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Comment by jonplackett | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if there's a way to put a figure on the damage those 9 million vehicles have done. For example, we know that diesel cause cancer [1] and these cars were emitting more than they should have been. How many extra deaths did they cause?

[1] https://www.hazards.org/chemicals/fuming.htm

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I remember this being a very popular take on reddit back when the story broke out (and calls to try VW execs for murder). I remember the number 120 (but seems they or my memory is not that correct [1]) edit: Another find was 5k/year in europe [2]

What I found fairly frustrating was seeing this angle only limited to VW (even when it became clear that many makers acted similarly) - but it also felt like a weird angle in general. Should we calculate deaths by pollution in general and treat them as murder? It would be an interesting reminder on what our technological society is built.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal#D...

[2] https://phys.org/news/2017-09-dieselgate-deaths-europe-year....

I think it is some kind of manslaughter or willful negligence.

If a local government enacted a law for factories that they should all have fire sprinklers installed, to save x number of lives per year.

Then the a factory operator decides to pretend they installed sprinklers, but did not.

Shouldn't they be culpable for excess death?

I think it's similar here - the EU mandated a safety measure (a certain limit on NOx and particles), the car companies merely pretended to comply.

> Should we calculate deaths by pollution in general and treat them as murder? It would be an interesting reminder on what our technological society is built.

It sounds like a can of worms you definitely do not want to open. It's probably uncomputable. Sure, pollution may directly decrease people's life span. But having private cars, ambulances and helicopters being able to transfer people to specialized hospitals in emergencies directly saves lives. So does a generator providing emergency power for said hospital. Then there are n-th order effects of how our fossil-fuel-based civilization impact peoples' health and lifespans. It's likely impossible in practice to meaningfully untie all those interdependencies in order to put a meaningful body count on diesel engines. It's prohibitive to even do this on the margin.

On the other hand, a clear fact remains: diesel emissions are bad for peoples' health, and an engine that pollutes more is worse than one that pollutes less. It's an externality, just one that's hard to price on the margin.

So perhaps we should sidestep the problem and price in the externality in bulk. To the extent that a given type of pollution, in aggregate, causes health problems, we should tax it in proportion and funnel the funds into public healthcare.

Legally there is a difference between exploiting loop holes, e.g. temperature windows, and putting these loop holes in to an extent through lobbying and actively ignoring even these loop holed regulations. Everybody did the former, with some over stepping. VW did the latter. and that is the reason only VW managers are on trial at the moment.

Personally, both approaches suck, but only is most likely illegal. What pisses me of even more is the fact that VW waited, and German authorities with them, until VWs gray eminence Ferdinand Piech died. only to avoid asking how much he knew...

I would actually really like it if a public-health approach was taken to household choices. Driving a car is simply expensive for society at large, because it has all sorts of negative effects on air quality, pedestrian safety, even stuff like municipal service provision (less density = higher costs). This isn't priced in, either in terms of taxation (normally you tax goods that cause social ills heavily, like cigarettes). In fact, the reverse happens. This is stupid, and bad for everyone, even car drivers.

And as always, the poor pay more. Your plumber, landscaper, construction crew need a car, but you're not gonna pay them more, are you.

Always some out of touch chodes getting paid six figures to work from home telling the rest they should be taxed more for using a car or something stupid.

It would be pretty easy to offer a tax rebate for people who use a van for work.

Nah. Too easy to game. Let them pass on the costs to their customers.

Actually, I like when goods reflect their cost of production, the economy works better that way.

Exactly, just add the cost of cleaning up pollution to everything, then use the money to clean up the pollution.

Side effects: cheaper ways of cleaning up pollution, and people making less pollution so their stuff is cheaper

Anything else is just cheating

> Your plumber, landscaper, construction crew need a car, but you're not gonna pay them more, are you.

Why not? If they all have to pay the same tax, they'll all start charging more. Same way they do if the price of pipe or lumber or gas goes up.

Exactly. We're paying for it somehow, the only question is whether the costs should be borne proportionately by the people that impose those costs. And the reasonable answer is: "Of course!"

How do plumbers, landscapers and construction crews survive in countries where car ownership and gas is taxed heavily?

They have higher rates and their are fewer of them . And as a consequence 99.9% people mow their lawn themselves. Even many software engineers here do significant own work when the family builds a house. At least in bigger companies it is fully socially accepted that a software engineer is less productive at work during the year they are building a house.

- Living in a high tax country

Unfortunately the poor will also pay more for the climate change the diesel causes, and are more likely to be affected by the crap air.

The rich always make sure they never pay for anything. That’s why they’re rich.

Calculate deaths by ignorance and treat them as murder, too. Why not.

should we calculate deaths by pollution --- yes.

Should we treat them all as murder --- no. For the time being this would classify everyone as a murderer, so it's impractical.

Should we treat intentionally illegal pollution as murder --- yes.

I find infuriating that, globally, most of the fines will be paid to customers (who were misled in their purchase) instead of the actual victims (the public and, a fortiori, the people who got and will get sick).

How did we turn this health issue into a business one?

I wondered the same thing. How many customers can honestly say that the emmission levels had anything to do with their purchase? It is the governments/health services that have to pick up the pieces if the emmissions were really that bad.

It also staggers me that a company can afford to pay $30B in fines and costs. Do you think the ATM can fit their bank balance on the screen (perhaps it can now!)

There is e.g. [1] which doesn't paint a pretty picture.

I'd btw. put blame also on introducing tax incentives for diesel cars in the first place. Without those this wouldn't have happened. And those were to prevent tax arbitrage between European countries :/.

[1] https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/200596/1/1668020459....

The analysis I saw back then limited itself to vilifying VW, looking at excess deaths from PM2.5 etc., not taking into account any reductions in other emissions caused by the vehicles getting better mileage.

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