Re:Germany Is Burning Too Much Coal
by mikeash on Tuesday November 14, 2017 @12:14PM
(#15696991)
They have a pretty bad experience with coal, too. Several thousand Germans die each year due to pollution from coal-fired power plants. Yet there's no urgent push to immediately shut down every.
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Because that's invisible.
Still, n * 1000 deaths (in n years) may rationally be preferable to m deaths once, even if n * 1000 >> m
Risk assessment is a funny thing. Economists and psychologists have done great experiments along these lines.
I can see it if m is, say, 90% of the entire population. But when m is measured in thousands, how is the vastly larger death toll ever rationally preferable just because it's spread out a bit?
It's not even spread out that much. Worldwide, coal kills more people in two months than nuclear ever has, and that's including nuclear bombs.
> Several thousand Germans die each year due to pollution from coal-fired power plants.
Do you have a source for this?
Sure, here: https://www.euractiv.com/section/health-consumers/news/repor...
Quick summary of figures: in 2013, Germany suffered 1,860 deaths due to coal plants in Germany, 1,770 deaths due to coal plants in other countries, and German coal plants also caused 2,490 deaths in other countries.
There are probably too many significant figures on those numbers, but the general idea of "several thousand" should be more or less right.