From COP23 and the EUROPEAN COMMISSION JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE
JRC at COP23: A cleaner, greener planet is both possible and affordable
Limiting global warming below the critical 2C level set out in the Paris Agreement is both feasible and consistent with economic growth – and the knock-on improvements to air quality could already cover the costs of mitigation measures and save more than 300,000 lives annually by 2030.
That’s one message that scientists from the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission’s science and knowledge service, bring to this month’s 23rd Conference of the Parties (COP23) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), where this week they present the 2017 Global Energy and Climate Outlook (GECO) report.
Far from being “a little too clean for optimum health”, air pollution is responsible for over 400,000 deaths per year in the EU alone. Whilst the GECO report investigates climate and energy policies to map out how climate targets can be achieved, it also explores the impact that these policies will have on air quality – with encouraging signs for global health and the economy.
GECO 2017: climate policies improve air quality
According to GECO, reaching the below 2C target will require decoupling emissions and economic growth, through:
- An acceleration of decarbonisation trends from 2020 onwards, decreasing energy intensity by an average of 5.8% per year from 2015 to 2050
- Increased electrification of final energy demand, from 18% in 2015 to 35% in 2050
- Significant changes in the primary energy mix, including the phasing out of coal and reduction of oil and gas
On air quality, the report finds that if the appropriate measures are taken globally to reach a GHG trajectory compatible with the Paris Agreement, by 2050 roughly 1.5 million lives could be saved across the world annually. In addition to avoided deaths, these measures could reduce the number of air pollution-related cases of illnesses such as asthma and bronchitis by 15-40% annually and raise crop yields by 2.5-6.6%.
Ground-level ozone is absorbed by leaves, damaging plant metabolism and hindering plant growth. As a result, high concentrations of ground-level ozone harm agricultural crop yields and reduce farmers’ income. By reducing emissions of ozone precursors like nitrogen oxides, methane, non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs) and carbon monoxide, climate policies raise agricultural yields. This rise – as well as avoided deaths, increased working hours and reduced healthcare costs – could more than offset the costs of mitigation measures.
Showcasing the JRC’s work
COP23 brings together representatives from nearly all countries of the world – a total of 195 – to assess progress in dealing with climate change. The EU and its Member States will participate as parties to the convention.
This year’s conference is the second session since the signing of the landmark Paris Agreement. Negotiations will focus on how to make the agreement operational and achieve its ambitious objectives.
JRC scientists will provide direct advice to the EU negotiating team, on areas including earth observation and forests and land use.
In addition to the presentation of the GECO report and advice to the negotiating team, the JRC will host a number of events at COP23 to showcase other recent work providing scientific and technical support for the development and implementation of effective EU policy on climate action.
For example, climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will form the basis of one side event. Experts will look at addressing the challenges of global hunger, poverty, energy and growth whilst also meeting environmental and climate targets. In this area the JRC has developed the knowSDGs platform (Knowledge base for the Sustainable Development Goals), which provides management tools and organises information on policies, indicators, methods and data to support the evidence-based implementation of the SDGs.
The key role of forests in meeting climate change targets comes under the spotlight at another JRC event. The panel will discuss the global and local dimensions of forests’ contribution to climate mitigation. This will be an opportunity to showcase the Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) dataset and recently-published report, which shows that global CO2 emissions have stalled for the third year in a row. The JRC’s work on LULUCF also includes a recent report on forest-based climate mitigation. The JRC will also talk about the scientific basis of forests as a key climate solution on COP23’s ‘forest day’ on Sunday 12 November.
A third event will take stock of progress made in monitoring forest degradation in tropical regions through the use of satellite data, in particular the Sentinels from the Copernicus programme. This will include a review of the JRC’s ReCaREDD project (Reinforcement of Capacities for REDD+). Working together with partner countries in the tropics, the project aims to develop techniques for forest monitoring and to strengthen reporting on issues related to emissions from forest degradation.
At an event on coherence between climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, the JRC will present its flagship report summarising the state of science risk assessment and communication. The report assesses the best available knowledge from over 270 contributors for effective disaster risk management for current and future climate scenarios.
JRC soil expert Luca Montanarella will also speak at two external events: one organised by FAO in the framework of the agriculture action day of the Marrakesh Partnership for Global Climate Action (MPGCA), on unlocking the potential of soil organic carbon for climate change action; and one stocktaking exercise on the results of the first one and a half year ‘4 for 1000’ initiative on soils for food security and climate.
The JRC and climate action
The JRC’s climate action activities extend well beyond those that will come under the spotlight at COP23. Some recent projects include:
- The green driving tool, helping drivers to reduce fuel costs by showing the most suitable type of car for specific routes.
- The EMHIRES wind dataset, modelling how much energy the current installed wind farms in Europe have produced in every hour during the last 30 years.
- Research on critical materials for green energy technologies, which looks at ways to ensure that supply is sufficient to meet the growing demand for these materials as the sustainable energy sector grows.
The JRC has identified four key actions in this regard: domestic EU production, reliable imports, recycling of materials and substitution with alternative materials where possible.
###
Like I said this morning when I went out to feed my chickens, “I sure wish it was 2 degrees cooler this morning – and all would be good again on this planet”
Here’s what I want to know: Is Assad on board with this?
Another COP23 Agenda
COP23 Bonn Germany – Sustainable Innovation Forum | COP 23
November 13-14, 2017
Program events, speakers, sponsors at:
http://www.cop-23.org
Without doing any research myself, 400,000 deaths per year in Europe alone due to dirty air seems overblown to me … but then such busy-bodies have never had a good grasp of orders of magnitude.
Show me the bodies.
