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Frankly I find this a little bit nauseating. If a plague wipes out an integer percentage of humanity then Earth will be less polluted,... yay? What those satel

by zaroth 7y ago

Frankly I find this a little bit nauseating. If a plague wipes out an integer percentage of humanity then Earth will be less polluted,... yay? What those satellite pictures are showing may be marginally cleaner air. But it’s also millions of people out of work and an economy stalled and not producing for its populous. That roughly equates to people lives significant worse, not better.

fortran77 7y ago
I posted this link, but I have the same reservations you do. Tyler Cowen was discussing this on his blog.
Apocryphon 7y ago
> What's the lesson here? It seems clearly incorrect and foolhardy to conclude that pandemics are good for health. Again I emphasize that the effects calculated above are just the health benefits of the air pollution changes, and do not account for the many other short- or long-term negative consequences of social and economic disruption on health or other outcomes; these harms could exceed any health benefits from reduced air pollution. But the calculation is perhaps a useful reminder of the often-hidden health consequences of the status quo, i.e. the substantial costs that our current way of doing things exacts on our health and livelihoods.
- zaroth 7y ago
  I’m not sure that’s a valid way to do the calculation. A net benefit is not a cost. A net benefit is a benefit. A proper analysis looks at costs and benefits together and calculates the net result. There are inherent damages (externalities) to the way that we do things, but the correct analysis is to examine the substitute ways to do things and what their relative (increased) costs are in exchange for decreases damages. So you can say we can reduce A amount of pollution, which is expected to save B lives, at an increased cost of C, which drives D amount of people into unemployment or poverty. Looking at one thing without examining the overall effect on the whole system is pretty pointless, even inhumane to a point.

by zaroth 7y ago

fortran77 7y ago

I posted this link, but I have the same reservations you do. Tyler Cowen was discussing this on his blog.

Apocryphon 7y ago

> What's the lesson here? It seems clearly incorrect and foolhardy to conclude that pandemics are good for health. Again I emphasize that the effects calculated above are just the health benefits of the air pollution changes, and do not account for the many other short- or long-term negative consequences of social and economic disruption on health or other outcomes; these harms could exceed any health benefits from reduced air pollution. But the calculation is perhaps a useful reminder of the often-hidden health consequences of the status quo, i.e. the substantial costs that our current way of doing things exacts on our health and livelihoods.

zaroth 7y ago
I’m not sure that’s a valid way to do the calculation. A net benefit is not a cost. A net benefit is a benefit. A proper analysis looks at costs and benefits together and calculates the net result. There are inherent damages (externalities) to the way that we do things, but the correct analysis is to examine the substitute ways to do things and what their relative (increased) costs are in exchange for decreases damages. So you can say we can reduce A amount of pollution, which is expected to save B lives, at an increased cost of C, which drives D amount of people into unemployment or poverty. Looking at one thing without examining the overall effect on the whole system is pretty pointless, even inhumane to a point.