Air Pollution, Health and Ethics

Journal Title: Annals of Bioethics & Clinical Applications - Year 2018, Vol 1, Issue 1

Abstract

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 life expectancy 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 carbon generated 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.

Authors and Affiliations

Attfield R*

Keywords

Related Articles

Purely Consequentialist Legal Activism in the Brazilian Criminal Constitutional Jurisdiction based on Case Studies in the Jurisprudence of the Supreme Federal Court

The present study intended, based on the use of the methodology related to legal consequentialism, the field of consequentialist argumentation and possible risks of its use by judges, in particular, those who perform con...

Bioethics and Human Rights: The Genomic Editing Technique Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat (CRISPR-CAS9) and the Contemporary Biotechnological Challenges

This article deals with biotechnological advances, especially in the field of editing and genetic engineering. In contemporary times, the possibility of manipulating the human genetic heritage and creating perfect organi...

Unusual Case of Pyoderma Gangrenosum and Bilateral Ear

Levamisole has been considered an adulterant in cocaine and increasingly reported as the cause for many of the complications noted in cocaine users. The main reason for intentionally adding this compound to street cocain...

Ethics of Healthcare Personnel Declining Covid Vaccine Is it Ethical for Healthcare Professionals to Decline the Covid19 Vaccine if it is Available?

I recently had a student pose this question to me after class (virtually). It did not take me long to answer, my response was “only in very limited circumstances”. Allow me to explain why. When I think of healthcare ethi...

Who has the Custody over the Fertilized Egg in Vitro?

The issue of fertilized egg in vitro has been the object of controversy in the American courts. Some courts have recognized its right to future life while others have ruled that it was no more than pre-embryo and hence l...

Download PDF file
  • EP ID EP745128
  • DOI 10.23880/abca-16000103
  • Views 58
  • Downloads 0

How To Cite

Attfield R* (2018). Air Pollution, Health and Ethics. Annals of Bioethics & Clinical Applications, 1(1), -. https://europub.co.uk/articles/-A-745128