Terrorist kills 53,000!

Imagine for a moment that you saw this headline.  You would be outraged and frightened  You would demand that something be done.  And you would be sure that something would be done (even if it didn't really help.)  But what if we're not talking about terrorism, but air pollution?

Source

This is the thesis of this intriguing piece by the prolific and insightful Zachary Shahan of CleanTechnica.  As he points out, 7 million a year around the world die prematurely from the effects of air pollution, 200,000 die in the USA, of which 53,000 die from air pollution caused by vehicles.

So why do we care so much about the deaths from a terrorist attack, and yet just shrug our shoulders with all these deaths from toxic air?

I think it's because we regard air pollution as something unavoidable.  It's been with us ever since industrialisation began.  Jane Austen mentions some of her characters living in the cleaner air of the West End of London.  The prevailing wind is westerly; the smoke from the factories and chimneys would blow towards the East End, where the poor lived.  If something just is, and you feel your power to change it is limited, you just put up with it.  Especially if what is needed is collective action.   Sometimes, then, change only happens because of an outcry because things have got intolerable.  China is a good example of that.  Some part of her embrace of renewables is due to her horrendous air pollution.

But everyone might also feel, that however regrettable the deaths caused by air pollution are, they are the price we pay for all the other benefits of our civilisation. We shrug.  We need electricity, we need cars.  Life's a bitch.  Sigh. Yet you might start to feel differently once you realise you can produce electricity without pollution, you can have transport without pollution.  You can have clean air.  It's no longer an unattainable goal.  We don't have to live with air pollution.  The technologies exist to eliminate it completely.  It's doable.

Let's do it.