product (GDP) tend to have higher hospital admission rates, depending on the model specification, which may indicate that those regions have more hospital services”
Perhaps higher GDP regions have heavier air pollution than rural clean air regions. Just a thought.
Omigod! McKitrick has proved the dreaded urban CO2 dome effect! That ground-breaking study showed that death rates from respiratory diseases rise significantly in cities because of anthropogenic CO2 – and everybody knows how much anthropogenic CO2 has risen since the seventies. If McKintrick factored that in, it would explain why admissions for respiratory illnesses have not declined with reductions in pollution. If it is not factored in, we can’t explain it.
OK, sarcasm off. But the “Argument” I have just outlined is the same argument used by Climate Change scientists to prove that anthropogenic CO2 causes global warming. And I will not be surprised if AGW apologists use McKittrick’s study as evidence for their cause.
http://www.herkinderkin.com/2010/03/co2-domes-and-charlatans/
Tomorrow everyone in Toronto could eat lead-paint chips and inhale asbestos without causing a rise in the day’s hospital admissions. But if they kept doing it, admissions might eventually go up.
This is from today’s Independent, complete with scary picture of a model wearing a gas mask:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/britain-a-breath-of-foul-air-1924790.html
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“More than 50,000 people are dying prematurely in the UK every year, and thousands more suffer serious illness because of man-made air pollution, according to a parliamentary report published tomorrow. The UK now faces the threat of £300m in fines after it failed to meet legally binding EU targets to reduce pollution to safe levels.
Air pollution is cutting life expectancy by as many as nine years in the worst-affected city areas. On average, Britons die eight months too soon because of dirty air. Pollutants from cars, factories, houses and agriculture cause childhood health problems such as premature births, asthma and poor lung development. They play a major role in the development of chronic and life-shortening adult diseases affecting the heart and lungs, which can lead to repeated hospital admissions. Treating victims of Britain’s poor air quality costs the country up to £20bn each year.”
,,,etc.
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As usual for articles such as this, someone is looking for more grant money, more suffocating regulations, and “massive fines” for polluters.
Please excuse my ignornace guys but, i was looking at the Climate Widget and i cant work out the following things.
1. Since the whole accurancy of raw data and “adjusted” data is in question and the actual methods for this “averaging’ is in question, what is the real comparison between CO2 and Temp.? Is that the $64 question?
2. Would it be an idea to put another line on the widget to demostrate contary Temp opinion?
3. Is CO2 measurement an accurate process?, considering some areas are high CO2 and some low. Or is this another case of “adjustments ” on a global scale?
While i am very pro-energy effeciency, i am now starting to understand the reasons behind this whole thing.
Money will be made by many, new bureaucracies will feed like ticks on a puppys blood, civil rights will go down the toilet, yet the world will not be any more energy effecient in the long run.
A tangential issue I wish I’ve had time to examine closer for quite a few years:
Govenmental bodies, NGO’s and a plethora of “communities” dedicated to a number of singular diseases, do often claim particular risks for environmental factors that can be “translated”(calculated) into increased motalities.
I strongly suspect that when you add the surplus mortality “expected” from all the various risk-factors, the overall mortallity and morbidity in the populus is WAY too low 🙂
Cassanders
In Cod we trust
Is something strange starting to happen in science?
Is science perhaps having it’s Road to Damascus moment where the scales fall from it’s eyes and the long standing shibboleths of the environmental movement are finally starting to be examined with a much more jaundiced and skeptical eye?
I am seeing articles emerging everywhere, even in the MSM, where long standing and seemingly unchallengeable shibboleths that were adopted and grossly hyped by the environmental movement and it’s running dogs in science and the media are finally being challenged as the science “climate” changes and scientific skepticism again starts to become fashionable.
And all due to the dogged persistence of a tiny group of well qualified amateurs and a few scientists who were prepared to stand by their beliefs in the power of the basic science principles and in doing so to challenge the overwhelming power and influence of the global warming claque until it finally cracked and all the world can now see just how rotten and corruptly mercenary the core science, political and financial power that sustains the global warming belief, really is.
And now long established beliefs in an increasing number of disciplines are being questioned and dissected and are being torn apart as the underlying basis for those beliefs are found to be faulty and / or corrupted to serve the interests of a particular science group and mercenary and political interests.
Seems to corrolate with http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/20/science’s-dirtiest-secret-the-“scientific-method”-of-testing-hypotheses-by-statistical-analysis-stands-on-a-flimsy-foundation/
Darned inconvenient facts.
My anecdotal evidence: I’ve been to and through Toronto many, many times and I never thought they had a problem with air pollution, nor did any locals I interacted with ever complain about it. In fact, I’d have to say Toronto is almost surreal in how clean and neat it is compared to other North American cities.
