
Research finds Stockholm's congestion pricing may have reduced childhood asthma - oftenwrong
https://www.insidescience.org/news/driving-fee-rolls-back-asthma-attacks-stockholm
======
salesguy222
At the risk of being downvoted, I would like to raise a topic for
deliberation-

Why are some acts (driving and polluting) penalized, but other acts that also
cause harm (especially to children) are not penalized?

Driving and pollution are low hanging fruit, but what about polluting water
supplies? Trash, sewage, dumping, antibiotics and pesticides in food
sources....

Surely all of these things are dangerous to everyones health, especially
children.

Should we have facial recognition software for people walking around with bags
near water sources at certain hours of the day?

~~~
evgen
This is called "Whataboutism" and when you bounce to it you have already given
up on your main argument.

Some acts are penalized before others because the negative externality is easy
to identify, some are penalized before other problems because the agent of
negative externality is easy to identify and tax, and some are penalized
before other problems because those pushing for the penalty have a better PR
machine or more political muscle.

None of these conditions means that there are not other negative externalities
that need to be prevented or taxed/penalized, nor does it mean that some
contrived dystopian solution is a likely consequence of our desire to prevent
these other negative externalities.

~~~
salesguy222
That's fine, I agree with your assessment, even though you are implying that
by raising a question, I have somehow lost an argument :)

You say that "those pushing for the penalty have better PR/political muscle",
and you imply that they have more muscle than groups pushing for other
penalties, or maybe even against penalties.

What I would like to point out is, we are assuming that the majority of
citizens of Stockholm or Singapore or etc have clearly voted in favor of this
execution of public policy, because if they didn't, they would just leave or
rebel or something.

But in reality, I dare say that all over the globe, small elite groups of
people are paid exorbitant sums of money to come up with these laws and carry
them out. They then use cherry-picked statistics to justify the existence of
the program (and then attack any naysayers as wanting to live in polluted
dystopian hell holes like some stereotypical example of a Chinese city).

Would you agree then, that certain groups being able to penalize other people
for the supposed "crime of driving" is not the most optimal and equitable way
to balance negative externalities?

Perhaps it should be the burden of other people to deal with the negative
externalities of something reasonable to expect in city living, like air
pollution?

~~~
evgen
> That's fine, I agree with your assessment, even though you are implying that
> by raising a question, I have somehow lost an argument :)

I am not implying it, I am stating it outright. Your "argument" here is so
tissue-paper thin as to boggle the mind and it is not even worth wasting time
doing a point-by-point refutation.

It is the burden of "other people" to deal with the negative externalities of
driving, specifically those "other people" who decide to get in a car and
drive. Don't like it? Drive somewhere else.

~~~
salesguy222
For a very long time after cars were invented, the burden was actually the
reverse of what you describe.

It used to be, "you don't like cars driving near you? Live somewhere else."

And it seems most people were fine with that, choosing to move to rural areas,
where there were still cars, just less of them.

This localized tax is palatable to me because it is local and not national.
But, it is still worth pointing out that the people who penalize behavior by
taxing certain daily activities... may more so be in it for the money than for
the social good.

If you disagree, that's fine. But when people are dying and having negative
quality of living for so many more serious reasons, taxing congestion with a
complex technological system is, in my opinion, deck chairs on the Titanic.

I hope that those who are greatly affected by it choose to move and bring
their value elsewhere that welcomes them. Maybe Stockholm will feel their
absence, maybe not.

------
jaclaz
Just for the record, the Stockholm congestion tax is only one - actually one
of the least advanced - ERP systems implemented around the world, probably the
Singapore one being the most advanced (and soon to be replaced by a "second
generation" system):

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Road_Pricing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Road_Pricing)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congestion_pricing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congestion_pricing)

~~~
salesguy222
It is very advanced at dealing with the negative externalities its own system
creates ;)

The gantries cause drivers to congest other roads, to stop in the middle of
the road near the turn of the hour to try to lower the fee required... I'm
sure there's billing errors.

In Singapore, we call it "Every Road- Pay".

Sure we have low income taxes, but this is a less than desirable way to make
up for it.

------
lutusp
Apart from the political issues, I want to point out that air pollution can be
objectively measured, but the connection with childhood asthma can only be
conjecture for lack of rigorous scientific controls -- it's a correlation, not
an established cause/effect relationship.

I point this out because of the depressing regularity with which I see a raw
correlation presented as though it represents a linked cause/effect
relationship without the source meeting his scientific burden of evidence.

