General Motors - which knew about their broken ignition switches for over a decade - got away with a 900$m fine. That defect killed at least 124 people.
http://www.ibtimes.com/volkswagen-diesel-scandal-2015-emissi...
I am just astonished at the outrage over some skirting of an arbitrary number in an emissions standard, in contrast to the comparative yawn over the things other automakers have done that they knew would actually kill people.
On the other hand, the other gases released by diesel-burning automobiles do show direct health consequences, and VW has done the most to propagate diesel vehicles...
397 ppm, to be exact, or 0.0397%.
Its fairly innocuous at naturally occurring levels, which are not a "large percent" of the air. Nitrogen, Oxygen, and -- if you want to be extremely generous and say that "almost 1%" is "a large percent" -- Argon are the only things that have a remotely plausible case for being a large percent of the atmosphere, and together make up around 99.9%.
Carbon dioxide makes up a large percent of the remaining ~0.1%, but...
It's probably hundreds of thousands across Europe. VW's scam has added to those deaths. VW killed far more than 150 people.
NO2 kills about 2,600 people each year in London.
> The effects of the gas are particularly pronounced in London, where the Greater London Authority already recognises that it prematurely kills 2,600 Londoners each year;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/car-manufacturers/volksw...
Across Europe this is easily tens of thousands of people and it's easily an order of magnitude over 150.
VW market share is about 20% of that [2]
so about 4000 deaths if they polluted their fair share, but since they polluted 20% to 40% more that's about 2000/year additional deaths?
numbers are all over the place however, too many uncertainties and unmeasurable factors.
also my number doesn't come anywhere close to other estimates[3]
[1] http://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/assets/documents/reports/aqeg/nd-...
[2] http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/...
[3] http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-estimate-the-death-to...
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-vw-pollution-footprint...
http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-estimate-the-death-to...
while pollution will affects almost everyone on earth, the cumulative effect is not that much and pollution is not a major cause for deaths to begin with
http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.wrapper.ENVHEALTH3?lang=en...
> At present, outdoor air pollution kills in excess of 3 million people every year, and automobile exhaust is a significant part of the problem.
Are you talking about this bit?
> the harmful nitrogen oxides emitted by Volkswagen’s affected diesel vehicles – which the US Environmental Agency claims were 40 times higher than the legal level – could be responsible for as many as 106 deaths in the US between 2009 and 2015.
That's the US, where diesel is not as common as Europe.
Your link says that:
> From a global perspective, the actual death toll could be much higher.
http://www.euro.who.int/en/media-centre/sections/press-relea...
Some percebtage by car, of which some percentage by diesel cars, of which some are wv, of which some have defeat devices.
Edit: sorry totally misread parent post
I didn't claim that.