Comment 106593

By notlloyd (registered) - website | Posted December 04, 2014 at 23:30:03 in reply to Comment 106591

It is difficult to speak on these topics here without being accused of being a wag (that is what trolls were called in my day.)

I tend to take a macro view on this issue.

Life expectancy in Canada is currently 11th highest in the world. Surprisingly, given our local health “statistics” three significantly polluted regions, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore outrank us with Japan coming in number 1.

With all due respect to the health lords around here, it is incredibly difficult to assign cause of death as specifically as they have. One of the biggest sources, if not the biggest source of long modern life expectancy has been industrialization. One of the biggest sources of industrialization has been the demand for independent means of transportation. Arguably, motor vehicle use increases life expectancy.

I have been told that using a gas powered lawn mower to cut an average lawn creates more toxic pollution than driving a car from Hamilton to Ottawa. (That would be amazing – less than a half a gallon of gas creating more lethal pollution than burning 15 gallons of gas.) Wood burning stoves (and by analogy camp fires) are more dangerous to humans than modern cars (A Saskatchewan scientist just found a 4500 year old body with lung cancer.) We are told that The EPA in the US may soon ban new installations of wood burning stoves.

I would be cautious in pointing to one study to support the proposition that cars are more lethal to us relative to many other dangers we face. Global warming deniers do that all the time.

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