Simple. Just look at the increase in the voter counts in the major cities in the deep blue states. US progressives are deeply concerned that everyone has the right to vote – including dead people. So, count the increase in the number of registered voters who vote for the progressive candidate who would not otherwise win the election, and add them all up amongst the cities, and you’ll see the bodies: well, not literally of course – they only rise from the dead to exercise their rights on Election Day.
I had a cold caller telling me that if I didn’t sign up for the funeral cost cover she was trying to sell me my family might not be able to have a funeral at all! She didn’t get the sarcasm when I said they’d just have to leave me sitting in my favourite chair till they could.
James Bull
One can get these numbers reliably by following the methods of the pre-Trump EPA. In other words pay researchers to fake research findings that claim particulate is directly and immediately lethal even though the unethical experiments sponsored by the EPA to demonstrate this found no harm.
That is why they use the premature, the dying part is not important … try working out how you test for premature death on an individual? You can’t it’s not science it’s statistics gameplay.
LdB, premature death is a little like premature ejaculation. You sort of have an orgasm but not one you’d really care to count. The difference is that these people are, well, maybe, sorta’, kinda’ dead, but the politicos count them that way even though these sort of dead people think otherwise.
noaaprogrammer
Of the apparently 40,000 UK contributions to those premature death statistics (or some such ridiculous number) not one person has had ‘death by pollution’ recorded on their death certificates.
And it seems that those 40,000 casualties extra life expectancy runs from minutes to a few days.
Quite how the insane green quacks can identify a day or two in the life of, say, a 70 year old who dies 3 days before he/she ‘should’ have, I’ll never understand.
They use models.
MarkW
Blonde, with long legs and big…….eyes?
🙂
400k?? that sounds like a pandemic – show me the bodies
They can’t they’re buried …
… buried in paperwork.
Which is why it stinks.
It is always misreported to create a scary, fear-filled illusion.
The figures refer not to deaths that are caused by air pollution – no research on industrialised nations has identified any – but to deaths which are believed to be premature because of air pollution and the numbers, like climate change projections are from models , but there is no qualification or assessment as to whether it is premature by a day, a week, a month or a year. That is an unknown, but the claims would have little newsworthiness or impact if that is explained.
These figures completely ignore the 1m or more annual deaths in the third world that can be attributed directly to being forced to rely on wood and dung fires for cooking, warmth and light causing lung and eye disease. These are the people denied electricity by the UN, World Bank and others who refuse to allow them to have coal of gas fired power stations.
Climate Hypocrites
noaaprogrammer and others, I think this is how they calculate the 40,000: if 100,000,000 people live in Europe and anyone that breathes 100% CO2 dies from it, then 40,000 die from breathing 0.04%. Advocates do the same thing with radiation.
YES! “Linear No Threshold” has been used by advocacy (money grubbing) groups for Heart and for Asthma charities. The EPA then quotes those figures when justifying both CO2 and particulate regulations. As everyone has said, where’s the actual body count?!
Isn’t there also a “bait and switch” going on in this report?
Obstensably, it is about limiting temperatures; but then they report the benefits of improved “air quality”, none of which are related to CO2 or temperature.
“…..these measures could reduce the number of air pollution-related cases of illnesses such as asthma and bronchitis by 15-40% annually….”
I would certainly be behind efforts to control dirty water and true air pollution, .e.g particulate matter (smog) and NOx.
It’s actually all about pm2.5 and oxides of nitrogen from car exhausts, CO2 doesn’t figure in this.
You win the internets today.
Quoting —– noaaprogrammer – November 8, 2017 at 8:28 am
Overblown, ……. not quite, to wit:
Excerpted from above commentary:
Let’s see now, …. due to the “dirty air” they are breathing, Europeans suffers 300,000 deaths annually, ….. plus another 695,000 yearly deaths, ….. for a total of 995,000 deaths.
Now that’s whatcha call “overblown”.
It’s all right then. In just a few years Europe is devoid of inhabitants and will be pristine ground for anyone who is fleeing from ‘Climate catastrophy’… I’!ll do my part and keep on with my Luckies (I surely will be needing a smoke after reading this madness!)
No. In just a few years Europe will be an Islamic caliphate that doesn’t believe in science at all.
So the problem will cease to exists. It is in the end the will of Allah.
I’m still waiting to see the detailed pathological reports of the “50,000” people who DIE from secondhand smoke every year”. Now I don’t smoke, never have, and believe it is a fairly unproductive (now hyper-expensive) habit. But “make-believe” statistical extrapolations without direct evidence is actually quite SICK IN THE HEAD. We are allowing “science” to be besmirched by NONSENSE such as this. Same with this nonsensical “human cost” of Co2.
In the UK, it’s a case of people with severe chest or lung problems who may – or may not – be dying a few weeks or days earlier than predicted
When the “ruling” dogma consists of myth and superstition all fantastic stuff becomes a part of the assumed “reality.”
We don’t need no stinkin’ laws of physics. Get rid of them and get their effects out of our lives! They’re nothing more than inhibitors to the noblest intentions for what our governments and other institutions of authority and power are able to do for the rest of us ordinary human beings.
Who voted for the people who wrote the laws of physics? How did those people get elected, for cryin’ out loud.
Life on planet Earth is ‘for real’ but, man ‘o’ man, are governments ever anything more than unfunny fantastical jokes that are played over and over.
Think eviction, not secession.
If dirty air is the problem, why is CO2 targeted?
Ignorance.
A little ignorance plays in the game, but for the most part it is a bait and switch. CO2 is in the air, it comes from combustion, cars, power plants produce “pollutants” therefore CO2 must be a pollutant and therefore bad. It is why the water vapor coming out of smoke stacks works. Appreciate many Americans, can’t speak to other countries, buy into the CAGW game because they drive an vehicle with an internal combustion engine. Their vehicles produce CO2, there are seemingly more cars than ever (traffic) therefore they must be contributing to the problem. Ironically when the CAGW crowd scream and yell and say the world as we know it is coming to an end day after tomorrow they tell themselves “well if it is that bad I am going to enjoy it in the meantime driving my SUV.” They also fall into a huge political trap, “if the problem is as bad as they say it is, what can I do, leave it to the government.” It is how socialism slowly creeps in.
