Breathing better, living longer

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://news.byu.edu/archive13-sep-pollution.aspx

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Breathing better, living longer[/font]

Deseret News

[font size=3]Arden Pope’s students know him as an excellent economics teacher, but some would be surprised to learn that, thanks to him, the air they breathe today is cleaner than the first breath they ever took.

In fact, a new study by this BYU professor concludes that improvements in U.S. air quality since 1990 have sparked a 35 percent reduction in deaths and disability specifically attributable to air pollution. Pope was a member of a large research team who co-authored the study for the Journal of the American Medical Association.

“Some of the best news relative to the air pollution research over the last few years is the evidence that our reducing air pollution in the United States has resulted in measurable improvements in life expectancy and public health,” said Pope.

It’s no coincidence that 1990 is a point of reference in air quality research. In the late 80s, a steel mill in Utah Valley shut down for one year due to a labor strike. Pope spotted a research opportunity that found big problems caused by small particles floating in the air. Known as “particulate matter,” this kind of pollution is produced by combustion of car engines, power plants and steel mills.

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[gtar100]

1. I would guess that a lot of the air quality improvements in the US come from an unintended source:

the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs to companies overseas. We have far fewer industries wanting to pollute because we moved not only the good stuff - the jobs - but also the bad stuff, the manufacturing waste and other environmental costs that companies so conveniently leave out of their cost equations.