PSD PAC said:
This actually isn't as out-there as you might think - there have been repeated studies in Seoul, Mexico City, etc., that directly correlate pollution and death rates due to respiratory and cardiac disease. The higher the particle counts, the more people die, and it can be shown on a day by day basis.
Now this has to also be taken into context - Seoul and Mexico City are a couple of the most polluted cities on the planet. I think it's more accurate as a warning for other places.
Neither of those cities are in American, and neither will be effected by the 2007 regs, so I guess I am missing the relevancy. The 25,000 figure was based on an EPA study that found that people, on average, died about a year earlier in heavily polluted areas than in non-heavily polluted areas. It completely neglected the fact that the heavily polluted areas are just different than the other areas. There are other environmental factors at work other than pollution. Violent crime, accidents, vices (drug use, tobacco and alcohol use, etc) and also, the age of the demographic groups did not match. None of this was taken into account. Also, what exactly does it mean that one group dies a year earlier on average than another group? Something like that is well within the realm of statistical anomaly, and may be just a matter of coincidence. The fact that the EPA then stuck an arbitrary value of $5,000,000 per life (how an extra year of one persons life is worth $5,000,000 dollars to the US economy is beyond me. The person is probably unhealthy if they are that close to death, so the argument could probably be made that they are saving us money by dying sooner. Cold, but real... A lot more real than some arbitrary economic impact of $5,000,000 per life?) They made this wierd claim so that they could put a value to it, so it did not look so bad that we were spending so much money ont he regs. "You are spending money to save money AND LIVES, so anybody opposed to it is a heartless, money grubbing bastard!" That is the foolish propaganda of the 2007 regs.
ng said, I totally agree with you Hoss - let's put the money where it'll do us the most good. CTL and GTL technolgies show a lot of promise, and why aren't we pursuing ppm/mile standards with gas vehicles the way it's being inflicted on diesels? If the money's to be spent, let's get the best results, not the politically expeditious ones.
But that's another subject now, isn't it?
You totally summed up my point so well it brought a tear to my eye. I wish Jeff was that easy to instill logic and common sense into...