~~~
mikeyouse
There is essentially zero doubt about the causative link at this point. Some
studies will never be run because they would be deeply unethical, so we
satisfy significance through a preponderance of correlation:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3192198/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3192198/)

~~~
lutusp
> There is essentially zero doubt about the causative link at this point.

Science isn't based on hand-waving -- falsifiable empirical evidence is
required. Any number of assumptions like this have fallen by the wayside over
the decades, undermined by overlooked correlations that weren't included in
the original analysis.

The scientific bottom line is easy to state -- is the assumption falsifiable
using empirical evidence? If this condition cannot be met, it's not science.

Related:
[https://youtu.be/b240PGCMwV0?t=37](https://youtu.be/b240PGCMwV0?t=37)

> Some studies will never be run because they would be deeply unethical ...

That cannot be offered as an argument to justify dispensing with scientific
discipline. It's as simple as that.

> ... so we satisfy significance through a preponderance of correlation ...

Yes, but that is not science, it's politics or numerology. Using the method
you just described, I can prove that there's a connection -- a "link" \--
between sour cream sales and motorbike accidents:

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2640550/Does-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2640550/Does-
sour-cream-cause-bike-accidents-No-looks-like-does-Graphs-reveal-statistics-
produce-false-connections.html)

But, as is often said, correlation is not causation.

Does this mean I can claim there's no connection (or a poor connection)
between childhood asthma and air pollution? No, for the same reason that you
cannot say there is -- it's not scientific.

I ask that you think about your position. If we allow public policy to be
guided by the kind of pseudoscience you're advocating, if we dispense with the
falsifiability criterion, then religious beliefs can substitute for science,
and Creationism can be taught as science in public-school science classrooms.

~~~
ced
Can you name one source of pollution suspected of causing health issues, that
meets the criterion of falsifiability from evidence? It seems to me that as
soon as behaviour X is suspected of killing people, it becomes unethical to do
a controlled study that forces some people to live under X. So we're always at
the mercy of spurious correlations.

Consider cigarettes --- has there been a 40-year controlled study on smoking?
Yet, at some point, the observational evidence starts to pile up and one has
to make decisions based on that.

~~~
lutusp
> Can you name one source of pollution suspected of causing health issues,
> that meets the criterion of falsifiability from evidence?

Certainly -- I can name a dozen, each of them demonstrated using scientific
methods. Asbestos. Ionizing radiation. Sunlight. Tobacco. And so forth. Each
of these can be shown to cause health issues _in vitro_ as well as _in vivo_
\-- using properly designed, scientific animal studies.

> So we're always at the mercy of spurious correlations.

Not for a scientifically educated population, which -- if it existed -- would
reject this sort of pseudoscience.

A recent example of a shaky correlation that will doubtless shape public
policy is this one:

Link: [https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2017/01/shootings-
us-s...](https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2017/01/shootings-us-schools-
link-unemployment/)

Title: "Shootings in U.S. schools are _linked_ to increased unemployment"

Quote: "A rigorous Northwestern University study of a quarter-century of data
has found that economic insecurity _is related to_ the rate of gun violence at
K-12 and postsecondary schools in the United States. _When it becomes more
difficult for people coming out of school to find jobs, the rate of gun
violence at schools increases._ " (Emphasis added.)

Note the terms/phrases "linked", "is related to" and the tendentious final
sentence that tries to nail a nonexistent cause-effect relationship.

Obviously the original study cannot support this conclusion -- it reports a
correlation, not a link, not a cause followed by an effect.

This is a practice called "data mining" \-- underemployed researchers look for
correlations between things, then publish papers describing the correlations,
usually but not always with appropriate disclaimers ("Correlation is not
causation, much more research is needed"), but irresponsible journalists then
turn correlations into cause-effect relationships, as in this case.

In popular articles like this one, the word "linked" is often used to
magically turn a correlation into a cause-effect relationship, because it
means two things are bound together and move as one. Coincidences become
pseudoscience.

> Consider cigarettes ...

Not a good example for your viewpoint. Rigorous, double-blind _falsifiable_
animal studies demonstrate the carcinogenic properties of cigarettes.

> Yet, at some point, the observational evidence starts to pile up and one has
> to make decisions based on that.

Are you arguing that we should do without science? Without the benefit of
science, the U.S. concluded that Eastern Europeans were less intelligent than
others, and a resulting changed immigration policy condemned a huge number of
Jews and others to death during the Nazi era. Later, more objective
intelligence tests came to the opposite conclusion, and Mr. Yerkes, the
responsible psychologist, wrote a confessional _mea culpa_ that nearly no one
read. This is just one example, there are many.

When we do without science, we should at least acknowledge that we're doing
without science, and show an appropriate amount of skepticism about the
conclusions we draw.

