> tires produce about 2,000 times more particle pollution by mass than tailpipes.

(emphasis mine)

The fact that the majority of tailpipe pollution is not particulate means that tailpipe pollution can be the biggest problem we need to fix, even if it isn't the biggest particle pollution problem.

The majority of modern tailpipe "pollution" is CO2.

This is by mass, which is a weasel metric that discounts all gaseous emissions, and the smallest particulates that stay in the air.

Impact on health is not linearly proportional to the mass.

It's almost the opposite - the smallest particles can linger in the air and get absorbed. You could eat a chunk of a tire without a significant health effect, but breathing the same mass of almost any gas would kill you.

Gas has mass, but regardless the word 'particulate' already discounts all gaseous emissions. Particulate emissions are liquid or solid by definition.

CO2 is bad for other environmental reasons, but it doesn't get stuck in our lungs.

the article was about brake emissions. Yet you're pointing to an article about tires.

comment I was responding to:

> If we remove tailpipe emissions, which are by far the largest, then brake/tire wear emissions become visible and are next in the list to deal with.

(clearly claiming that tailpipe emissions are by far larger than both brake and tire emissions)