Air pollution causes 10.7 million kidney disease cases a year.

Mexico City smog, 1986

From CleanTechnica:

Exposure to particulate matter air pollution is responsible for more than 10.7 million cases of the development of chronic kidney disease per year, according to a new study led by Benjamin Bowe, MPH, of Clinical Epidemiology Center at the VA Saint Louis Health Care System. 

This new work builds on earlier work by Bowe and fellow researchers that found an association between exposure to elevated levels of fine particulate air pollution and the risk of developing chronic kidney disease.

There was a time when the deaths caused by air pollution could be (and were) shrugged off.  It was part of progress.  The internal combustion engine (ICE) raised living standards, and from the perspective of society as a whole, despite air pollution, it was better than going back to the horse and cart and the bicycle.  Bad luck if you died years before you ought to.  You were just collateral damage.

But that dilemma no longer exists.  We can switch our transport system to 100% electric, so that we stop noxious emissions and still keep advanced transport options.

So when are governments going to ban the petrol(gasoline)/diesel car?  A few have piously folded their hands, and said 2035 or 2040.  This is far too far away.  Believe me, if terrorists were causing this number of kidney disease cases, let alone the heart disease, lung disease and Alzheimer's air pollution causes, things would be done to stop it.  But with air pollution we just shake our heads and tisk, tisk.

A reasonable timetable would be to ban pure ICEV sales by 2022 or 2023.  That gives car manufacturers 5 years to retool their production lines.  It's a simple process to convert an ICE car design to a plug-in hybrid.  This is old technology now.  Even a 30 mile (50 km) pure electric range would halve emissions, because that's greater than the length of most one way commutes.   As battery costs fall, that range could be stepped up without cost increases.

By 2032, most cars on the road would be pure electric or hybrid-electric.  By then pure EVs will be cheaper  than plug-in hybrids (PHEVs).  And there will be a widespread charger network.  That would be a good date to ban the sales of PHEVs too.

But getting a timetable like this one adopted depends on us.  We must stop accepting that death and illness from air pollution are inevitable.  We must press our useless politicians to make this transition happen.  Now.