Please don’t ask good questions. I think that Greens should stop exhaling to save the world.
Now that is a nice thought.
Or they could stop inhaling.
Last exhalation – about ten percent [or whatever!] plant-food.
No further inhalation, leaving the O2 for you and me.
Auto.
Bengt Abelsson
Because that’s the next source for unlimited cash as they are realising they have screwed up their CO2 myth.
The fact that London air quality is evidently better than Blackpool’s air quality (a coastal town many times smaller than London) seems to have passed them by.
“If dirty air is the problem, why is CO2 targeted?”
Because we allowed EPA to have way to much power and authority. Resulting in Obama’s EPA being able to willy-nilly label Carbon and CO2 dangerous / hazard / toxic.
Because coal power plants produce both (some) dirty air and CO2. The solution—if a solution is needed—is modern nuclear power or better, small-fusion research funding.
Sorry, you are wrong, the pollution in cities is not predominantly caused by modern diesel cars, when the pollution particles are analysed they are from Heating (wood burning being the dirtiest), Brake and Tyre dust, Road Dust, commercial vehicle exhaouts (especially old ones) and of course nature.
When was the last time you saw a Road Sweeper in your area?
A Study in, I think, Sweden or the Netherlands shows that cleaning the road surface of all the years of rubbish collected on them dramatically cuts pollution levels.
you may add that underground subway air is dirtier than a diesel engine exhaust fumes. Strangely enough, you never heard that the subway should be cleaner, or even closed because hopelessly dirty.
I’d be more concerned about cooling than warming, considering the long-term trend of the solar cycle. But I’m absolutely certain that controlling warming to less than 2C is doable.
But I can certainly foresee 400K excess deaths in Europe if the power grid collapses because of insufficient electrical generating capacity, and if they’re closing coal plants and not constructing nuclear plants, I think this may be likely.
I can see 400,000 deaths in Europe from Fuel Poverty and premature death caused by being unable to afford heat.
Climate policy is directly responsible for all deaths caused in that way. Perhaps murder charges should be considered ?
” I’m absolutely certain that controlling warming to less than 2C is doable. ”
You have to be kidding, you really think we can control the Global Climate?
” I’m absolutely certain that controlling warming to less than 2C is doable.”
Technically, maybe, but not economically or politically. The developing world is on the opposite path, backed by Chinese financing of their coal power plants. The absence of American money to finance green energy there is also a killer.
@ Roger Knights – to believe it is possible to control global temperatures by trying to control atmospheric CO2 levels is like a belief that sacrifice will appease the gods and they will give you what you ask for.
There is not a single piece of empirical evidence to support either belief. Where climate is concerned the real world evidence is that 20 years of increasing atmospheric CO2 levels have made no statistical significant difference to global temperatures.
Keeping the increase under 2C is quite doable.
You would have to increase CO2 levels at least 10 to 20 to have a chance of increasing temperature by 2C, and that isn’t going to happen regardless of how much plants may hope for it.
I thought too many human lives was the problem. Isn’t this working backwards?
Give them time, they just have to get people used to the concept of eugenics first, then they can start selecting people for extermination with no objections.
Doubtless, old, white, retired, Brexit voting, Trump supporters, on a pension will be first for the chop as no one likes us. [I’m not quite retired yet so I might be at the back of the queue].
That’s me off to the Konzentrationlager then, as the EUSSR predecessors used to call them. Like you I’m not quite retired yet, but I’m a veteran, so that probably puts me straight to the front of the queue for the gas ghambers.
If 400,000 deaths a year actually occurred in Europe due to air pollution, on would think that the Greens would want more of that to decrease the surplus population. It would only take a few years. However, with air cleaner now than ever before, I suspect that the 400,000 number came from computer programs that never did count dead bodies.
Same argument in the US that the air now which is at least 100 fold cleaner than in 1970 (in LA for example) is still killing millions. Except no one can produce the dead bodies directly attributed to “air pollution”. This is getting harder to support when automotive exhaust emissions are now cleaner than the air taken in by the engine, especially WRT PM10 and PM2.5. Both of which have very sketchy connections to health issues.
The deaths are not directly attributed it’s a statistical gameplay, you take numbers that die from cancer and disease and attribute some portion of them to air pollution. See in the eco-facist world if they all stood out in those green eco friendly dream fields then they would not have got sick or ill.
You see the exact same game played with “meat cause cancer”, “butter cause cancer” studies in medicine. There is no direct link ever established and in most of the studies you would expect the variation.
As an example the LHC currently has a 4 sigma excess of 1 study, but statistically if you had 16,000 LHC’s one of them would actually show that excess. The danger of rolling the dice on results 🙂
Dr. Bob
“This is getting harder to support when automotive exhaust emissions are now cleaner than the air taken in by the engine………”
HeHeHe……That’ll confuse the bejesus out the greens. Having to run more cars with ICE’s to clean the air up in cities.
I have been saying to Griff for weeks they can’t make the targets all the big important emission countries are going to fail, USA is the only one with an outside chance. No country will make there 2025 and 2030 targets.
LdB
Say what you want to Griff. If it ain’t in the Guardian, it ain’t science.
Hot Scot
Say what you want to Griff. If it ain’t in the Guardian, it ain’t science.
Hmmmm
Say what you want to Griff. If it ain’t in the Guardian, it ain’t “science”.
Better?
Or
Say what you want to Griff. If it ain’t in the Grauniad, it ain’t “science”.
Bestest??
Auto
Auto
Either or mate. All the same to Griff.
