Oil and gas health impacts cost $77 billion per year
I chose an Axios article that discussed the estimated monetary health impacts from oil and gas production based on a peer-reviewed Environmental Research publication. The published paper, titled “Air pollution and health impacts of oil and gas production in the United States,” was released in May 2023 and highlights airborne harmful chemicals and their adverse effects to human health. Climate impact was also monetarily measured as a comparison, but more studies in this research were linked to epidemiology and human mortality. The significance of this article was that different fuel combustion processes--generating nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides, ammonia, and particulate matter—are known to impact air quality and therefore cause adverse effects to both humans and the environment.
With
recent literature findings linking oil/natural gas exposure through air
pollution and hospitalizations, emergency room visits, and cardiovascular
problems, Buonocore and co-authors sought a framework that could account for a
yearly estimate of damages by these fossil fuels. In their studies, premature deaths
had the greatest monetary impact due to the multitude of expenses, accumulating
over 99%. Using 2016 National Emission Inventory data provided by the EPA, they
operated with several detailed analytical chemistry models (CMAQ and BenMAP) to
simulate air quality in the continental United States across the year 2016. In
10 day spans across January, April, July, and October—each capturing different
seasonal ranges—they used functions to scale up predicted concentrations of
three significant airborne compounds produced by oil/gas drilling and storage:
nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and fine particulate matter (PM2.5). Overall,
they found NO2 to contribute the most to human impacts through air
pollution at 37% followed closely by ozone at 35% and particulates at 28%. When
scaled on a monetary level versus the climate impacts—which includes methane
leakage—the authors estimated air-pollution related health impacts were almost
seven times greater at $77 billion to $11 billion.
As seen
in Figures 1 and 2, oil and gas mortalities and asthma incidences were scaled to
a continental US map using analytical and population models, measuring deaths per
million people at the county level. The findings show that not only are
populated areas more susceptible to air-pollution related deaths and illnesses,
but also places near major shale gas basins—namely the Barnett and Permian basins
in Texas and the Hermosa basin on the Utah and Colorado border.
Comparatively,
the Axios article begins by immediately mentioning the findings of the CMAQ (community
multiscale air quality) model in the peer-reviewed article—roughly $77 billion
dollars per year in health impacts are caused by oil and natural gas production.
Then, they convey some of the specific statistics and chemicals involved in
these impacts by using bullet points and short statements. Overall, I found
this much easier to follow as the information was laid out in a what and why
format. They shared that the model predicted 7,500 deaths in 2016 from nitrogen
oxide, ozone, and particulate matter, and this was very significant because oil
and gas could demonstrate a previously unrevealed human expense.
Some
shortcomings of the article included not mentioning the wide cost interval
determined by the model—27 to 170 billion dollars was measured, so readers may
not understand that the original article only measured air-pollution data in certain
timeframes of the year. They also made no mention of climate impacts that were
measured—since methane is not known to be directly harmful to human health, the
author may have figured that cost unnecessary to share in such a short summary.
Finally, readers may come to assume that all air pollution was simply from oil
and gas production, but consumption and storage forms of oil and gas also contributed
approximately one quarter of measured results. Despite my criticisms, I would
still give Axios and author Ayurella Horn-Muller a strong 8/10 for their messaging.
Several quotes are credited to some of the authors, who are then able to emphasize
that human diseases can be impacted by gases released into the atmosphere by
oil and gas industries. Also, all appropriate links are available on the site,
and the peer-reviewed article is open access.
The provided figures are interesting, as they indicate that most of the oil/gas-related deaths occur near where it is extracted or refined. I'm sure there are more deaths (or general worsening of quality of life) that come from the overall pollution resulting from oil and gas emissions though, but I'm not sure how one would alter the study to capture this.
ReplyDeleteThere are almost certainly more deaths as the peer-reviewed article insists in section 4.1, as they find an example with compressor stations being undercounted in PA between 2013 and 2016/17 on the EPA's site. Also, the study evaluated health impacts based on only "production, transportation, and storage" which doesn't include indoor gas leaks and "downstream combustion" of oil and natural gas. It sounds like it would be quite the challenge to obtain this additional data, but this would be important to know for the future in helping set more appropriate regulations!
