From the “US and European manufacturing was exported to China and India department” and the UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA:
New research shows that more than 5.5 million people die prematurely every year due to household and outdoor air pollution. More than half of deaths occur in two of the world’s fastest growing economies, China and India.
CREDIT Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), University of Washington
Power plants, industrial manufacturing, vehicle exhaust and burning coal and wood all release small particles into the air that are dangerous to a person’s health. New research, presented today at the 2016 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), found that despite efforts to limit future emissions, the number of premature deaths linked to air pollution will climb over the next two decades unless more aggressive targets are set.
“Air pollution is the fourth highest risk factor for death globally and by far the leading environmental risk factor for disease,” said Michael Brauer, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Population and Public Health in Vancouver, Canada. “Reducing air pollution is an incredibly efficient way to improve the health of a population.”
For the AAAS meeting, researchers from Canada, the United States, China and India assembled estimates of air pollution levels in China and India and calculated the impact on health.
Their analysis shows that the two countries account for 55 per cent of the deaths caused by air pollution worldwide. About 1.6 million people died of air pollution in China and 1.4 million died in India in 2013.
In China, burning coal is the biggest contributor to poor air quality. Qiao Ma, a PhD student at the School of Environment, Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, found that outdoor air pollution from coal alone caused an estimated 366,000 deaths in China in 2013.
Ma also calculated the expected number of premature deaths in China in the future if the country meets its current targets to restrict coal combustion and emissions through a combination of energy policies and pollution controls. She found that air pollution will cause anywhere from 990,000 to 1.3 million premature deaths in 2030 unless even more ambitious targets are introduced.
“Our study highlights the urgent need for even more aggressive strategies to reduce emissions from coal and from other sectors,” said Ma.
In India, a major contributor to poor air quality is the practice of burning wood, dung and similar sources of biomass for cooking and heating. Millions of families, among the poorest in India, are regularly exposed to high levels of particulate matter in their own homes.
“India needs a three-pronged mitigation approach to address industrial coal burning, open burning for agriculture, and household air pollution sources,” said Chandra Venkataraman, professor of Chemical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, in Mumbai, India.
In the last 50 years, North America, Western Europe and Japan have made massive strides to combat pollution by using cleaner fuels, more efficient vehicles, limiting coal burning and putting restrictions on electric power plants and factories.
“Having been in charge of designing and implementing strategies to improve air in the United States, I know how difficult it is. Developing countries have a tremendous task in front of them,” said Dan Greenbaum, president of Health Effects Institute, a non-profit organization based in Boston that sponsors targeted efforts to analyze the health burden from different air pollution sources. “This research helps guide the way by identifying the actions which can best improve public health.”
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Background:
The research is an extension of the Global Burden of Disease study, an international collaboration led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington that systematically measured health and its risk factors, including air pollution levels, for 188 countries between 1990 and 2013. The air pollution research is led by researchers at the University of British Columbia and the Health Effects Institute.
Additional facts about air pollution:
- World Health Organization (WHO) air quality guidelines set daily particulate matter at 25 micrograms per cubic metre.
- At this time of year, Beijing and New Delhi will see daily levels at or above 300 micrograms per cubic meter metre; 1,200 per cent higher than WHO guidelines.
- While air pollution has decreased in most high-income countries in the past 20 years, global levels are up largely because of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and China. More than 85 per cent of the world’s population now lives in areas where the World Health Organization Air Quality Guideline is exceeded.
- The researchers say that strict control of particulate matter is critical because of changing demographics. Researchers predict that if air pollution levels remain constant, the number of deaths will increase because the population is aging and older people are more susceptible to illnesses caused by poor air quality.
- According to the Global Burden of Disease study, air pollution causes more deaths than other risk factors like malnutrition, obesity, alcohol and drug abuse, and unsafe sex. It is the fourth greatest risk behind high blood pressure, dietary risks and smoking.
- Cardiovascular disease accounts for the majority of deaths from air pollution with additional impacts from lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and respiratory infections.
Could someone take the data from the study and redraw the world map with per-capita death rates? It is standard practice in medicine to state deaths per 10,000.
This doesn’t pass the sniff test. It says ….
“Cardiovascular disease accounts for the majority of deaths from air pollution with additional impacts from lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and respiratory infections.”
So a large junk of the 5.5 million deaths from air pollution are cases of air pollution leading to heart attacks?
According to World Heart Federation. There are around 17 million total deaths from cardiovascular disease worldwide. So (without checking the fine details), it sounds like they are essentially saying a large percentage of heart attacks are caused by air pollution? That makes no sense. The risk factors commonly associated with heart disease are things like age, physical inactivity, poor diet, obesity, etc. Perhaps air pollution is a mitigating factor, but the above statistic just seems way out of wack.
Not that I wish to “defend” air pollution, but this sounds like a case of alarmist exaggerating to me…..