Besides, and don’t take this the wrong way, anyone, but Canadians already, on average, live longer than most people in the world do. We all have to die of something, at some point, so is there really any fuss to make over air quality, even if a connection is found?
Sarcastic remark: And if there is something to be done for it, why not more socialism? According to the socialists down here, you Canadians are so healthy because of universal health care. So why attack air quality? Attack your bank accounts! What’s the matter? Don’t you want to be healthier?! 🙂
OT: VOLCANIC eruption on Iceland just after midnight!
March Madness (NCAA basketball tournament) is a great example of how difficult it is to predict results just a few series in. Even though there are thousands of experts from your Bracketologist, former coaches and players, and your armchair experts. There is a great deal of data available to help people with their brackets (models) including injury reports, previous scores and past trends to pull from. Despite this, only a couple people out of millions are able to correctly predict a perfect bracket and often it’s the unlikeliest of unlikely that make the most accurate predictions.
Now take that same group of people and ask them to write up their brackets for 5 years, 10 years and 30 years out and you can count on almost zero correct brackets even though we have close to 100 years of NCAA basketball statistics. The NCAA tournament is a quick way to demonstrate exactly how quickly a model can go to heck.
Too few people go back and evaluate the accuracy of older models against the actual results. Thank you for doing that.
“But the data showed no evidence of changing health effects at the pollution levels observed in Canada over recent decades.”
The findings contradict hundreds of studies that have connected urban air pollution levels and respiratory health problems.
Can anyone tell me of one environmental/safety organisation that has disbanded itself because things were clean/safe enough? Just keep milking the cash cow.
100 years ago the level of air pollution i London was about 10 times higher than it is today.
In order to find the same low level of air pollution in London as today you will actually have to go back almost 500 years to aprox year 1540.
“More than 50,000 people are dying prematurely in the UK every year, and thousands more suffer serious illness because of man-made air pollution, according to a parliamentary report published tomorrow. The UK now faces the threat of £300m in fines after it failed to meet legally binding EU targets to reduce pollution to safe levels.
Air pollution is cutting life expectancy by as many as nine years in the worst-affected city areas. On average, Britons die eight months too soon because of dirty air.”
——–
Such a comedy, and all because the EU wants more money by forcing Britain to pay fines. Life expectancy has shot up over the last century, yet these studies find that “…Britons die eight months too soon….”
So they have some kind of crystal ball which can stare into parallel dimensions to see how long a person would have lived in the EU utopia?????
@pft
“..Denying the health effects of smog is crossing the line of believability….”
Umm…pft, are you saying that one should BELIEVE, rather than examine the data?
If so, I think we have an example here of what is fundamentally wrong with decision-making processes in society today….
There are some inconsistencies in the comments.
First, the jury is still out on lead. It’s a classic case of the reverse causation effect, see paper by my old friend Dr Allen Christophers who spent 40 years studying it. http://dnacih.com/SILVA.htm Those who disbelieve reverse causation as explained have spent a very large amount of grant money taking studies further and further down the line until it is hard to think of any more ways to look at the findings. Some seem to have made a career of it.
Second, I’m troubled by this desire to stay indoors on days of bad pollution. If the home or office does not have a filter, it should make very little difference as mixing happens. Our home was once less than a mile from a quite large sulphice ore smelter whose SO2 was unscrubbed. Indoors, outdoors, no difference. If there was no SO2, there was no income.
Which leads to the question of the whether the quoted study controlled for the effect of air filtration. In the last two decades companies have paid a fortune for filters and scrubbers. (The main finding is still that the best scrubber is middle aged and experienced).
Not included in the study is hospital closings due to politicians balancing budgets. Commuter traffic way up to Toronto from outlaying areas. The massive sprawl of new building around Toronto of residences. The majority of headquarters are situated here of companies.
A great many hospitals in the outlaying regions should have been included.
Is this study’s conclusions by peer review 100% accurate?
Pingo (00:19:47) :
“Now the pollution doesn’t seem to matter perhaps I can have a few extra minutes in bed and walk that way again!”
I don’t think so you should read carefully:
“Nobody is trying to argue that air pollution is good for you: this is either just noise in the data, or it might be an effect from “averting” behaviour, where people who are susceptible to lung problems stay indoors on days with bad air quality.”
If it smells bad or makes you cough it’s better to avoid it.
The Red-Green Show: $4.00/year.
“I don’t think we ever sneeze at the amount of money”.
Energy and Infrastructure Minister Brad Duguid says:
“something that we all have to do together to create this `green revolution’ in Ontario.”
…-
“Ontario slaps new ‘green’ tax on electricity bills
Levy will cover Liberal conservation programs'”
“I don’t think we ever sneeze at the amount of money because every little bit adds up. But at the same time, it’s about $4 for this year for consumers and it’s a one-year program. It gets reassessed every year,” the minister said.
