Study Links Polluted Air in China to 1.6 Million Deaths a Year
Study Links Polluted Air in China to 1.6 Million Deaths a Year
BEIJING — Outdoor air pollution contributes to the deaths of an estimated 1.6 million people in China every year, or about 4,400 people a day, according to a newly released scientific paper.
The paper maps the geographic sources of China’s
toxic air and concludes that much of the smog that routinely shrouds
Beijing comes from emissions in a distant industrial zone, a finding
that may complicate the government’s efforts to clean up the capital
city’s air in time for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
The authors are members of Berkeley Earth,
a research organization based in Berkeley, Calif., that uses
statistical techniques to analyze environmental issues. The paper has
been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed scientific journal
PLOS One, according to the organization.
According
to the data presented in the paper, about three-eighths of the Chinese
population breathe air that would be rated “unhealthy” by United States
standards. The most dangerous of the pollutants studied were fine
airborne particles less than 2.5 microns in diameter, which can find
their way deep into human lungs, be absorbed into the bloodstream and
cause a host of health problems, including asthma, strokes, lung cancer and heart attacks.
The
organization is well known for a study that reviewed the concerns of
people who reject established climate science and found that the rise in
global average temperatures has been caused “almost entirely” by human
activity.
The
researchers used similar statistical methods to assess Chinese air
pollution. They analyzed four months’ worth of hourly readings taken at
1,500 ground stations in mainland China, Taiwan and other places in the
region, including South Korea. The group said it was publishing the raw
data so other researchers could use it to perform their own studies.
Berkeley Earth’s
analysis is consistent with earlier indications that China has not been
able to successfully tackle its air pollution problems.
Greenpeace
East Asia found in April that, of 360 cities in China, more than 90
percent failed to meet national air quality standards in the first three
months of 2015.
The
Berkeley Earth paper’s findings present data saying that air pollution
contributes to 17 percent of all deaths in the nation each year. The
group says its mortality estimates are based on a World Health
Organization framework for projecting death rates from five diseases
known to be associated with exposure to various levels of
fine-particulate pollution. The authors calculate that the annual toll
is 95 percent likely to fall between 700,000 and 2.2 million deaths, and
their estimate of 1.6 million a year is the midpoint of that range.
The
Chinese government is sensitive about public data showing that air
pollution is killing its citizens, or even allusions to such a
conclusion. Though the authorities have gradually permitted greater
public access to air quality readings, censors routinely purge Chinese
websites and social media channels of information that the ruling
Communist Party worries might provoke popular unrest. In March, after a
lengthy documentary video about the health effects of air pollution
circulated widely online, the party’s central propaganda department
ordered Chinese websites to delete it.
Much
of China’s air pollution comes from the large-scale burning of coal.
Using pollution measurements and wind patterns, the researchers
concluded that much of the smog afflicting Beijing came not from sources
in the city, but rather from coal-burning factories 200 miles southwest
in Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei Province and a major industrial
hub.
Promises
to clean up Beijing’s air were a centerpiece of the nation’s bid to
host the 2022 Winter Olympics. The mayor of Beijing, Wang Anshun,
championed restrictions on vehicles in the city, and state news media
outlets lauded projects to replace coal-fired heating systems in urban
areas with systems that use natural gas and generate far less
particulate pollution.
“We
will improve the air quality not only for the Games, but also for the
demand of our people,” said Shen Xue, an Olympic gold medalist and
ambassador for the 2022 bid, according to a report last month by Xinhua,
the state news agency.
The
Berkeley Earth paper showed, however, that to clear the skies over
Beijing, mitigation measures will be needed across a broad stretch of
the country southwest of the capital, affecting tens of millions of
people. “It’s not enough to clean up the city,” said Elizabeth Muller,
executive director of the organization. “You’re going to also have to
clean up the entire industrial region 200 miles away.”
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