They think less warming and CO2 will increase agricultural yields? These loons are in fantasyland. And 400k deaths in Europe? Yeah right. These people don’t know what real air pollution is. Go to China or southeast asia, where there are plenty of old people despite suffocating air pollution. Air pollution of course should be minimized, but they have obviously never heard of diminishing returns. This study is pure garbage propaganda.
What planet do these people live on again?
Bruce Cobb
Earth, they just don’t know it.
The 2C ‘limit’ is absolutely achievable and the cost can be significantly negative. All we have to do is disband the IPCC, UNFCCC and the World Bank, eliminate all ‘green’ subsidies, get GISS out of the climate analysis business and stop funding any research that ASSUMES the absurdly high sensitivity presumed by the IPCC’s self serving consensus.
You forgot “and cancel all future COPs”
Old England
We are sir, united in our conspirational observations, of a conspiration.
co2isnotevil
The only reason it’s become achievable is because they realise they have screwed up on their CO2 scam.
They will, of course, hail it as a historic victory for green policies when the planet doesn’t warm by 2C.
They will just move on to the next scam. Wish I could guess what it might be so I could get in early and get my piece of the action.
squiggy9000
Choose from a number – air quality, global cooling, receding seas, beached fish, incinerated coral, vicious lapping waves at the seashore, or perhaps becalmed offshore windfarms.
Many profitable options to choose from my friend, have no worries.
100% correct – claim success before Joe Public fully understands they’ve been had.
Whoops!……..posted in the wrong place originally.
Old England
We are sir, united in our conspirational observations, of a conspiration.
The real question is: is the 2 degree limit attainable .. by the climate system. CO2 is not an important climate driver. In fact, in the grand scheme of things it is a marginal player. Doubling its atmospheric content is good for 0.3 to 0.5 degrees at most, before feedbacks on the lapse rate and clouds have been taken into account. Even a tenfold increase will not make the magical 1.5 degree, let alone 2.
If Paul Ehrlich was in charge of this fiasco 400,000 would not have been enough he would argue for more pollution if he thought more people would die as a result. The omitted word is “premature” which Prof Tony Frew defines as those people already suffering from a multitude of unresolvable complaints who might be further impacted by air pollution and die 30 days earlier than would otherwise be the case. This definition is also the product of statistical modelling because it is impossible to identify once dead whether that person did in fact die earlier or later had they not been infected by the product of fossil fuels. Prof Frew also identified that if all vehicle traffic was removed from our roads air pollution would fall by just 2 micrograms / metre cubed which means diesel engines are not as alarmists presume the largest cause of air pollution.
I remain fascinated that people survived concentration camps and prisoner of warm camps for years on desperately awful diets yet once out or escaped they are told that unless they eat so much of this none of that especially fat they will shorten their lives. It is also a fascination that some people cant avoid being overweight its their genes there must have been some of those people in prisoner of warm camps so how come being deprived of food made them lose weight as well as every one else? Its a mystery is it not?
The word premature is used so you don’t actually have to prove the link. You just claim some random percentage of the sick group. The key to all these stupid studies is to look at the controls and how they tried to link cause … remember correlation does not imply causation.
It’s only very recently in human history that fatness has acquired a widely negative image. From ancient times on, girth was an indicator of wealth and status, that the individual could afford regular meals and leisure time.
We’ve done a complete 180 from that. Now the lower classes feast like kings and the upper classes willfully pursue a dozen different ways to starve themselves into a lean thin body. 😐
I know a guy who definitely died because of fossil fuels. Hit by a semi hauling gasoline.
Let’s suppose they do something (pray, whatever) and the pseudo temperature limit is not reached. How do we know it was their prayers or whatever and not merely a coincidence? Well, we really cannot know, we have to blindly believe them. But what if we give them insane amounts of money and still the limit is passed? What do they lose? Again, rhetorical question, those with the propaganda will not lose in any case, they’ll get rich.
“…decoupling emissions and economic growth…”
Only five words, just five. They completely understate the complexity of the challenge and the enormous potential for misery.
I call it the Appeal to Just.
“It’s not that hard. Just lower emissions and grow the economy!”
Actually, there is a desperate need to reduce air pollution in Europe – partly because of the idiotic move to diesel at the insistence of the Greens in previous decades.
Just walk down Oxford St, or the Champs Elysees on a bad day, or Lower Thames St, and you can see how totally irresponsible and idiotic it is to allow the masses of cars exhausting noxious pollutants into the air everyone breathes.
But its not just diesel. What is needed is to get internal combustion out of cities totally.
Where the Greens are on the far edge of reason or beyond is the idea that we can have the same number of cars, just make them electric, and then carry on as before with lower CO2 emissions.
We cannot do it, to start with. And if we did do it, the result would not be any lowering of emissions.
But people who want to carry on with current practice, just replacing diesel with gasoline, are also crazy in a different way.
What we should all want is cleaner air. This will mean a lot fewer cars, and the ones there will be should be electric. But its not trivial and it will mean lifestyle changes.
And if you doubt the effects of European air pollution on health, just go, spend a morning in the streets I have mentioned. Then blow your nose and look at the tissue. If that doesn’t teach you…. well, you must be in denial!
I will be roundly abused by both sides of this debate. By one side for thinking that CO2 is not a problem and we shouldn’t worry about it one way or the other, because raising the level on our streets makes no difference to air quality. And by the other side for daring to think that we should restrict everyone’s right to sit in traffic jams with their engines running, to poison the air everyone else breathes.
The problem is a city air problem, and the solution is less cars, and those electric. The problem is not CO2 or global warming or climate change. Its the air we are breathing.
Another solution offered to address a problem of their own creation, which typically involves repressed rights and requires redistributive change. While the narrative changes, their motives and means remain the same.