“The alternative is either to keep polluting the lungs of our kids through coal, or not have a reliable supply of energy, which would be disastrous to our economy and to our quality of life,” said Duguid.
“This … gets us out of dirty coal, which is harming our health and the health of our kids and grandkids in the future, and it ensures that we have a reliable and sustainable supply of energy … for future generations,” he said.
“When consumers think it through, this is something consumers should be embracing as something that we all have to do together to create this `green revolution’ in Ontario.”
http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/782663–ontario-slaps-new-green-tax-on-electricity-bills?bn=1
I forgot to add that “Free Trade” took effect and just about decimated Toronto’s manufacturing that left.
Hello, pft. I’m gonna pick on ya this morning! Nothing personal, just so you know, but I see many flawed points in your first post…
pft (00:52:54) : “If you have never lived in Shanghai or Hong Kong maybe you will believe this story.”
Hong Kong and Toronto, from what I’ve seen of the pictures, and from my time spent in Toronto, do not compare. For that matter, Toronto doesn’t compare to Cleveland, which is just across the lake. It’s apples and oranges to compare China to any US or Canadian city.
“Denying the health effects of smog is crossing the line of believability. We should remember that medical science has denied the health effects of asbestos, lead, tobacco and other toxic chemicals in the past. ”
I’m going to argue lead, for this part…
The west, in my ongoing observation, is rapidly turning chemophobic. We complain about lead from China even though there’s virtually no chance that kids playing with lead-painted toys will have their blood levels elevated to anywhere near concerning, let alone threatening. In the past, when pipes, paint, automobile exhaust surrounded us, well, that’s different. Much more exposure to more efficient ways of delivery. But were too many getting sick from lead poisoning even then? Was it really enough to justify getting rid of it? I’m not decided either way, just asking, because…
Furthermore, lead is a byproduct of just about all mining. It’s quite prevelent in the crust. What are we to do with it? If it’s left alone, it’s going to affect a smaller group of someones in greater way. On top of their ill fortune, the cost of living elevates because dealing with a byproduct in that way is quite expensive. It’s generally perferable that the fuel and equipment used generate a return. Putting it back is wasted work, as well as possibly putting other people at far greater risk, from the concentration.
I think there is a line to be drawn between the need for caution and the need to be real about these issues. We can’t just assume that large doses and smaller doses are equally deadly. Nor can we assume that it’s possible to protect everyone.
“That guy who develops lung cancer at 50 and is admitted to a hospital on a clean air day after growing up in the polluted 70’s might have something to say.”
But that’s the whole point… then vs now. How is reducing air pollution further, now, going to save the cancer victims of yesterday?
Also bear in mind, there is such a thing as acceptable losses. I know that sounds cold and greedy, but if some die eariler so that many more benefit… Besides, would it do anyone better to avoid a small cancer risk only to be killed by something else?
What I’m saying here is that there is a point where death is better than fearing death. Western culture is, to put it blunty, becoming “wussified” about reality. Flick a molecule of lead at someone, and the evil NRA member is assaulting you with a deadly weapon. Smoke in your car (in England) and you’re somehow being so evily selfish in putting everyone’s health at risk. Have cadmium jewelry, and you must get rid of it. Live near power lines? Sue somebody for increasing your cancer risk. Got flourescent lights? It might be giving you migraines, and we all migraines increases your chances of…
Where does it end? And how arrogant is it to assume we can beat anything so that no one dies a horrible death? Is it being intellectually honest to promote that idea? Yes, some caution can go a long way. The key word is some. Some caution, not a lifestyle of it. We need to return to reality on these issues and look at we’ve become in the process of acheiving immortality.
“Perhaps higher GDP regions have heavier air pollution than rural clean air regions. Just a thought.”
Perhaps, but it could also be because city hosptials, being located in econmic hubs, and thus more wealthy, attract the best doctors and staff, and are able to utilize the latest technology.This would give it regional, perhaps (in Canada’s case) provincial reknown for being able to get the job done. Thus, people with more serious problems (and this would be especially true where the health care is “free”) would seek out the best they can get. Thus, more out-of-towners in the city hospitals being treated for longer because they have serious conditions that require it.
Now, I live in a big city metro area (Chicago, but I live northwest Indiana, which is considerd Chicago suburb). Many people will go to Chicago, to places like Loyola and the University of Illinois medical center because, for one, and surprisingly, it can be cheaper than what the more local hospitals cost. Those places also do things that other hospitals located further away, outside the population center, simply can’t. The equipment and the specialist(s) that work them just aren’t found localy.
So the economic factor would certianly have to be accounted for before it is concluded that higher admission rates and length of stay are due solely to city life.