How many lives is a billionth of a degree worth?

[DavidV]

By David from Truth, Justice, and the American Way,cross-posted by MetaBlog

According to GM, the new federal fuel requirements will costs four to ten thousand dollars per car, mostly to use more expensive weight savings materials. Some environmentalists might dispute the numbers or cheer anything that makes cars more expensive to own, in the hope that fewer people are able to afford driving. However, that will not be the only impact.

If the amount the average person is willing to pay for a car does not change, people will respond to higher prices in two ways: they will keep their existing cars longer and buy cheaper cars. Keeping existing cars will delay the introduction of more efficient and luxurious cars in the future. Switching to cheaper, more efficient cars will increase efficiency at the cost of both luxury and safety. More families will be forced to squeeze into Honda Civics rather than Toyota Camry’s. Money that would have been spent on safety improvements will be diverted to increasing efficient. Smaller cars are not inherently unsafe, but they are inherently less safe, and thus the cost of the new fuel efficiency standards can be measured in both dollars and human lives. The cost in human lives of traffic accidents is well known - about 42 thousand lives each year in the U.S. How many people will the warming from the unspent gasoline kill? Actually, the oil not burned in cars will even not be “saved.” More efficient cars will simply make that oil available for other uses, which may or may not be more efficient.

Just how many lives is a billionth of a degree of global warming worth? Can we look forward to a new “no blood for freezing winters” campaign?

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[Benpercent]

Things like this make me think of situations where people are forced to deal with the unpleasant consequence of their actions/supports. Wouldn't it be entertaining and see an environmentalist try and justify his support for this federal regulation in light of this information?

[-archimedes-]

Money that would have been spent on safety improvements will be diverted to increasing efficien[cy]. Smaller cars are not inherently unsafe, but they are inherently less safe, and thus the cost of the new fuel efficiency standards can be measured in both dollars and human lives.

This statement alone warrants termination of employment for the author of such comments, albeit the revocation of GM's license to produce/market vehicles, and slashes at the heart of capitalists worldwide (or at least those with investments in GM) as the loss of lives through faulty/non-modernized safety engineering R&D practices reduces the consumer base through product support attrition.

[Steve D'Ippolito]

It's worth about a billionth of a life.

WHich if any one of us is lucky is about 3-4 seconds.

It took longer than that for my dialup to show me this reply form.

I should quit wasting time.