A 2023 paper found that Americans living in places with the country’s median level of PM2.5 air pollution had a 56 percent higher chance of developing Parkinson’s disease than those living in the cleanest air.
Polluted air is particularly important to the life-cost calculus. Air pollution is associated with some 100,000 to 200,000 American deaths each year. Particulate matter from burning fossil fuels is responsible for roughly one in five deaths worldwide.
In the first report, economists at MIT, the University of Chicago, McMaster University, and the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009—despite causing profound economic hardship—actually increased Americans’ life expectancy. And the economic advantages of those added life-years might even roughly equal the economic costs.
There’s Only One Way to Fix Air Pollution Now
There is some very surprising info in this article. I had no idea of the harm involved. Everyone suffers from it and Parkinson’s disease is only one outcome.
Black carbon is the most dangerous air pollutant you’ve never heard of. Its two main sources, diesel exhaust and wood smoke from wildfires and household heating, produce ultrafine air particles that are up to 25 times more of a health hazard per unit compared to other types of particulate matter.
infamous for poor air quality, such as the greater Salt Lake City metropolitan area in Utah.
Black carbon sensor could fill massive monitoring gaps
More info.
New method measures levels of toxic tire particles in rivers
Even fish suffer.