One in Five. The Global Death Toll of Fossil Energy.

A study of global deaths in 2018 found that 8.7 million resulted from fossil fuel pollution. Researchers contend that amounts to one in five deaths that year.

The findings are eye-opening. East Asia has the worst results with some 30% of deaths in people over 14 apparently resulted from fossil fuel pollution. In Canada it was 13.6% with the US at 13.1%.

The enormous death toll is higher than previous estimates and surprised even the study’s researchers. “We were initially very hesitant when we obtained the results because they are astounding, but we are discovering more and more about the impact of this pollution,” said Eloise Marais, a geographer at University College London and a study co-author. “It’s pervasive. The more we look for impacts, the more we find.”

This new research deploys a more detailed analysis of the impact of sooty airborne particles thrown out by power plants, cars, trucks and other sources. This particulate matter is known as PM2.5 as the particles are less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter – or about 30 times smaller than the diameter of the average human hair. These tiny specks of pollution, once inhaled, lodge in the lungs and can cause a variety of health problems.

“We don’t appreciate that air pollution is an invisible killer,” said Neelu Tummala, an ear, nose and throat physician at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. “The air we breathe impacts everyone’s health but particularly children, older individuals, those on low incomes and people of color. Usually people in urban areas have the worst impacts.”

It looks like fossil fuels kill - a lot more than we had imagined. It stands to reason that the highest carbon fossil fuels, those that create more pollution, fuels such as bitumen and coal, result in even higher death tolls. 

If, as the study contends, nearly 14% of deaths in Canada are attributable to fossil energy pollution, why are we still subsidizing that industry instead of shutting it down? We did just that with asbestos, another hidden killer, and that was done by the Harper government.  Why are we spending billions of public money building pipelines for these companies that are causing us so much harm and and so many unnecessary deaths?

Niklas Hagelberg, at Unep, said: “Governments are injecting trillions of dollars into their economies – this is money borrowed from future generations. If we keep on investing into fossil fuels, we’re going to give our children not only a planet in its worst state, but also wasted money.”

It's not too late for our prime minister to do what's right but words won't suffice. Recent experience shows that those countries that have significantly trimmed their carbon emissions have one thing in common. They have governments that have implemented mandatory cuts - no empty promises, no wiggle room. Long term, binding cuts that survive changes in governments.  All we've ever had in Canada, under Conservative or Liberal governments, are weasel words wrapped around vague promises that fade into irrelevance with passing years and changing governments.