Diesel Soot, by any other name, is just as toxic !
Diesel Soot, by any other name, is just as toxic !
GangaPrasad Rao
Energy, Environmental and Mineral Economist
gprao64@gmail.com
Caveat: This blog pre-supposes the reader has perused an earlier blog ‘Cause Bond-based Political cycle Government, NGDP Optimization and Budgeting’, gprao64.blogspot.com
“kuchch milaega... .... ....Sheikh OC Kar”. That was all of 45 years ago when I heard a voice in my head suggesting I walk in to, and sniff the black soot vented by an MSRTC bus as it laboured past me trudging home from KV Ambarnath, stopped, then started with a belch of black soot. That I mocked the suggestion, and yet heard “Response....Record” as I continued my walk, is a different matter. The problem, that of exposure to diesel soot suffered by pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, residents, commuters, and shoppers continues unabated to this day. In fact, if data were collected, collated and published, it’d reveal that the population-wide exposure to diesel soot has enlarged many, many times over. Our population, 550 million in 1972, is today all of 1300 million. Our road network, the strength of public and private automobile fleet, bus and truck fleet, as well as their VMT, freight transported and diesel consumption, have enlarged several times concomitantly with the population count and economic expansion. In fact, there are those among us who deem it their ‘fait accompli’ to have been born in the 60s and 70s only to suffer the worst of exposures to diesel soot, and earn the dubious distinction of being counted in ‘asthma statistics’.
But that was then. Today, India, has in a span of 70 years, achieved a feat not many nations can boast of - the largest of railway networks, a remarkably safe, if not the most efficient nuclear power program, a space program envied and bought in to by advanced nations, a higher education system that exports brain all around the world. One’d claim the nation has leapfrogged in to the developed club of nations...or, almost. And yet, we continue to grapple with the denial of many fundamental, constitutionally-enshrined rights, and fight shy of legislating other public and private rights. Environmental Inequity, resulting from the denial of a constitutionally-protected equal right to safe and healthy public environment to all sections of the society, is one such. In the absence of a constitutionally-guaranteed right to public health, the ‘exploit-the-commons-and-the-public-to-aggrandize-privately’ right-leaning Nominal paradigm, interacting with pre-existing social imbalances, has brought the nation to the brink of environmental disaster, and forced public health inequity upon a gullible people within a health-polarized nation.
From an Indian village in which the stray bus or truck that passed by, also offered a ride to the hapless along the way, to an India in which the teeming urban and suburban millions are exposed daily to unceasing soot, benzene, mercury and lead pollution from buses, water-tankers, fuel-tankers, construction vehicles, school vans and SUVs, our nation has paid a steep price in health inequity for the divisive growth engendered by the Nominal paradigm. Vented by rickety and not-so-rickety buses in the public transportation fleet, overloaded trucks traversing the length and breadth of the nation, and diesel generators at shops that’d otherwise lose business to power cuts, diesel soot - a toxic combination of Sulfur, Nitrogen, PAH, and mercury, lead and dioxin-laced PM, pervades the air and lines very street in every town, and the suburbs of every city. Irreversible health damages from exposure to diesel soot concentrate among pregnant women, infants and pre-teen children with under-developed lungs, commuters and asthmatics; those exposed to diesel PAH grime suffer decrements in lung-capacity, elevated cardio-pulmonary risks, and perhaps, even a reduction in IQ and longevity. In a marginalized society shackling off the lethargy of foreign rule and transforming itself in to self-sufficiency, if not prosperity, sustainability took a back seat to political expediency, economic opportunity and livelihood security, and with predictable consequences on environmental and social equity. Nominal incentives tied to equity markets, specifically, the per-capita paradigm, as well as the search for GDP-boosting and tax-revenue yielding economic activities, have forced the governments of the day to tolerate an environmentally-degrading nominal paradigm that health-exploits the poor, the urban and sub-urban working people, and the health-needy. It is a sad testament to the times, that those opposed to pollution and the inter-twined social inequity, are deemed anti-development by resource-trapped politicians and the mafia, and are either bought away, pulled in to a political conspiracy, or hounded away from careers and public opportunities.
