Whites Contribute More to Air Pollution; Minorities Bear the Burden

[WhiskeyGrinder]

Last edited Tue Mar 12, 2019, 03:50 PM - Edit history (1)

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/03/11/702348935/study-finds-racial-gap-between-who-causes-air-pollution-and-who-breathes-it

A study published Monday in the journal PNAS adds a new twist to the pollution problem by looking at consumption. While we tend to think of factories or power plants as the source of pollution, those polluters wouldn't exist without consumer demand for their products.

The researchers found that air pollution is disproportionately caused by white Americans' consumption of goods and services, but disproportionately inhaled by black and Hispanic Americans.

"This paper is exciting and really quite novel," says Anjum Hajat, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington who was not involved in the study. "Inequity in exposure to air pollution is well documented, but this study brings in the consumption angle."

Hajat says the study reveals an inherent unfairness: "If you're contributing less to the problem, why do you have to suffer more from it?"

[WhiskeyGrinder]

1. Afternoon kick.

[ismnotwasm]

2. I don't think this is a new finding either

I seem to recall asthma rates in black children being higher in particular areas exposed to air pollution

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. The discussion of the disproportionate effects on minorities is not new. What is new is determining

the demand for polluting goods and services, and finding that they are disproportionately from white people.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

4. Evening kick.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. Later evening kick.

[roamer65]

6. The discrimination will become blatant when the northern climate change exodus begins.

It’s going to be interesting to see what event kicks off the exodus northward.