Modern ICE’s are very clean and most of what comes out of the tailpipe is CO2 and water vapor. Diesels are harder to get clean owing to all the particulates. I recently had my 10 year old SUV smog checked and there were no measurable quantities of CO, NOx or unburned HC and it’s powered by a 300HP V8 ICE.
The pollution I notice the most in cities is the diesel exhaust from buses and trucks. Ironic considering mass transit using buses is claimed to be ‘green’.
Is this why people are living longer than ever? Coincidence and correlation are not evidence of causation. Prof Tony Frew said that you could remove all traffic from our roads and air pollution would reduce by just 2 micrograms per metre cubed and that current levels of air pollution might result in someone already ill from multiple complaints might die 30 days earlier than would otherwise be the cause. Air is cleaner than ever before in our history. The tube in London has more air pollution than our roads.
This is backed up by this:
Many of the so-called experts are only interested in self-promotion and winning their next research grant, and I think you have hit the nail on the head as regards the symbiosis they have with the media that is only interested in a good “bad news scare stories”!
Apart from not checking on the facts they ignore:
• Particles from tyres/road wear brake linings which will not be reduced by banning diesel engines.
• Natural NOx produced by grassland and microbes.
• NOx produced the photocatalytic action of urban grime
• NOx produced by central heating (condensing boilers especially)
• The very high concentrations of iron oxide in underground stations due to brake/track wear ( that is what causes that characteristic “tube smell”)
• The static air conditions we had a few times this winter with stagnant polluted air from the continent drifting across.
• Indoor particulates and VOCs from upholstery, paint etc…
All in all the media has a lot to answer for and it is sad to see some normally rational people sucked in by their antics!
With best wishes
Pete
Professor Peter J Dobson OBE
The Queen’s College,
Oxford OX1 4AW
and this:
Whilst there, I learned of a very interesting bit of research carried out at the end of WW2. Lord Penney (Rector of Imperial College at the time) commissioned some work by my first boss to check to see that the nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere would not all be combined by the heat of an atomic bomb. They proved it could not be as catastrophic as feared, but it is part of the reason for the NOx problem….the modern diesel and even modern petrol engines do run much hotter and hence a small amount of the gases in the air combines to form the nitrogen oxides.
Needless to say I am going to fight the media and bad scientist/medics rather robustly.
Diesel engines are not the biggest cause of air pollution they are just another convenient political target like Co2 where the science is inverted and exaggerated because to environmentalists like Client Earth – lawyers not scientists – the ends always justify the means.
Just to get away from environmentalists and environmentalism I might just hook up a diesel to my letter box because it couldn’t be worse.
The EPA’s Unethical PM2.5 Air Pollution Experiments
Anthony Watts / June 4, 2012
Environmental Protection Agency Seal (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)
By John Dale Dunn MD JD (via email)
United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson testified before Congress in September of 2011 that small-particle (2.5 microns or less) air pollution is lethal. “Particulate matter causes premature death. It’s directly causal to dying sooner than you should.”
At the hearing, Representative Edward J. Markey (D-MA) asked, “How would you compare [the benefits of reducing airborne PM2.5] to the fight against cancer?” Ms. Jackson replied, “Yeah, I was briefed not long ago. If we could reduce particulate matter to healthy levels, it would have the same impact as finding a cure for cancer in our country.” Cancer kills a half-million Americans a year — 25 percent of all deaths in the U.S. annually.
That same month, September 2011, Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP), a journal sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, reported an experiment that exposed a 58-year-old lady to high levels of small particles in a chamber. After 49 minutes in the chamber, the lady, who was obese with hypertension and a family history of heart disease, who also had premature atrial heartbeats on her pre-experiment electrocardiogram, developed a rapid heart beat irregularity called atrial fibrillation/flutter, which can be life threatening. She was taken out of the chamber, and she recovered, but she was hospitalized for a day. Weeks later, an abnormal electrical heart circuit was fixed by cardiologists, as reported in EHP.
It is illegal, unethical, and immoral to expose experimental subjects to harmful or lethal toxins. The Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, 3rd Ed. (2011), published by the Federal Judicial Center, on page 555 declares that exposing human subjects to toxic substances is “proscribed” by law and cites case law. The editor of EHP refused a request to withdraw the paper and conduct an investigation.
The EPA’s internal policy guidance on experimental protocols prohibits, under what is called the “Common Rule,” experiments that expose human subjects to lethal or toxic substances. Milloy referenced the “Common Rule” that governs EPA policy on research conduct in human experimentation in his letter to the inspector general of the EPA requesting an investigation of the matter.
A full report on the research study shows that 41 other people were exposed to what the EPA says are harmful or lethal levels of small particles, with some enduring up to 10 times the EPA’s declared safe level of 35 micrograms per cubic meter of air. The EPA human experiments described were conducted from January 2010 to June 2011, according to the information obtained by JunkScience.com on a Freedom of Information Act request, and ended three months before Ms. Jackson’s congressional testimony, but she still asserted dramatic claims of PM2.5’s lethality — thousands of deaths at stake and hundreds of billions in economic consequences from the deaths and disabilities caused by small particles.
According to the congressional testimony of Lisa Jackson, these experiments risked the lives of these 42 people. So what could have possessed these EPA researchers to do the experiments? The authors reveal the reason in their case report on the lady:
Although epidemiologic data strongly support a relationship between exposure to air pollutants and cardiovascular disease, this methodology does not permit a description of the clinical presentation in an individual case. To our knowledge, this is the first case report of cardiovascular disease after exposure to elevated concentrations of any air pollutant.
The people at the EPA claim that they must control air pollution to prevent the deaths of thousands. Then they expose human subjects to high levels of air pollution. Is it possible that they are lying, or unethical, or both?
