> [If you agree that the environment is worse off and that the environment being worse off causes more deaths, then you agree that they caused deaths.]
...I should have said “worse off than if VW had not cheated and all other variables remained the same”.
I don't question that more emissions results in more deaths. I question their ability to reliably calculate the number of deaths caused when dealing with numbers that small (~0.0003%) and leaving out some very important variables (which they do reference but don't incorporate). Of course, the publication was meant to compare the claimed vs actual emissions, but I'm talking in the more general case of overall emissions.
The publication claims that:
>> [Finally, we note that there may have been environmental benefits of the defeat device that we have not computed. For example, the reduced use of diesel exhaust fluid in selective catalytic reduction may potentially have also reduced ammonia slip, and therefore associated PM2.5 exposure and health impacts. In particular, Dedoussi and Barrett (2014) find that total PM2.5 exposure attributable to road transportation is caused approximately equally by NOx and NH3 emissions.]
I can think of a few more inadvertent environmental/health benefits of the defeat device:
For example, suppose that VW hadn't cheated and instead spent more time and money on R&D to come up with a legitimate solution. They would then have to pass this cost on to the consumers in the form of a more expensive car.
Would all of the people who purchased diesel VW's still have purchased them if they were more money?
If not, would they have purchased a car that produces worse emissions instead?
The VW Jetta has a 5 star crash rating. Would all of the people who purchased other cars purchased cars with the same crash rating, or perhaps a car with a worse crash rating?
There are a bunch of things that you could list that could all have an impact that rivals the 59 cited in the publication.
We're talking about 59 out of 17,500,000 (number of annual deaths integrated over 2008-2015). It wouldn't take much to actually find out that the VW emissions scandal actually resulted in more lives saved.
EDIT: That said, the publication isn't really trying to measure the amount of deaths caused by the scandal itself, but rather the increased emissions portion of it. Perhaps my original comment was out of line now that I think about it.