Courtesy of the Times Colonist
Photo: A 2021 Health Canada report noted that in 2016, there were 15,300 premature deaths and 8,100 emergency-room visits attributable to air pollution in Canada, mostly arising from the combustion of fossil fuels, writes Trevor Hancock. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson
Last week, I noted the so-called “carbon tax” is actually a form of pollution pricing.
It is very clear that pollution causes harm. Oxford Reference defines it as “contamination or undesirable modification of soil, food, water, clothing, or the atmosphere by a noxious or toxic substance,” adding that “any form of pollution can have adverse effects on health.”
Moreover, that harm is not exclusive to humans. Plants, animals and entire ecosystems are also affected by pollution, and damage to them can indirectly affect us.
For example, we all carry a body-burden of persistent organic pollutants, much of which comes to us through our food.
In addition, polluted environments can have a social impact, as when a beach is closed due to contaminated water, or we can’t go outdoors due to air pollution, or food production is reduced by climate change.
All of these impacts have an economic cost. Broadly speaking, direct human costs are measured in the value of lives lost, the cost of treating pollution-related illness and the lost production due to sickness-related work absence.
For example, a 2021 Health Canada report on the health impact attributable to air pollution in Canada — mostly arising from the combustion of fossil fuels — noted that in 2016 there were 15,300 premature deaths, 8,100 emergency-room visits, 2.7 million asthma symptom days and 35 million acute respiratory symptom days per year.
The total economic cost of these health impacts in 2016 due to medical costs, reduced workplace productivity, pain and suffering was about $120 billion, or roughly six per cent of GDP.
Note that Health Canada considers this an underestimate of the full impact of exposure to air pollution in Canada, and that these costs do not include the impacts of air pollution on animals, plants or the wider environment.
Unlike air pollution, which is mainly a local condition with direct effects on health, the health costs of the carbon dioxide emissions (or more broadly, greenhouse gas emissions) that are the target of carbon pricing are experienced world-wide and indirectly.
The carbon we emit — and Canada is among the highest per person emitters in the world — has a global impact.
Here in Canada, we have seen the health, social and economic costs of heat domes, increased wildfires, atmospheric rivers and hurricanes, all of which are made more likely, more frequent and more severe by global heating.
Moreover, as a 2022 report from Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer noted: “The impacts are not just physical, however. Negative mental health impacts, such as worry, grief, anxiety, anger, hopelessness, and fear are linked to climate change.”
Food production, cost and availability will be affected by changes in our agricultural systems due to drought or flooding and changes in the distribution and availability of fish.
Communities will face increased inundation from rising sea levels, threatening the safety of their water supply and sewage systems and requiring expensive changes in infrastructure.
Meanwhile, communities in the North — where heating is occurring four times more than the global average — will also be affected by the shifting of forests and animals as climate changes.
But the global impacts are much more severe: Climate change, the World Health Organization states, “is the single biggest health threat facing humanity.”
We can expect to see millions of eco-refugees — many of them experiencing malnutrition and starvation — as large areas become unfit for habitation due to heat, desertification, rising sea levels and the like.
Meanwhile, the increasing frequency and severity of severe weather events will cause large numbers of deaths and injuries and much illness.
Infectious diseases, especially those spread by mosquitoes, ticks and other insects, will become more widespread as warmer temperatures enlarge the territory wherein those insects can survive and spread.
So carbon pricing is really a health measure. Its stated purpose is to encourage a reduction in the use of fossil fuels by making them more expensive, thus encouraging more efficient use and a switch to alternatives.
Not only will this contribute to lower carbon emissions, it will also result in less air pollution, since that mostly arises from fossil-fuel combustion.
And that, in turn, reduces the health impacts of both air pollution and climate change, which benefits all of us.
thancock@uvic.ca
Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy