Pollution kills more than accidents!

Automobile pollution kills more people than automobile collisions do. A recent study on the subject done by researchers at MIT says that the 34,080 American lives that were ended in 2012 by automobile collisions are completely eclipsed by the number of people who died as a result of the pollution from those same automobiles — 58,050. Authored by five researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the study found an estimated 200,400 premature deaths attributable to combustion emissions in the US last year. Of those, a bare majority were due to either road transportation or electric power generation.

The study primarily focused on fine particulate matter, or particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less. These minuscule particles are most likely to cause illnesses like lung cancer and premature deaths more generally.

The researchers found 52,800 yearly premature deaths attributable to emissions related to road transportation, with a similar number — 52,200 — due to electric power generation. They also looked at ozone exposure, but found much lower numbers: 5,250 due to motor vehicles, and another 1,700 caused by electricity production. These represented just more than half of all premature deaths caused by fine particulate matter, with other large contributors being industry (40,800 deaths in 2005) and commercial and residential buildings (41,800 deaths).

The new research was just published in the journal Atmospheric Environment. You can find the abstract here.

Air pollution shortens lives: MIT study

A study released earlier this week indicates that airborne pollution in China may have shortened the lives of 500 million Chinese by 2.5 billion years. The paper, published in PNAS on Monday, examined pollution data and death records to see whether coal burning, long a source of air pollution, could have damaged public health across northern China in the 1990s. It does. The findings raise concern for developing countries.

The nose, mucus in the esophagus and cells in the lungs all filter foreign substances to facilitate clean breathing. But some pollutant particles can overwhelm the body’s natural defense systems, however, causing inflammation in the lungs. This inflammation could result in breathing difficulties, exacerbate preexisting conditions and, in extreme cases, cause death.

Michael Greenstone, an economist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a primary author of the study, says finding answers has been extremely difficult, because simply comparing pollution levels and health in different locales can be misleading. For one thing, people often move from place to place and experience varying levels of pollution, so it is not safe to assume that all have had the same exposure.

From 1950 to 1980 the Chinese government was in a period of socialist transformation. During this time the “Huai River policy” provided free coal for heating homes and offices north of the Huai River, which runs west to east across eastern China. Meanwhile budget constraints kept free coal from being provided south of the river. At the same time, government rules restricted a family's ability to move, so that many lived in one location for decades.

By examining rates of mortality and respiratory-related illnesses on both sides of the river, Greenstone’s team identified a difference: life expectancies are lower and pollution concentrations are higher north of the Huai, where coal burning was widespread.

To make these connections, Greenstone and his team examined pollution data from sites across the country for the years 1981 to 2000. They then collected mortality data from China's Disease Surveillance Points, 145 sites chosen by the government to accurately represent the wealth and geographic dispersion of the populace.

The results estimate that lifelong exposure to 100 micrograms of “total suspended particulates,” or TSPs, (minuscule solid particles floating in the air, such as pollutants) per meter of air cubed will shorten a person’s life by three years, on average.

As more countries in Asia and Africa power toward industrialization, air pollution becomes an increasing concern. Developing countries are really trying to strike the right balance between economic growth to confront poverty and environmental quality and public health,” Greenstone says. “I think this study will help them—it shows a relationship between pollution and health.”

Tough action

Hong Kong has tried for decades to reduce the constant smog smothering one of the world’s most populated cities. Now a new initiative will ban the dirtiest diesel vehicles from the city limits while offering companies financial incentives for modernizing their delivery fleets.

The main factor for pollution is the more than 120,000 diesel-powered heavy vehicles, including delivery trucks and buses that operate in the city limits. Around 40% of these vehicles are older diesel models that comply with the Euro II model, emitting more than 12x the emissions that more modern diesel vehicles complying with the Euro V standard do.

Hong Kong plans to get companies to phase out these older diesel vehicles by offering substantial government subsidies, while banning older diesel vehicles from operating in the city limits, says a Bloomberg report. City leaders hope that threat of banning businesses from operating their fleets in Hong Kong proper, along with generous subsidies, will lead to a cleaner, greener fleet of modern diesel vehicles. Other cities, including Paris, France and London, England have experimented with ways of reducing urban congestion and pollution. While London enacted a congestion charge for downtown that exempts EV and plug-in hybrid vehicles, Paris has talked about banning older, larger, and dirtier vehicles from the city limits, though without the draconian efficiency of Hong Kong. Will Hong Kong show the way?

Cut soot, save lives and cool the globe

An international team of scientists says that governments can significantly reduce global warming, and prevent millions of premature deaths, by targeting emissions of methane and soot. In a new study published in the journal Science, the researchers say simple strategies that target those emissions and use existing technologies could shave nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit off the warming projected by mid-century.

And with international efforts to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, the main cause of climate change, largely stalled, it represents a cheaper and more attainable approach. Strategies to reduce methane emissions include improving methods of capturing gas from mines and oil- and gas-producing facilities and reducing leaks from pipelines and landfills; global levels of soot, or black carbon, can be cut by requiring more efficient filters for diesel vehicles, developing cleaner-burning cook stoves and imposing bans on burning agricultural land.

Such measures would prevent 700,000 to 4.7 million air pollution-related deaths per year, the study says. “Ultimately, we have to deal with CO2, but in the short term, dealing with these pollutants is more doable, and it brings fast benefits,” said Drew Shindell, the lead author and researcher at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University’s Earth Institute.

In developing and developed nations, burning wastes also adds to the soot. Particularly dry garbage. This will take time to change.

Indoor air pollution leads to cardiac problems

An estimated two billion people in the developing world heat and cook with a biomass fuel such as wood, but the practice exposes people -- especially women -- to large doses of small-particle air pollution, which can cause premature death and lung disease. And now, a study shows cardio risk too!

In a study just published online in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have associated indoor air pollution with increased blood pressure among older women.

In a remote area of Yunnan Province, China, 280 women in an ethnic minority called the Naxi wore a portable device that sampled the air they were breathing for 24 hours. By correlating exposure over 24 hours with blood pressure, the team associated higher levels of indoor air pollution with a significantly higher blood pressure among women aged 50 and over.

Small-particle pollution raises blood pressure over the short term by stimulating the nervous system to constrict blood vessels. In the long term, the particles can cause oxidative stress, which likewise raises blood pressure.

Other studies have shown that improved stoves or cleaner fuels can cut indoor air pollution by 50 to 75 percent. In fact, the researchers concluded that this reduction would translate into an 18 percent decrease in coronary heart disease and a 22 percent decrease in stroke among Asian women aged 50 to 59.

Because biomass fuels are also the primary source of energy for more than 2 billion people globally, cleaner fuels and better stoves would produce even greater cardiovascular benefits worldwide.