But this is no diatribe about political and business morals, or the lack of it. If diesel soot is indeed the health-monster that it is made out to be, shouldn’t the society and the Government it elects, seek to contain the scourge? But would we, rationally expect the Resource constituency or the Nominal capitalists and the political government they support, to act on our behalf? Would the masses misled by the politicians of the day, trade-in their subsidies and livelihoods for cleaner buses? If the answer to these posers is as dark as the night and as pungent as rotten eggs, then what recourse do the pregnant, the new-borns, children with immature lungs, commuters, asthmatics, the multitudes of poor, and the aged have, to protect their health and their health-linked futures? True, elected governments have legislated and implemented many policies, but have they borne fruit? The reality, instead, is that the unbridled, publicly-funded expansion of road network to complement increasing mobility among Indians, the wealth- and price-induced migration to larger diesel automobiles and SUVs, and the expansion of public transportation bus fleet, have complemented the enlargement of the consumerist and export-oriented nominal economy, multiplied diesel consumption and along with it, exacerbated soot emissions, exposures, and public health decrements. In a nation that experiences dry spells lasting months at a stretch, and where road-cleaning is an increment to property taxes that politically-controlled Corporations would rather avoid, soot has almost turned in to a ‘nominally-essential’ ingredient of daily life – from the air we breathe, milk, greens, and bread we consume, to re-entrained road dust that settles upon and lines our windows and terraces. And if the status quo isn’t already worrisome, the future is downright alarming due the pollution-exacerbating potential of lifestyle-upgradation, a switch to (larger) diesel SUVs, the spread of diesel-fuelled inter-city bus transport, a price differential-reinforced trend toward dieselization of private and commercial fleet, and the expansionary consumption-centric ‘nominal macro’ strategy followed by private and public-sector refineries participating in the nation’s capital market. One wonders what policy options the ‘ole’-supported political Government has for this exacerbating public hazard of our times? And if the Government has its hands tied, on one hand by the Nominal stock market capitalists, and on the other by Sheikhs, what options, beyond those discussed (and discussed) in policy circles, exist for the public to avoid this exacerbating health risk to themselves, their young, their relatives, neighbours, and the aged?
How ‘bout Double Jeopardy? With Reverse Auctions !
If the current basket of acts, rules, regulations and policies have not contained the externality, shouldn’t we consider an ‘out-of-the-box’ alternative? Consider then a ‘GO alternative’ - an instrument that is flexible, permissive of various existing and new strategies, which incentivizes competition and efficiency in abating diesel soot no matter what source, and which is substantially independent of Government-control and support. Toward this goal, one’d first seek a credible and reliable source of funds to apply toward the GO-Alternative. In a nominal economy guided by a political cycle NGDP-Bond, Nominal Sectoral Interests, NSIs - the FV-Mirrors of PV Bond units - are vested with Investors participating in the NGDP Bond market. These NSIs could be monetized for their ‘Monetary FV’ in to M2dot at the Fiduciary. However, the Fiduciary-issued Nominal M2dot on NSIs is ZS PV in nature and hence likely to exacerbate existing externalities – both pecuniary and non-pecuniary. To counter such tendencies, one may either exploit the ‘ZS ESH FV’ imbued in NSIs1and balance the issue of M2dot with ‘NSI Sustainability Mirror’ ESH Bonds2, or, reduce NSIs by way of an ‘OE-Monetize’ through Gold in to ‘Green K2dot’. In the former case, formulaically-indexed ESH Bonds3would be issued a MLI4in ‘Nominal OB’ as M2dot-equivalent Bond mirrors, and their proceeds deposited with Government in ‘Nominal OC’ toward ESH program expenses. In the latter case, the MLI, exploiting Nominal indiligences imbued in NSIs or carried by Gold, would monetize ‘Green Sustainability K2dot’ capital against NSI redux-induced depreciation of Gold. This Green seed capital may then be issued capitalists for turning in infra-marginal and incremental Nominal activity. Such capital may then be applied to Green-Sustainability pursuits independent of the availability of Nominal M2dot, or the Government’s participation. Thus, Green K2dot, issued in amount equal, and against depreciation of Gold from the redux of Nominal NSIs at ‘K2dot Reverse Auctions’, would permit that very MLI to negotiate reductions in Nominal activity (Potential GDP, PGDP) against issue of K2dot Green capital. Thus, ESH Bond -possessed MLI would seek (diesel-soot externality) internalizing activities to fund through ESH Reverse Auctions5simultaneously with NSI-redux monetization at K2dot reverse auctions that yield Green Seed Capital against reductions in future Nominal activity. Activities that win at the ESH Reverse auctions would then be funded with ‘NSI Mirror Bond M2dot’ with the Government, even as programs are implemented and monitored by the MLI. Thus, the MLI would find itself advantaged for arbitraging between, on one hand, reducing future nominal activities at the NSI Reverse Redux auctions with sustainability-enhancing, Green K2dot Capital, and on the other mitigating the non-pecuniary externalities associated with nominal activities through programs that it implements and monitors, but which are funded by the Government. Such arbitraging incentivizes, on one hand, more efficient externality-abatement technologies, and on the other, a lower price to pay in Gold for the creation of green K2dot capital. Between the two, the MLI obtains real and substantive control of either the Nominal activities and/or the externalities associated with them.
