The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), is one of those leftist fringe groups that, in the face of massive lying regarding COVID, legalized assisted suicide and a rotten corrupt socialized medical system, has decided the real health crisis facing Canadians is fossil fuel use. A wonderful chemist and blogger by the name of Blair King is keeping an eye on the miscreants, though, and he has a great post up at his A Chemist in Langley site correcting some of the wacky doctors’ political nonsense.
King notes the doctors, in a recent article in the National Observer, claimed this:
“fossil fuel air pollution is responsible for one in seven premature deaths in Canada”
He then proceeds to demolish this claim:
Let’s look at that claim that: “air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels is one of the leading causes of premature mortality in Canada”. Their claim links to a Health Canada report with the title: Health Impacts of Air Pollution in Canada: Estimates of morbidity and premature mortality outcomes – 2021 Report. Upon reading this report one thing becomes abundantly clear: the claim made by CAPE is not supported by (or even made in) the report.
Reading the Health Canada report I was most struck by the absence of any significant statements about fossil fuels. Specifically, the term “fossil fuels” appears only a single time in a discussion about the formation of nitrogen dioxide compounds. The report does indicate that fossil fuels are a leading cause of premature mortality in Canada.
The Health Canada report identifies “air pollution” as a major cause of premature mortality and then it goes on to discuss the causes of air pollution but in doing so it provides the data to point out that the burning of fossil fuels represents only a very minor cause of that air pollution.
Lets start with the PM2.5which according to the Health Canada report represents the source of approximately two-thirds of the premature deaths. For those unfamiliar with the term, PPM2.5refers to a class of fine particulate matter (dust) that is sufficiently fine as to fit through a 2.5 micron filter. PM2.5 is a particularly troubling component of air pollution because it is believed to have a disproportionate effect on human health and may even be small enough to affect fetuses in utero. Decreasing exposure to PM2.5 is a solid goal that will improve community health. So what does the report say about the source of the PM2.5? Let’s look at their table:
Yes, you read that right, the “Oil and Gas Industry” and “Transportation and Mobile Equipment” contributed 48,000 tonnes of PM2.5 to the national emission total…out of a total of 1,600,000 tonnes! Doing the math fossil fuels contributed approximately 3% of the total anthropogenic PM2.5. Notice that qualifier: “anthropogenic.”
That is an incredibly important proviso because forest fires produce almost the same amount of PM2.5 as humans activities but are not included in the accounting in this report (“fires” in the report represents cooking fires) but absolutely affect human health.
For those of you who like graphics, see below a figure depicting the various sources of PM2.5. What you will notice if you blow up the figure is those fossil fuels don’t appear. They are combined in the “Other” category because don’t even warrant their own color!
…The second claim to be examined is the suggestion that fossil fuel pollution is responsible for one in seven premature deaths in Canada. This claim is derived from a paper Global mortality from outdoor fine particle pollution generated by fossil fuel combustion: Results from GEOS-Chem. Now in this case the reference actually makes that claim, but, as I will demonstrate, that claim is so obviously wrong as to be incredibly puzzling and clearly represents a failure in the peer review process
This article identifies the connection between PM2.5 and premature death and using a proprietary model argues that 34,000 deaths a year in Canada can be attributed to PM2.5. This is presented in Table 1 of the article below.
This number (34,000 deaths a year) is so much higher than the Health Canada value (10,000 deaths a year) that it has to raise alarm bells. Are we really to believe that Health Canada, the organization that compiles all this data for Canada, so completely missed out on all these deaths? Now remember Health Canada not only compiles these results but they correlate all the other causes of death and so we are to believe that Health Canada managed to mis-attribute 24,000 deaths a year?
That being said, even if their numbers were reliable it would still be a mess because look at Table 1. The study incorrectly asserts that fossil fuels are the source of 85% of PM2.5 emissions in Canada. But wait, didn’t we establish above that fossil fuels represent only 3% of anthropogenic PM2.5 emissions and likely less than 2% of total PM2.5 emissions (when you add forest fires). That means instead on 1 in 7 premature deaths being caused by “fossil fuels” the number is closer to 1 in 100 of premature deaths. But that number doesn’t make nearly as good a headline for a political campaign.
As for the claim that 1 in 5 deaths worldwide being caused by fossil fuels, that number is similarly ridiculous. In the US the study attributes 81% of PM2.5deaths to fossil fuels while in Europe it is 75.7% of PM2.5. Given that fossil fuels represent about 3% of Canadian anthropogenic PM2.5 do we really imagine that either of those figures are at all credible?
…It is likely no one stopped to ask whether the inputs for the models were appropriate because none of the reviewers would recognize the data looked wrong. It takes someone from that field to look at the data and say: “wait that number is wrong”. In this case anyone familiar with PM2.5 would ask about forest fires (not included in the inventory as they are not “anthropogenic”) or about construction dust or about simple road dust. Sadly, none of the reviewers asked those questions and so we have a paper with a huge attribution problem based on bad inputs.
So once again we have well-intentioned health practitioners demonstrating my father’s (a physician himself) adage: “never trust an MD on any topic that is not related to medicine.” CAPE’s “Stop Fossil Advertising” campaign, while clearly well-intentioned, is simply not supported by the research it cites. Rather, the campaign appears to be based on a combination of bad science and a bad reading of the science all mixed together with a lot of good intentions.
Blair King's father understood the risks associated with the "fatal conceit” that makes an expert on one thing suppose he or she is an expert on all things. It doesn't work that way and the fact many believe it does is one the foundational problems of our civil society today.
#CAPE #Canada #Climate #Emissions #Science #PM2.5 #FossilFuels #Advertising
Excellent article. Hope it gets wide readership. Air pollution in Canada and the US has decreased steadily and dramatically over the past 50 years. The claim by CAPE is wildly false and misleading., made by a group of ignorant, arrogant ideologues. Unfortunately, due to the high regard that most people have for physicians, CAPE's false claim will likely garner too much credibility, and help drive public policy in the wrong direction.
Yes… And without fossil fuels the life expectancy would soon be back to 40, as it was before someone discovered coal would burn. Premature deaths? Put some context around that