How does that give you any perspective? A huge percentage of the air pollution in NYC is from the same couple dozen buildings that were grandfathered into not needing to meet air pollution laws, as well as things like construction vehicles and cruise ships, which are completely unregulated. There is almost zero relationship between the benefits from fossil fuel use and the deaths from air pollution due to fossil fuels.
We technically could transition, but doing so would be massively expensive (whether we went with nuclear or renewables), and some industries would simply not be cost effective or would be eliminated entirely.
The consequence of that cost is the stress of financial burden and a slower economy- leading to a spike in suicide and all manner of diseases that can be induced by such stress.
Alternatively, massive taxation and wealth redistribution schemes could be tried to alleviate the self-inflicted poverty, but it would require rewriting the laws and constitutions of many countries to do so effectively across the world, and there's no telling what the consequences of that would be.
> There is almost zero relationship between the benefits from fossil fuel use and the deaths from air pollution due to fossil fuels.
You don't actually get one without the other, and understanding the cost of the alternatives is how it is "put into perspective".
The bit about NYC was largely irrelevant, imho, to the rest of the discussion, given that the issue is far larger than one city's bad policies and lack of jurisdiction over cruise ships. Also, NYC isnt going to be going without construction vehicles anytime soon.
The benefits of fossil fuels come from the energy output. The air pollution deaths come (mostly) from fine particulates. You could easily get the exact same set of benefits with like 99% fewer fine particulates.
[1] http://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/PressBriefings/Pages/MEPC-...
I think you'll find this is not true. Yes there are some low hanging fruit that could significantly reduce pollution but if you want the levels of production we enjoy today you are going to produce too much pollution. We are getting better, we are getting greener but this has been built on the back of extremely polluting industrial revolutions.