In the context of diesel soot externality, such strategy would permit the MLI to judge, administer and monitor the various competing alternatives that exist to abate the externality – from earlier and faster replacement of diesel vehicles, funding the adoption of CNG, Hydrogen and EV Buses, imposing incremental distance taxes on freight-intensive production to obtain a redux of soot-generating freight activity, promoting the adoption of alternative fuels and fuel additives, incentivizing engine retrofits, funding road-cleaning at ‘soot hotspots’, or, putting in place a monitoring and enforcement mechanism, to policies that induce an environmentally-friendly intermodal-rationalization of freight transport, and those others yet on the drawing board.
To ensure an effective environmental policy, it is further necessary to require that Nominal Capitalists holding NGDP Bonds recover ESH Bonds from the MLI to claim the right to redeem their NGDP Bond at the termination of the political cycle6. In other words, NGDP Bonds may only be redeemed if they are tagged with an ESH Bond. Implicitly, the Political Cycle NGDP Bond may only be redeemed upon maturity if they are ‘sanctified’ with ESH Bonds certifying internalization of externalities caused by NGDP Bond-sponsored activities. Thus designed, the ESH Bond market too would turn active and offer a return its investors. Now, and if the MLI further declared its intention to ‘blackmail’ Nominal Capitalists participating in NGDP Bonds for environmental lapses before parting with ESH Bonds7, then Capitalists would be diligent through the political cycle in ensuring that the economy adopted an attenuated NGDP paradigm that incentivized the more sustainable and efficient technologies, and otherwise reduced or internalized the inefficient technologies.
Public Health issues related to exposures to diesel soot have been on the back burner of public health policy for many decades. One could trace this unwillingness to many reasons - unholy political liaisons with Sheikhs, regulatory favor in the pricing of diesel fuel for reasons the enhanced efficiency of Diesel engines, the double-edged nature of regulating overloaded trucks and buses, jointness in crude refining, as well as social indifference to a glaring health risk, due which the issue does not receive political salience. The two-pronged MLI ‘Double-Jeopardy’ suggested above, if implemented on a global scale, has the potential to attract, on one hand, a diverse range of technology and policy options to abate the ESH externality, and on the other, foster externality-free technologies with ‘Aural Green K2dot’ Capital. Given its global public health ramifications, this proposal should be evaluated in national and international social, political and regulatory forums, as well as in fiduciary and multi-lateral public and environmental organizations, toward a joint plan to implement the suggested mechanism, and rid the society of an increasingly menacing public health externality.
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1That is, NSIs are constituted of a ‘Monetary FV’, a ‘ZS ESH FV’, and a ‘Pareto Fiscal FV’.
2These Environment-Safety-Health, ESH Damage Bonds would have a Damage-calibrated NAV, and be issued in the ZS of NSIs submitted for redux in exchange for the issue of K2dot Aural Green Seed capital. For details read ‘Cause Bond-based Political cycle Government, NGDP Optimization and Budgeting’, gprao64.blogspot.com.
3ie, these ESH Bonds are tantamount Damage Bonds with the NAV-linked formulaically to variables and factors determining magnitude of damage, for example Damage, D = f(Sectoral Diesel Consumption, Sectoral Fuel Economy, % Infant Population, % Poor, VMT-weighted Mean Fleet Age, Urban Population Density, Highway Traffic Density, Public Transportation share). The NAV of these Bonds would rise to signify incremental abatement of the externality as determined by the implicit Damage function.
4Multi-lateral Institutions
5These take the form of registering externality-abating programs at the ESH Reverse auctions for funding by the Government possessed of ‘NSI-Mirror Bond M2dot’. The activities would be evaluated against the expected increment (or decrement) to the ESH Bond index or NAV upon implementation, and accepted through the criterion of declining marginal net-benefits.
6Else forfeit NGDP Bond redemption (and, perhaps the 'Cause Achieve Kamkey')
7 in exponential proportion the degree of residual externality unresolved in ESH Bonds at termination of the political cycle
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