In the experimental protocol, seven subjects were exposed to levels 10 times greater than the 24-hour safe limit for small particles, and all of the other 41 subjects were exposed to more than the 35 micrograms per cubic meter that the EPA says is the 24-hour safety limit. The researchers failed to report that none of the other subjects had any adverse effects, which is unscientific, since researchers are obligated to report results both for and against their hypothesis.
The only way out for the EPA in this episode is to acknowledge the reality that ambient levels or even higher levels of PM2.5 are not toxic or lethal, based on their own research, and to admit that their claims of thousands of lives lost from small particles is nonsense. Or they can stay with their assertions about small particle toxicity and face charges of criminal and civil neglect.
The individuals who were the subjects of this experiment certainly might be concerned if the EPA claim of small particle toxicity and lethality is true. There is good reason to believe that the EPA itself doesn’t believe the claims. However, based on congressional testimony by EPA officials, any death now or later of the subjects of this experiment from heart and lung disease or cancer would be under the cloud of concern about the EPA claims that small particles kill. What were the EPA officials and researchers thinking?
John Dale Dunn MD JD
Consultant Emergency Services/Peer Review
Civilian Faculty, Emergency Medicine Residency
Carl R. Darnall Army Med Center
michel
Strangely, I used to drive/motorcycle along Lower Thames St. every day in life. There was no problem before the insane cycle lanes were installed.
“Then blow your nose and look at the tissue.” And how much CO2 do you see in the tissue?
Michel
You have fallen for the trap hook, line, and sinker. By lumping “air pollution” with CO2, the alarmist hope to win over people like you. CO2 is NOT a pollutant. Air pollutants are trace gases in the atmosphere that damage health or public welfare. Things like sulfur dioxide (SO2) that cause damage to peoples health and to buildings, There are lots of chemical compounds that are dumped into the air that meet this definition. CO2 is not one of them. In the U.S. there has been an almost 50 year effort to reduce or stop the dumping of these compounds into the air. This effort has been largely successful.
No, I have not fallen for it at all. I agree with you about what pollution is. I do not think we should be managing vehicular traffic in cities with a view to lowering CO2 emissions. We should be lowering, eliminating in fact, particle and gaseous pollutants, whether by doing so we raise or lower CO2 is immaterial.
I am one of a minority which both sides of this debate find unacceptable. Someone who is not worried about CO2 emissions, would in fact be perfectly happy for them to rise if that were the price of stopping real air pollution. Which, in the case of a move back to gasoline from diesel it probably would be, and we should do it regardless.
But also someone who thinks that clogging our cities with traffic, emitting real pollutants, killing (globally) over a million people a year and seriously injuring some multiple of that, all that is unacceptable, and the only solution is to get cars out of cities and reduce the size of the auto industry.
And go to electric buses too. And delivery trucks. Yes, they are an appallingly large source of air pollution in our cities, and that too must be eliminated.
The task is to clean up the air we breathe. it is not to lower CO2 emissions. Nor is it to permit people to make the places we live and work and would like to walk and enjoy ourselves in unliveably noisy and unhealthy in the worship of something people call a free market.
It is to clean up the air. No matter how many interests and prejudices that offends, whatever it takes. If you have to interfere with markets, do so. If you have to raise CO2 emissions, do that too. This is about picking an objective which makes sense in human terms, and then driving that through over the howls of the various obsessive interest groups. Of which there will be many.
Michel
“The task is to clean up the air we breathe,”
I agree wholeheartedly. I spent 30 years of my 40 year professional life, working on just that task. Working on projects to reduce emissions from all sorts of on-road and off-road vehicles. As I said, in the U.S. that effort has been a success. Carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) are considered the signature air pollutants from vehicles. There are no counties (subdivisions of states) in the United States that are listed as being in noncompliance with the ambient air standards for these two pollutants.
However, your complaint seems to be about on-road vehicles in general, not just pollution from the vehicles,
You apparently attribute the evils of the automobile (congestion, noise, pollution) to the auto industry and the “free market.”
Think for a moment about why the automobile is so popular. The reason: freedom. It made it easy for people to go where they like, when they like. And this desire is world-wide. I spoke with a Korean engineer in the late nineties, who told me that in 1988 ten percent of Korean families owned a car, in 1998 ninety percent owned a car. Now it was the free market that supplied the demand, but it was desire for freedom that created the demand.
I believe this desire for freedom is inherent in us. It is also the reason the VCR and the technologies that followed it are so popular. It allows people the freedom to watch a TV show when they want, and with current technology, where they want,
The challenge then, is how to give people the freedom to easily go where and when they want in the city, without the noise and congestion (pollution has been solved} of the current automobile. And, germaine to this discussion, it has nothing to do with CO2 in the atmosphere.
michel/old engineer
lots of good points.
What’s missing from both is describing the imposition, by government decree (in the UK at least) that we will all be driving EV’s by 2040.
Irrespective of the details of that, namely, it’s not physically possible to be 100% EV by then (which is not what I believe the government expects) it’s the imposition of that government demand that’s worrying.
If that expectation is met, or partially so, before 2040, what other government decrees can we expect on the back of authoritarian success?
Science is not the issue here.
“But people who want to carry on with current practice, just replacing diesel with gasoline, are also crazy in a different way.”
The forthcoming (in 2018) advanced ICE engines from Mazda and GM/Gates will be 33% more efficient, reducing pollution. And Mazda’s 2019 rotary-engined hybrid will do the same, or better. Those are the practical steps to reducing pollution. Trying to force people onto buses or bicycles will be a failure. With those measures Green are trying to make others be more like themselves. (“More people like ourselves—that’s really what politics is about.”) Arrogant and futile.
Roger Knights
The UK is a small country, but try riding a bicycle in the rain here, it’s effing miserable. That’s why we like cars. Unlike Japan, public transport offends our sense of personal space, an entirely natural, largely British phenomenon, and one that should be cherished.
Cars produce only a tiny percentage of the air pollution in cities.