This study is an embarrassment to UBC alumni. The graph is showing that more people die in bigger countries. So if you move to a very small country you will never die. 100% garbage.
I have seen some ofthe comments above. Here are some of my observations:
Health improves and life is extended — it is not that simple, in the tradition life due to non-availability of medicine people [children] used to die. With the modern medicine, the life is extended;
The data on death due to air pollution is pictitious figures. However, the people effected will have to live on medication throughout their life. The medical bill [hospital + tests + doctor fee + medicine] costs a family around 30-40% of their income. This is mostly in urban areas with concentrated pollution throughout the day. While in rural areas it is not so with industry as the wind direction play the major role. Domestic use of wood & coal are not that important as the exposure is very little;
Stan Cox in 2008 brought out book “Sick Planet: Food & Medicine”– he presented the facts on hospitals-doctors-tests. India & China produces medicine and export to developing countries. This is the major air & water pollution in India & China that are causing very severe health hazards including children born with disability;
Ill heath reduces the work eeficiency;
The health is affected by several types of pollution: air, water, land & food related to transport, industry, agriculture [chemical inputs], etc. Also, chemical inputs is also causing food pollution. The businessmen introduced a new thing — adulterated food [milk, food products], etc. In India, food pollution and adulterated food are the major causes for heath;
Some of the international agencies, to divert main issue, the put forth some hypothetical exagerated statistics like air pollution 5.5 million deaths annualy. In place environmental issues bring in global warming a non-entity to protect multinational companies that produce chemicals that are used in agriculture & genetically modified seed. The companies miting trillions of dollars each year but we them spending at least 5 to 10% towards the health & encironment. Same is the case with drug manufacturing companies.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
China, India – that’s what you get when you burn dung inside a house for cooking
The original COPY above Has BEEN restricted BY wordpress or this site, to ensure that the truth be not told. Well done censorshipers..NEVER let the truth be told..
Those very same “Promoters of D**th” still refuse to accept that the reason for those millions of deaths is using home FIRES to cook their food. What level of hypocrites completely ignores the facts that ENVIRONMENTALISTS are the current D**** enforcers for refusing to accept the FACT that people in poorer countries need CLEAN POWER to LIVE.
Why do those LEFTIST environ-mentalists refuse those same opportunities that WE have had. THEY are deliberately KILLING those people in INDIA, CHINA and AFRICA..
Christian J Wmasaw — I am an anvironmentalists to the core and fighting against pollution [air, water, soil and food]. The poor governance is the major problem in India as they obey the orders of USA at the cost of people.
I was born and brought up in a village where my mother and her mother cooked food using wood — dung was used for agriculture manure in majority of the cases. Some areas coal & dung is used in place of wood. I am now 72 years old. My father lived up to 84 years and my mother lived up to 80 years. My brother and sisters now migrated to cities where we are facing severe air pollution problem.
In India large part of the villages have power supply.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
My apologies for the above. I used my TWITTER login and they CENSORED my comment as seen above. Good reason to BAN TWITTER for Killing FREE speech..
The real problem has nothing to do with climate change but everything to do with Mankind’s out of control population.
STAMP this item with
“Created more for propaganda, than for science”
(I mean the original Canadian item/report not the WUWT deconstruction, of course)
“While air pollution has decreased in most high-income countries in the past 20 years, global levels are up largely” cos
#1 We didn’t measure such stuff in the past, so death was often not attributed
#2 Such particulate effects often don’t kick in until very late in life and it is only now that health services have improved to stop people dying of other stuff that they life long enough to get the particulate diseases.
..These are a start of my suggestions
This map looks weird for me, something is missing. Air quality in Poland is absolutely awful. We have entire months with 150+ ug/m3 pm10 and every year several days with 500-600 ug/m3. Shops selling anti-pollution masks and air quality monitoring apps are flourishing. This area (Krakow, Katowice, Bratislawa) used to be called the “black triangle” and it is still one of the worse places in the world for air quality. The burden for Poland is estimated about 40 000 premature deaths per year.
Similar thing in the Alps, no air flow during winter in valleys + wood/coal heating + thermal inversion preventing fumes from escaping vertically. Premature deaths from air pollution are estimated 65000 in Italy.The map should show several red areas in Europe IMO.
Of course premature deaths figures are highly questionable, but bad air quality is a real problem. I was born in north of France, a very windy place near the sea. Since I moved to Poland, Krakow, I spend every single winter coughing. My elder son has permanently the nose blocked in spite of a clean indoor environment and his symptoms disappear every time we travel abroad. Many people I know who moved to Krakow have to take anti-asthma drugs during winter. It smells coal/wood smoke everywhere, clothes smell like cigarette after walking outside, and a black, fine, sticky dust covers everything outside.
I’m a big fan of clean air…really. But I get tired of studies that try to compare something they think might happen to something that by definition, will never happen. Isn’t that the basis of climate alarmism?
How did we get to this point?