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US Air Pollution Deaths Nearly Halved Between 1990 and 2010 (eurekalert.org)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from EurekAlert: Air pollution in the U.S. has decreased since about 1990, and a new study conducted at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill now shows that this air quality improvement has brought substantial public health benefits. The study, published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, found that deaths related to air pollution were nearly halved between 1990 and 2010. The team's analyses showed that deaths related to air pollution exposure in the U.S. decreased by about 47 percent, dropping from about 135,000 deaths in 1990 to 71,000 in 2010.
These improvements in air quality and public health in the U.S. coincided with increased federal air quality regulations, and have taken place despite increases in population, energy and electricity use, and vehicle miles traveled between 1990 and 2010. [...] Still, despite clear improvements, air pollution remains an important public health issue in the U.S. The estimated 71,000 deaths in 2010 translates to 1 of every 35 deaths in the U.S. -- that's as many deaths as we see from all traffic accidents and all gun shootings combined.
These improvements in air quality and public health in the U.S. coincided with increased federal air quality regulations, and have taken place despite increases in population, energy and electricity use, and vehicle miles traveled between 1990 and 2010. [...] Still, despite clear improvements, air pollution remains an important public health issue in the U.S. The estimated 71,000 deaths in 2010 translates to 1 of every 35 deaths in the U.S. -- that's as many deaths as we see from all traffic accidents and all gun shootings combined.
Mission accomplished! We can roll back all the regulations now!
It's a labor-intensive, dirty way of extracting energy from Mother Earth. It wasn't killed by regulations, either. It was killed by labor costs, and the final death knell was cheap natural gas from fracking.
Also, many coal jobs were utterly shitty. Imagine being the poor schmoe who drove a steam engine or shoveled coal into the boiler. Sounds romantic? Now imagine standing in a cab when it's 100F outside and 120F in the cab. Turn some valves while watching for signals and danger ahead, or shovel enough coal per minute to power a freight train in these conditions...
With all the other progress being rolled back by this government, we may as well start indirectly killing people in order to prop up an industry well into death spasms already. But hey, you'll win the electoral votes from West Virginia and Kentucky!
Oh wait, you would have anyway.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
The war against CO2 is sadly overwhelming the real war we should be fighting, the war against emissions and real pollution.
Luckily as we can see emissions have naturally gotten a lot better, and with the inevitable switch to more electric cars along with improved ICE emission control tech in the next decade we should see even greater improvement...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Surviving due to regulations is not likely to be noticed by the survivor. Like not dying due to a prevented accident thanks to technology. So, Americans can keep going blasting big government and regulations, their favorite pastime, and lament on the price of medical insurance while spending their money on churches that never cured anyone instead. Growing trend: ignore experts as your personal opinion trumps their expertise. ....
You talk as if CO2 reduction is antagonistic to airborne pollutant reduction. As if you can have one not both.
But if you're lowering atmospheric mercury, for example, swapping coal for solar tackles BOTH AT THE SAME TIME.
And swapping gas for electric vehicles reduces both NOx and CO2 pollution at the same time, as long as the car is recharged with solar or renewables, and not a coal fired power station.
I'm struggling to think of an instance where CO2 pollution isn't from the same source as the other airborne pollutants.... Asbestos maybe? That is an airborne pollutant not directly connected to CO2 that was eliminated.
You talk as if CO2 reduction is antagonistic to airborne pollutant reduction. As if you can have one not both.
Although theoretically you can do both, think of all of the money spent on warning about CO2 that could have been spent of pollution eradication measures and education.
Just as a for-instance, you could take any anti-CO2 ad campaign and pay thousands of people to walk roadsides picking up long discarded trash, including a huge number of plastic bottles and bags. That would have a huge real impact on the environment, and possibly the ocean in the future as that stuff filters down the coast.
But instead, some big NYC ad firms get fat and probably produce a metric ton of plastic waste from all the things they buy with "green (Ha, first typed as "greed")" ad dollars.
But if you're lowering atmospheric mercury, for example, swapping coal for solar tackles BOTH AT THE SAME TIME.
Yes, that is true, and why I am a huge proponent of solar energy.
I'm struggling to think of an instance where CO2 pollution isn't from the same source as the other airborne pollutants
Again, it's more about where a huge amount of money is being diverted to try and convince people CO2 is a problem, while they ignore other real physical pollution which could be addressed to a greater degree.
However, you are way too limited thinking of airborne pollutants when we have so many problems, yet another problematic vector of the CO2 hysteria. As we can see here airborne pollutants are actually getting better anyway so it would be way better to really focus on the other stuff which is maybe even worse than it used to be, even with plastic bag bans and a push away from bottled water.
I clean up a lot of roadside and trail side trash throughout the year, and to me it seems like trash wandering around the environment is maybe worse than it ever has been in the past. That is not getting better on its own and we need to focus there much more than we are.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Perhaps it is because science is exposing what is. Climate change is real, however Carbon Dioxide which is considered the major factor in climate change, at current and projected levels will not effect our health directly, like with the other chemicals that are in smog, that we got good at filtering out.
Despite the fossil fuel industry paid claims, the left isn't trying to get rid of your energy, take away your car. The do see science for what it is and wants measured regulations to slow down such effect, unfortunately fossil fuel is the primary cause. As we are quickly expelling carbon, that took these plants millions/billions of years to collect. However if we slow down fossil fuel consumption and replace it with alternative energy then we can slow down globabl warming, and allow the earth to heal some of its problems.
But normal Air Pollution, is full of other chemicals that are directly bad for us, and we have little evolutionary strategies for dealing with.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
There is a flaw in your argument.
You just flat out wrong.
The industrial economy in the United States has continues to be top in the world. While labor costs in the US may be higher, labor in the US is much more efficient. Many of these jobs that have been outsourced to other countries on the individual company may had been from some penny pinching, but many had found it wasn't as good of a deal as they thought. Also a lot of foreign countries will move their manufacturing in the US as well.
Now such a perception is because manufacturing is very closely tied to the state of the economy + hiring a lot of low-mid skilled workers (that creates lower turnover cost) means these industries will often be first to take a hit during an economic hit, thus getting all the stories of layoffs.
Raised in a blue collar family, I understand the tension that happens, and why my parents pushed me to go to college and get a degree. So now I am a few levels up. Where recessions will need to last a big longer until I am affected. However this had always been the case. However after WWII where the rest of the world was rebuilding, the US had a near monopoly, so such cuts in manufacturing didn't happen.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.