Time: Mrs Krautzberger, you and your federal Environment Agency, UBA, have caused a sensation in past few days. In this, nitrogen dioxide, which comes from exhaust of diesel vehicles, is held responsible for deaths of 6,000 people. Are you happy to report it all?
Maria Krautzberger: Of course, I am delighted that study receives so much attention, worldwide. Sadly, I am saddened by fact that state and car industry still have not solved underlying problem: study finally documents that a significant number of people suffer from or die from nitrogen dioxides.
Time: Is re not yet anor problem with number 6,000? Is that credible?
Krautzberger: I find it exhausting that today we are again discussing wher nitrogen oxides harm health. They are doing it – and it has been more than a decade since we, but World Health Organization, who has identified harmfulness of se substances. Epidemiological studies have already shown clearly: too much of it in breathing air makes people sick and even shortens ir lives...
time: ... why an EU-wide limit applies...
Maria Krautzbergerhas been leading federal environmental agency since 2014.
Krautzberger: ... to which everyone could agree at that time. In science, it is even discussed today wher limit values would not have to be reduced much furr, because even small amounts of substance can be harmful. In German debate, however, it now sounds to some as if this is all new, as if UBA is inventing a problem. We just name it.
Time: But ir critics say y dramatized it. Because y return 6,000 deaths directly to a cause. No one knows a Mr. Müller who died of diesel...
Krautzberger: We have never said that Mr Müller or Mrs Meier died on diesel. And, of course, no one dies immediately if he inhales too many nitrogen oxides every day for several hours, just as someone dies immediately when he smokes a box of cigarettes every day. However, we call for risks to become ill. This is also what studies of disease burden by smoking are doing, without provoking an outcry of indignation. Our study has statistically calculated that in 2014 around 6,000 people died prematurely from cardiovascular diseases due to long-term exposure to nitrogen dioxide. This figure is determined by a method that WHO has introduced to measure and compare health risks. It is used in many countries and it serves to compare data.
This article comes from time No. 12/2018. Here you can read entire output.Time: You are now talking about "risk" and "comparability". In headlines it was: "6,000 diesel deaths". What does this mean to you?
Krautzberger: We are always discussing in office how we can talk about complicated data that we are raising. When do we have to simplify so that we can be understood? Governments need such numbers and ir comparability to know sum of health risks to people and to know where to do something. It is our task to provide a risk assessment to lay people as well.
Time: How do you explain severity with which you have now been criticized for your nitrogen dioxide study?
Krautzberger: There are many who do not want driving bans. And anyone who does not want driving bans simply claims that our numbers are false or ideological. But that certainly does not stop us from pointing out this problem.
Date Of Update: 17 March 2018, 12:03