~~~
ced
_Certainly -- I can name a dozen, each of them demonstrated using scientific
methods. Asbestos. Ionizing radiation. Sunlight. Tobacco. And so forth. Each
of these can be shown to cause health issues in vitro as well as in vivo --
using properly designed, scientific animal studies._

Right, but then you're still assuming that whatever you've demonstrated on
animals will hold on a human population. If that were always true, we would
never bother doing studies on humans at all.

 _Science isn 't based on hand-waving -- falsifiable empirical evidence is
required. Any number of assumptions like this have fallen by the wayside over
the decades, undermined by overlooked correlations that weren't included in
the original analysis._

You have to make assumptions to reach a conclusion. "Humans are similar to
animals" is one, and "There is no other cause that can reasonably explain this
observational evidence" is another. I fully agree that observational data is
often abused to reach sensational conclusions, but IMO when it is done
correctly, it is a vital ingredient of modern science. Pearl's book on
causality is basically devoted to this topic.

~~~
lutusp
> You have to make assumptions to reach a conclusion.

Science isn't about assumptions, it's about evidence. People make assumptions
every day, that's unavoidable, but we should be alert to the fact that it's
not science, and be appropriately skeptical. We need to be able to separate
the wheat from the chaff. That's all I'm saying.

Apropos:
[https://youtu.be/b240PGCMwV0?t=37](https://youtu.be/b240PGCMwV0?t=37)

------
EGreg
Question to Libertarians... Is this statism? Or legitimate penalties for
externalities? Kinda hard for all those parents of kids with asthma to sue all
those drivers and manufacturers after the fact. Isn't this reported result a
benefit that wouldn't have arisen in a purely anarcho capitalist society?

~~~
lend000
> Is this statism?

No, this is maximizing net freedom. Pollution infringes on the rights of
others... a libertarian solution would have been more efficient and penalized
the source on a consumption basis (gasoline tax), but the incentive would be
similar.

Here's a libertarian-ish analysis on the formerly proposed Washington state
carbon tax: [http://www.leolinsky.com/2016/11/06/carbon-tax-
initiative-73...](http://www.leolinsky.com/2016/11/06/carbon-tax-
initiative-732/)

I hope to erase a lot of extremist misunderstandings about freedom (as defined
by the broadly interpretable nonaggression principle), because I think a lot
of those on HN who currently identify with the Democratic Party would find
they actually have more in common with independent, moderate libertarians (or
even the LP) than they realize.

~~~
Symbiote
Sweden already has a high petrol and diesel tax. 1L of petrol is $1.61,
compared to about $0.56 in the USA.

That tax doesn't take account of where the fuel is used. The pollution caused
by a long journey through the countryside is less damaging than driving within
a city.

Additionally, reducing congestion improves journey times for other road users.
How much should that be worth?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_and_diesel_usage_and_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_and_diesel_usage_and_pricing)

~~~
fnordsensei
I learned recently that Finland is contemplating removing tax on both gasoline
and cars (including the purchase of cars) and replacing it with a tax on
distance driven, using some kind of mandatory installed device.

~~~
jabl
That was indeed the suggestion of one of the government ministers, but the
proposal caused a media storm and was withdrawn within a week.

~~~
fnordsensei
Oh right, I didn't know that.

------
purplethinking
Just yesterday it was decided to fund a new subway line by dramatically
increasing the congestion pricing. Hopefully that will decrease traffic
further. With the public transportation system in Stockholm most people really
have no business driving through town.