DeleteI found the fact that storage also contributes significantly to air pollution really interesting and something I hadn't thought about before. It would have been interesting in the effort of more efficient communication if the Axios article had disease with similar death rates and projects that cost similar amounts of money to make those values more comprehendible. Especially in the case of values in the multiple millions we don't have a good concept of what that means so the comparison would be effective to increase understanding.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great point you make, Katherine, and I think the original study tried to do that with comparing climate impact costs (i.e. sea level rise, some diseases, agriculture impacts), but Axios doesn't communicate that information. Considering Horn-Muller reports the EPA is considering methane regulations, perhaps this would be an important statistic to include ($11 billion tied to climate impact for 2016) in emphasizing why primary pollutants need to be more highly regulated.
DeleteI thought the way they went about doing this study was very interesting, especially the part where they chose 4 different 10 day spans in each season to get concentration readings. I also very much like the fact that you pointed out one of the shortcomings was the massive margin of error that they gave in the news article. However, with the context of the scientific article you'd know that it's due to the fact that they took measurements in different seasons. I was also curious as to why that might be. Why is the cost so drastically different in different seasons? It's an interesting thought
ReplyDeleteI'm not entirely sure the cost was drastically different in different seasons, but considering the study states "The emissions from all other sectors--both natural and anthropogenic were kept constant at their respective levels from 2016," that certainly could affect the averages as ozone was modeled to spike in winter and spring months based on Supplementary Figures 3a and 3b. I think Axios is fair to report the middle of the confidence interval value, but some added context would be helpful!
DeleteI would agree with your rating. I think overall the review article accurately represented the information found in paper as a lot of it was directly quoted from the article. I wish the review article included more graphical description of the health impacts of oil and gas. I think a visualization of the states that were impacted by oil and gas would create a more impactful explanation of the results. Also, I thought it was interesting in the paper that if you only look at the particulate matter in the testing regions it would be a significant underestimate of the health impacts oil and gas has on humans.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your feedback Kate! I agree that graphical representations would also provide a helpful visual, although I understand--with such a multitude of figures from this study--this might make selecting one a tad too specific for a brief article. You also make a good point on particulate matter--one thing a future study like this could improve upon is comparing policy changes with exposure to PM, ozone, and NO2 to show how much this could benefit human health in the long run.
DeleteI agree with your overall input. I like how despite being a short article it included 8 links to not only other articles from the same news company but to other references like the EPA and the actual article. This news source is really interesting because all their articles are listed as "three minute reads", which is true if you just skim the article, but there is the very accessible option to go into a deep dive through their various articles and sources that appear to be all public access. I think this news source does a good job at citing and providing more information, however like others have said I think it would benefit from including a bit more information, especially figure wise. I like the bullet points because it gives a concise path to follow, but I find when dealing with the environment, figures really drive the point home. If they put the figures about the deaths or asthma next to the figures showing the locations of oil and gas emissions it would've been an accessible way to show the impact visually.
ReplyDeleteAs I'm seeing others comment about how figures would be helpful to include in the article, I think you're absolutely right. Seeing the visual impacts on air-pollution related exposures throughout the country (via oil and gas production, transportation, and storage) would raise more eyebrows than simply throwing out a number that has such a wide interval. That being said, the concise wording in the article is easy to follow and supports the title well.
DeleteI agree that the news article overall did a good job conveying the main findings of Buonocore et al. Given its short length, I was surprised to find that the author actually mentioned the fact that states such as New York that do not produce much oil or gas are also associated with higher counts of oil/gas deaths per million. This finding drew my particular interest, and I am glad that the author of the Axios article did not attribute oil/gas production as the sole cause behind air pollution that harms the public's health. That said, I also think the news article could have included more visualization in order to illustrate the main points in a more striking way. Furthermore, I think the news article also fails to emphasize that while the findings of the scientific paper present staggering costs, those health impact costs can go even higher if we include indoor gas leakage, social costs, etc.
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree with your rating of the article, as the author shows a good understanding of the scientific paper and therefore does a quality job identifying many of the main points presented. While the article is on the shorter side, the author could have emphasized some more significant details in the scientific paper, but it is not necessary, as one would assume someone who is more devoted to learning about the topics presented could easily access the scientific paper for more input. While this article does a fine job describing the issues presented in the paper, I think it would be very helpful and more compelling if the author had included more graphical representations of the health impacts of oil and gas, which is clearly depicted in the scientific paper. I think it would certainly have an effect on the understanding of the general public rather than just people in academia related to this sort of research, and perhaps it could grasp more people's attention. I also really appreciate your comment about consumption and storage forms of oil and gas contributing to measurements, as that is a finding that I would feel is too important not to mention in the news article. After all, not everyone is going to read the original research paper as well, especially since the news article does at the very least an adequate job portraying the research on its own.