Get rid of them entirely and you still have lots of pollution, and lots of unemployed people who can no longer get to work.
“COP23: A cleaner, greener planet is both possible and affordable”
Translation: COP is determined to keep their Global Warming $hamWow going.
With regard to the EU release, has so much crap ever been talked so sincerely by so many people at one time?
I have enjoyed reading all of the comments above but my biggest laugh (an achievement given the difficulty in staying awake) was reserved for one of those last points about “the green driving tool” which appears aimed at telling you which of the multitude of vehicles you own you should drive for a particular journey. Absolutely hilarious! These people need a reality check with a large boot up the ar*e.
I thought at first that the ‘Green Driving Tool’ was a category of person…
Steve Fraser
Clearly, we share the same sense of humour.
Their argument becomes rational only if anthropogenic global warming is a significant contributor to climate change and if anthropogenic climate change poses a credible threat.
Aside from the minor little fact that the databases used to evaluate temperature rise (GISS, HADCRU, etc) are so dodgy that they exemplify the acronym FUBAR, the original 2 degrees C was an arbitrary target to start with. No one can really tell if that was higher or lower than the Medieval Warm Period, or whether that would be a benefit anyway even if it did happen.
The claimed health benefits of reducing pollution are also based on a statistical model (LNT) that makes computer climate models seem rigorous and well founded.
When Greenlanders csn grow grapes we will have equaled the Medieval Warm Period. We need WAY more global warming to get there.
“Csn” = can
Grapes were not grown in Greenland during the MWP. Ask Danish geologist Svend Fundor.
C. Paul Pierett
“Grapes were not grown in Greenland during the MWP. Ask Danish geologist Svend Fundor.”
He’s that old? Blimey!
2.0C huh?
What about the awesome Paris accords?
Snicker……
As I understand it, the PRC has committed to “peak” its emissions in 2030. So in the “everybody keeps their commitments beyond 2030” scenario, what is the PRC doing in this model – keeping their annual CO2 emissions at the peak?
Sunsettommy
Humankind produces ~30Bn tons of CO2 per year, equivalent to ~2ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 per year, which equates to ~15Bn tons of CO2 per ~1ppm.
The UN states that unless we do something about increasing atmospheric CO2, it will be at ~468ppm by ~2100.
Multiply 15Bn tons by 468ppm = ~7Tn tons of atmospheric CO2 humans will have added to the atmosphere by ~2100.
The UN maintains those 7Tn tons are expected to cause 7°F of warming by ~2100.
So, to mitigate for 1°F of warming, humankind must eliminate 1Tn tons of CO2 production.
Dividing 1Tn tons of CO2 by our annual output of 30Bn tons, it will take ~33 years to mitigate for 1°F of temperature rise and ~231 years to eliminate all 7Tn tons.
But that means no energy use whatsoever; no coal, gas, bio mass or even windfarm produced energy (it takes CO2 emissions to produce wind turbines). No hospitals, schools, housebuilding, factories or transport. Absolutely no CO2 production beyond humans breathing.
Courtesy of Chris Monckton.
Government NEVER has enough money! (Oh yeah? The parking lot at one of my local fire stations — just a little-used parking lot with no apparent ‘blems’ — has just been torn up and resurfaced. What’s that all about? It’s obviously symptomatic of a budget surplus closing in on the end of the year, that’s what.) Starve the beast!
Bob Denby
We have an continuing debate in the UK about hospitals charging for parking.
So you go to see ailing granny one day. Her conditions worsens whilst you’re there and she takes the whole day to pass on into the arms of Jesus.
You then come out to be met with a bill of £20 for your visit, which you can’t pay because you’re broke. The fine comes in for £100, but is reduced to £50 on immediate payment, which you still can’t manage, cos you’re still broke.
The most common reason given by hospitals for predating on hospital visitors is that people who go shopping and go to work park their cars in free hospital car parks.
Our hospital, Darent Valley hospital in Dartford, Kent, is in the middle of nowhere. Literally, not a shop or retail outlet within a mile, and that’s a corner shop. So what’s their effing excuse?
Given the amount of time since, some of my ancestors are bound to have fled from Greenland on grounds of climate change (entering LIA). Who shall I sue to get money on their behalf? (With compound interests this should be a substantial amount, maybe on par with organising a COP?)
“Limiting global warming below the critical 2C level set out in the Paris Agreement is both feasible and consistent with economic growth – and the knock-on improvements to air quality could already cover the costs of mitigation measures and save more than 300,000 lives annually by 2030.”
Right off the bat they start with equating global warming from CO2 with air quality. No need to care about anything else they have to say.
The reality is that the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensivity of CO2 is zero. Mankind has had no success in changing weather events let alone changing global climate. There are many good reasons to be conserving on the use of fossil fuels but climate change is not one of them. The AGW conjecture is based upon the existance of a radiant greenhouse effect that has not been observed anywhere in the solar system including the Earth. The radiant greenhouse effect is science fiction as is the AGW conjecture.
willhaas
Good science has no place in a political debate.
According to The Guardian last week – so it must be true 🙂 – the Northern Hemisphere hit an average temperature of 2 oC above pre-industrial last Wednesday. Did anyone notice the sky falling in? Panic over, I’d say…
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/04/is-el-nino-or-climate-change-behind-the-run-of-record-temperatures
DaveS
I guess the Guardian didn’t think of that one………Doh!
Guardian fail, once again.
Of course they’re going to say it’s ‘obtainable’. That’s an important part of the ‘string them along’ process.
Joel Snider
Unobtanium?
I am so thankful that we have apparently dodged the critical “tipping points” of the past and can still save the planet and as well we save lives by cleaning up the air.
