Climate change is an air-pollution issue
Better air quality could save 4.5M U.S. lives over next 50 years, congressional committee finds
An Illinois refinery spews air pollution. Recent congressional testimony suggests that the health effects of poor air quality are even worse than what’s been previously feared. (Shutterstock)
By Ted Cox
A new report based on congressional testimony seeks to refocus the climate-change debate back to air pollution, finding that it promises tangible improvement to public health that pays for itself — global warming completely aside.
Journalist David Roberts published a story Wednesday through the online media outlet Vox stating that “air pollution is much worse than we thought.” Citing congressional testimony from a meeting last week of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, he pointed out that experts project that holding to established goals for climate would produce improvements in air quality that would save 4.5 million U.S. lives over the next 50 years, with health and economic benefits that would pay for themselves.
Roberts suggests that the debate over climate change since 2000 grew out of the environmental movement and fights against air pollution from the ‘60s through the end of the century. While climate change can sometimes seem abstract — even with storms the length of the state sweeping Illinois, with heavy rainfall in the summer and more severe blizzards in the winter — he urges that the health benefits to fighting global warming are clear and make their own case for action.
Roberts writes: “There’s an irony involved: the air-pollution case against fossil fuels is still the best case!”
Dr. Drew Shindell of Duke University testified before Congress last week, stating that, if the nation committed to following the goal to hold global warming to 2 degrees Celsius over the next 50 years, it “would prevent roughly 4.5 million premature deaths, and about 3.5 million hospitalizations and emergency-room visits.” According to a congressional synopsis of the testimony, “Shindell explained that many of these preventable deaths are tied to diseases resulting from poor air quality, including stroke, heart disease, and pulmonary diseases.”
Shindell said it would be “unconscionable to realize these benefits could be obtained and not attempt to obtain them.”
Or, as U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly of Matteson put it after being confronted with Shindell’s projection of 4.5 million lives saved: “That’s a huge number. That’s nearly three times the number of lives we lose in car accidents every year. It’s twice the number of deaths caused by opioids in the past few years. And it’s even more than the number of Americans we lose to diabetes each year.”
“That’s a huge number. That’s nearly three times the number of lives we lose in car accidents every year.”
U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly (One Illinois/Ted Cox)
Dr. Michael Greenstone, of the University of Chicago, added that “with continued high emissions of greenhouse gases, climate-induced changes in temperature will increase the global mortality risk by 85 deaths per 100,000 population.” According to Greenstone, that “is almost as large as the current fatality rate from cancers.”
The benefits of better air quality are well documented. A study released last year drew new attention to what scientists call fine particulate matter, finding that air pollution was on the rise for the first time since 2010, with a concentration in Illinois.
When the Trump administration moved two years ago to undermine restrictions on air pollution imposed under President Obama, substituting instead what Trump labeled an Affordable Clean Energy plan, even the Environmental Protection Agency admitted it would cost 1,400 lives a year just by the end of this decade.
Greenstone said that was proving to be a low estimate, testifying: “The economic costs of climate-induced health risks are at least an order of magnitude larger than has previously been understood.”
Shindell fleshed that out, stating: “The avoided health-care spending due to reduced hospitalizations and emergency room visits exceeds $37 billion,” while the increased labor productivity is “valued at more than $70 billion.” Shindell went on to explain: “These costs to American businesses greatly outweigh the cost of making a clean energy transition.”
As Roberts puts it: “The evidence is now clear enough that it can be stated unequivocally: it would be worth freeing ourselves from fossil fuels even if global warming didn’t exist. Especially now that clean energy has gotten so cheap, the air-quality benefits alone are enough to pay for the energy transition.”
U.S. Rep. Sean Casten of Downers Grove, a scientist and climate-change entrepreneur who ran on a campaign to take action on global warming, chimed in on Twitter saying: “The U.S. subsidizes fossil fuels by nearly $700B/year, and the health benefits that we would realize from clean air are $700B/year. These numbers are not unrelated.”
The Vox article cited how the congressional testimony also pointed out that the health effects of air pollution are a racial and economic issue at a time when the nation is questioning the full effects of systemic racism. Dr. Renee Salas of the Harvard Medical School testified: “Vulnerable populations like the elderly, the poor, certain racial minorities, and children are currently bearing the brunt of health harms from climate change.”
Roberts suggested that “air pollution ought to be seen as a global civil-rights crisis.”