ReplyDeleteBoth as a research scientist and a citizen who cares about the environment, I appreciate how this research utilizes the fine-quality data to expand our ability in describing social issues. This is very comprehensive modeling effort that helps people understand how much they are impacted by atmospheric pollutants. I agree with you that they did amazing job on straightforward messaging with concrete statistics. However, I wonder why the article did not share the maps, so the readers could zoom into the counties they live in and delve a bit deeper into this issue. Additionally, pollution and climate modeling is extremely complicated, any model include multiple assumptions, biases, and uncertainties. I think it might be more helpful to provide readers with resources to further learn about local and regional air quality threats, such as webpage links for NAAQS or other important air quality info, or what people can use to advocate for clean air and public health justice.
ReplyDeleteHi Tiantian, I appreciate the suggestions you're making in terms of how the article could improve, especially with providing other links and air quality info! Part of me thinks the author didn't want to get too niche into the subject about uncertainty with including some of these mapping models, but I agree that even just showing regional health impacts to oil and gas could help make more readers feel concerned. The maps could prove the connection between oil and gas producing/transporting/consuming areas and more negative health impacts experienced per person at the county level.
DeleteI find it interesting that the original news source is not formatted as one might expect an article to be. It is very much a statement of facts mostly through bullet-points rather than giving the more common anecdotal background and interpretation of data. I think this choice of format may impact the point you made about the missing information in the article. They lack the normal framing that likely would have included the uncertainty in the data as well as collection methods.
ReplyDeleteThe impact of storage facilities, as opposed to consumption of oil and gas, upon health outcomes was something I had not considered before and found particularly interesting. With regards to the accuracy of the news article, it appears that it served mostly as a primer to further reading. Within the news article, Horn-Muller provided essentially a synopsis of the research paper's abstract with accompanying statements from researcher Buonocore. I feel that while the news article did not provide in depth analysis, it was effective at what Horn-Muller intended, with a short read time and ease of access to further information should the reader's interest be piqued.
ReplyDeleteI agree the news article did a good job of getting across the major points of the scientific article. Although it doesn't mention the uncertainty associated with the cost of $77 billion in health impacts, the news article does use real numbers from the scientific article and presents the information in a direct and impactful way. The numbers listed for excess deaths, asthma attacks, and new cases of childhood asthma are the same as presented by the study. The author also mentioned what states were affected at the highest rates, and whether or not the state had associated gas and oil activity. I agree the news article affectively got their point across and represented the scientific article fairly.
ReplyDeleteI would definitely agree with your rating. I feel like for the most part the news articule did a good job of accurately portraying the data from the research. They included lots of direct quotations from the scientific paper which helped them not lose the message in translation. I also really liked how the article provided various different links to constantly fact check what they are saying. I also thought while they did not provide too many graphics in the article the ones it did provide were very informative.
ReplyDeleteThe 8/10 rating that you gave this article definitely seems accurate to me. I found that the direct, concise presentation of the research data allowed for more impact on the reader. The way that the authors framed the article- what and how the data was gathered, how this affects the reader, and why the reader should care- felt like the perfect elementary presentation of a much broader, more serious issue. The most important points of the scientific article, including the accurate mortality statistics, asthma case statistics, and the total monetary impact of these negative health outcomes, were accurately depicted in the Axios article. In the scientific article itself, I thought it was interesting that they constructed the climate model using only one month to represent each season, but I appreciated that they denoted it as a 'pseudo-annual' model.
ReplyDeleteI find the figure you included of the deaths and asthma incidences caused by air pollution across the United States to be captivating and striking. As we discussed in class Tuesday, people are quicker to care about working to fix an issue when their health is directly threatened, like the stratospheric ozone depletion potentially dooming everyone to get skin cancer if nothing was done to stop it. I think more graphics like this should be shown to people so that they take air quality more seriously and work to help improve it. Do you know of any other graphics/data/figures like this that have been circulated in popular media to get people to pay attention to air quality? I think if more people (especially those that live in big cities or have loved ones in big cities) knew that populated areas are more susceptible to air-pollution related deaths and illnesses, they would hold themselves and the people around them to do what they can to improve air quality.
ReplyDeleteHi Ali, I absolutely agree with your follow-up analysis. Maps I've seen increasingly in media this year are updates to the North American air quality map, as forest fires in the US and Canada were especially prevalent this year and had major impacts on air quality at certain points this spring/summer. However, nothing with respect to regular oil & gas production seems to circulate as frequently, so I hope future studies like these can continue and their results be featured in even more popularly known news sources. As you point out, people are more likely to feel threatened/impacted and therefore apply pressure to the oil and gas industries (in this example) when seeing local impacts to their health.
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