These people are real whiteboard warriors and can’t seem to see how dynamic and uncontrollable hundreds of factors are. You can’t control the world by computer models dear people. For example:
“….On air quality, the report finds that if the appropriate measures are taken….. by 2050 roughly 1.5 million lives could be saved across the world annually….”.
I do hope they have factored in the population increase which is currently running at 80+ million per year. Compound that and see how your 1.5 million really looks in light of the extra 4+ billion that may have occurred by then.
How many of them will perish by the admittedly old fashioned and perhaps quaint –
Pestilence, war and famine.
Now that is a REAL problem!
nankerphelge
Pestilence: The world is now, the healthiest it has ever been.
War: The world is now the most peaceful it has ever been.
Famine: The world is now the best fed it has ever been.
Now make a prediction for the future that’s actually credible.
From the presentation to accompany the AR5 Synthesis Report SPM. roughly 1000 GtCO2e of GHG emissions will be sufficient from 2012 to cause 2C of warming. Emissions are just over 50 a year so at the end of the year it will be less than 750 to go until the dreaded limit. CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are about two-thirds of GHG emissions from all sources.
McGlade and Ekins 2015 (The geographical distribution of fossil fuels unused when limiting global warming to 2°C) estimate that the proven global reserves would generate around 2900 GtCO2e. They further estimate there are unproven but likely reserves of oil, gas and coal represent a further 8000 GtCO2e of emissions. There is no clear breakdown by country, so I input their values of CO2 per unit into the BP’s estimates of proven reserves of oil, gas and coal, coming up with a similar 2800 GtCO2e. These represent roughly 50 years of oil and gas supply and 120 years of coal supply at current production rates. Taking into account other GHG emissions, to achieve the emissions target around 75% of proven reserves and 100% of any future discoveries must be left in the ground. I have produced a chart of the countries where these proven resources lie, measured in terms of CO2 produced from burning for energy.
To achieve the target the UN must get binding agreements from USA, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, China, Saudi Arabia, India, Qatar – plus many other countries – to abandon these vital resources within a few years, trusting that all the other countries will do the same. They are nowhere close to achieving any such thing.
The relevant chart is below.
From the presentation to accompany the AR5 Synthesis Report SPM. roughly 1000 GtCO2e of GHG emissions will be sufficient from 2012 to cause 2C of warming. Emissions are just over 50 a year so at the end of the year it will be less than 750 to go until the dreaded limit. CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are about two-thirds of GHG emissions from all sources.
McGlade and Ekins 2015 (The geographical distribution of fossil fuels unused when limiting global warming to 2°C) estimate that the proven global reserves around 2900 GtCO2e. They further estimate there are unproven but likely reserves of oil, gas and coal represent a further 8000 GtCO2e of emissions. There is no clear breakdown by country, so I input their values of CO2 per unit into the BP’s estimates of global reserves of oil, gas and coal, coming up with a similar 2800 GtCO2e. These represent roughly 50 years of oil and gas supply and 120 years of coal supply at current usage rates. Taking into account other GHG emissions, to achieve the emissions target around 75% of proven reserves and 100% of any future discoveries must be left in the ground. I have produced a chart of the countries where these proven resources lie, measured in terms of CO2 produced from burning for energy.
To achieve the target the UN must get binding agreements from USA, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, China, Saudi Arabia, India, Qatar – plus many other countries – to abandon these vital resources within a few years, trusting that all the other countries will do the same. They are nowhere close to achieving any such thing.
McGlade and Ekins 2015 is likely to have underestimated the unproven reserves of fossil fuels, even though the 8000 GtCO2e is truly staggering. The short 2013 GWPF paper THE ABUNDANCE OF FOSSIL FUELS by Phillip Mueller estimates that unproven, but potential recoverable reserves of tar sands in Canada and Wyoming, heavy oil in Venezuela and shale oil in Saudi Arabia could each exceed the global proven reserves of oil. Combined these could produce the around the same CO2 emissions of all the proven reserves of oil, gas and coal combined. Then there are methane hydrates, which could contain 500 to 5000+ GtCO2e of emissions.
Mueller does not explore the potential reserves of coal. Under the North Sea alone there are estimates of 3 to 23 trillion tonnes of the stuff. (Searches reveal a number of other sources. This compares to the BP estimate of 800 million tonnes of global proven reserves. 3 to 23 trillion tonnes of hard coal if burnt would represent 7000 to 55000 GtCO2e of emissions, compared to less than 1000 GtCO2e the IPCC claims sufficient to reach the 2C warming limit. How many other vast fossil fuel reserves are out there? It may be just economic factors that stop fossil fuels reserves being proven and then exploited.
The invention of Global Warming came from Canadian Maurice Strong – he admitted it was invented to provide that scare to de-industrialise the West. This pre-dated the ‘modernisation’ of China and its emergence as a manufacturer which began in the early 1990s.
Its an idea that fits in very nicely with the ‘tails you lose , heads I win ‘ approach, They can claim a great victory by holding the increase below 2 degrees , when in reality it was never going to go above it because they where dead wrong in the first place.
+2°C limit? seriously… we KNOW that the Earth has been much hotter than this “limit”, and life thriving then.
I see no reason why +2C would happen in the next century: historically such an increase is quite rare. It may happen of course, but chance are low. Chance are much greater that some volcano explosion (or asteroid hit) cools the planet
GECO? Appropriate, the report does sound a bit reptilian.
I am curious about the fact that woodfortrees.org in its coverage of all world temperature gauges indicates that the warming from 1950 to now was between .13 degrees Celsius and .17 degrees Celsius per decade.
If the warming was to continue at that rate then in a century we would have 1.3 degrees Celsius to 1.7 degrees Celsius warming.
However it is obvious from the same site and the major temperature records that the warming this century is not continuing at that rate ( whether you acknowledge the “pause” or go with the NOAA figures).
In short we achieve the target of below 2 degrees Celsius with business as usual.
Am I missing something here?