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Pollution Responsible For a Quarter of Deaths of Young Children, Says WHO (theguardian.com)
More than 1 in 4 deaths of children under 5 years of age are attributable to unhealthy environments. Every year, environmental risks -- such as indoor and outdoor air pollution, second-hand smoke, unsafe water, lack of sanitation, and inadequate hygiene -- take the lives of 1.7 million children under 5 years, say two new WHO reports. The Guardian adds: "A polluted environment is a deadly one -- particularly for young children," says Dr Margaret Chan, director-general of the WHO. "Their developing organs and immune systems -- and smaller bodies and airways -- make them especially vulnerable to dirty air and water." The harm from air pollution can begin in the womb and increase the risk of premature birth. After birth, air pollution raises the risk of pneumonia, a major cause of death for under fives, and of lifelong lung conditions such as asthma. It may also increase the risk of heart disease, stroke and cancer in later life.
Scientific studies conducted in Bangladesh by the NIH show that child death that occurs, parents make two more to ensure that some survive into adulthood. Something like if two children die, four extra are made. Families where no children have died are much smaller than families where multiple children have died. And yes, they accounted for the whole correlation/causation thing. This is the single biggest factor to the TFR.
"A recent New Zealand study found that the risks of death from second hand smoke is between the risk of getting melanoma and dying in a car crash.
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Interesting that you picked the NZ study and not one from somewhere else because here Melanoma and car accidents are both big killers due to us having far stronger sun, very low levels of ozone meaning we have the highest incidence of melanoma in the world: http://www.stuff.co.nz/nationa...
Also, the driving standards here are terrible as are the roads, and there's a lot of old cars still in use with the average age of cars being 14+ years meaning they lack a lot of the modern safety features and given that's an average, there are plenty of cars that are 30+ years old still running around. We have a very high accident rate and many deaths on the roads as a result of poor driving and old vehicles.
Put those together and then consider that smoking sits in between them and then think, how safe is smoking? It is already illegal to smoke in a car with children and there's a push for the country to be completely smoke free by 2025 because that's at least something that can be done to improve health as we can't fix the ozone layer, turn off the sun, or train drivers to not be crap behind the wheel apparently.
As for pollution, NZ is 85% renewable energy so that's nice, but transport makes up a lot of our pollution and the air in cities like Auckland is very poor at some times of the year due to traffic fumes along with a large amount of wood burners. There's very little support to move to EVs (I have one) or to encourage no-polluting heating (I have heatpumps) and there are even efforts to penalise those who generate their own electricity (I have solar) so it is pretty poor in the face of the whole clean green New Zealand image.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
Yes it does because if you listen to any liberal talk about these article the first thing out of their mouth is how XYZ ought to stop polluting so much because the pollution is bad and it kills people. I have NEVER heard a person in the media cover a story like this and come to the conclusion that while the pollution does kill people, the number of people saved by the pollution causing activities is much higher and therefore further analysis is required. NEVER EVER EVER has that happened. The "real world" implication of saying pollution kills anything is that the "pollution must be stopped" with a side of "its the corporation and evil rich that benefit".
It isn't a straw man when he is describing a situation that actually happens. A straw man is just that setting up a **fictitious** situation to knock down. This situation is real. These studies have been weaponized and used to advocate for pollution control on a massive scale that potentially harms lower income people's access to things that could help them. Food, electricity, fuel, etc. are all much more expensive due to environmental controls. That means environmental regulations are directly responsible for poverty and deaths related to poverty. Is this ever considered or discussed in the public? NO.
Some regulators think of it in passing but mostly from the corporate profit side i.e. higher prices mean less demand meaning less volume generally meaning less economies of scale and less profit. In "public" the media makes both sides evil - Pollution kills people and corporations are trying to kill people by preventing more regulations "for their own profit" (completely ignoring the benefit of lower prices to consumers saving lives)