ISSN: 2691-5774
Authors: Attfield R*
Recent findings about nitrogen dioxide pollution in Britain and about particulate pollution worldwide raise ethical issues about the protection of human (and animal) health. Many urban areas of Britain have been found to have illegally high levels of NO2. But it turns out that there is a world-wide problem with particulates, particularly in large towns and cities in Third world countries, as well as in much of Europe and North America. In many cases diesel engines are to blame, and these should be phased out as soon as possible. In other cases the source is to be found in unregulated industrial expansion, or in dust-storms from recently expanding deserts. Remedies thus include reafforestation, the preservation or restoration of wetlands, and moves away from carbon-based electricity generation to generation from renewables, and from internal combustion engines to electric cars. The ethical case for saving people from nitrogen dioxide and particulate pollution turns out importantly to overlap with that for greenhouse gas mitigation. Chris McMahon pointed out to me on 14/12/17 that what is crucial is to abandon internal combustion engines. Abandoning diesel engines will enhance health in the present, but make, on average, only a few weeks difference to lifeexpectancy if petrol engines are used instead. Besides, most trucks and ships are propelled by diesel, and these need to be considered too. (The environs of ports and large airfields are very dangerous for those who live there; so are large cities such as Delhi and Mexico City.) Introducing electric cars does little good if the batteries are charged with carbongenerated electricity. We need to generate electricity from renewables, and yet to do this at a sufficient scale would require devoting some 15% of non-renewable energy to the production of renewable-generation technology. Nuclear fusion would solve the problems, but is not likely to be available in the foreseeable future. Each form of fuel needs to be considered in the round and from cradle to grave.
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