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Comment by acd | Hacker News Reader

I think diesel gate executive personal assets should be frozen as a result of the emission scandal.

Thousands will die due to the dirty air pollution caused by these cars.

Is this actually the case? I haven't seen any hard numbers on pollutants. I was under the impression that even with the rigging, each car released far less emissions than that of heavier diesel engines.

I should clarify. Regardless of how polluting they are, I agree that assets should be frozen.

5000 persons will die per year in the EU due to diesel cheating. 15000 persons will die per year due to excess Nox emissions i.e. the result of selling in "clean diesel" by the car industry when in effect it is very dirty.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/15/diesel-e...

To be fair, they will die prematurely where it is not specified just how prematurely that will be.

I'm not trying to defend their actions. It just seems that if NOx emissions were such a threat, that we'd eliminate those that produce mass qualities of them. How can it be determined whether people died from these emissions of those of cargo ships?

Particulates from cargo ships aren't a major concern for human health. They're not long-lived in the atmosphere, so when emitted over the open ocean, they're removed from the air long before they reach populated areas.

Presumably into the sea. Is that a problem or is it a non event?

Not sure! It's way, way better than emitting it in a place where millions of people will breathe it, but I'm sure it's not harmless.

In case of NOx, this is not true. NOx can be cleaned fairly well from the exhaust by injection of AdBlue, it's just that cars don't carry a large enough supply and car manufacturers did decide that hey don't want customers to be bothered by filling that up. Trucks however trept AdBlue as a consumable that needs to be refilled like fuel and don't suffer from that particular issue. (Though some are apparently rigged to not use AdBlue to save money)

Seriously, screw that argument. The maritime industry produces vast more environmental damage than anything car related.

In fact, the 15 biggest containerships together emit as much SOx and NOx as all cars on the planet combined (source: http://www.industrytap.com/worlds-15-biggest-ships-create-mo...). Add the rest of the cargo fleet and cruise ships... even outright banning of cars would be only a dent in the emissions chart.

You could ban all the container ships in the world and the NOx level on your local city streets would still be above the limit. Not all emission is created equally.

c.f. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/03/pariss-first-a...

Yeah but a few cars here or there with lower NOx emission won't make a difference, not for the next 10-20 years given car life times.

What needs to be done is creating an efficient replacement for private transportation: public transportation which is actually worth the name, connects to shopping locations and especially also available during night times and on weekends/holidays as this is usually what keeps city people from discarding their cars.

Screw this argument. Particulate emissions in the middle of the ocean just aren't that important.

They are - greenhouse gases do affect the entire planet.

These aren't greenhouse gases.

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