The Pervasive and Worldwide Effects of Smog
I recently saw data on the worldwide deaths caused by smog. As large as these were, they do not capture how much smog affects everyone exposed to it, and especially sensitive people with asthma, breathing problems, or damage from smoking. We will try to capture some of the extent with statistics, but even that doesn’t do it justice. Then we will examine world-wide data, especially China, India, and the Middle East. I am going to present a lot of data without putting quotes around it or citing sources, which would take me a month to write this blog post.
Children are the main victims when they are restricted to stay indoors on smoggy days, and skip recesses. In developing countries, they will not have filters at home or at school. Even countries that rely on scooters, they do not have expensive smog filters. When kids get sick, the parents miss work, take them to doctors, and buy prescriptions. In Riverside, each episode costs an average of $972, and in Long Beach, $915. The yearly cost for a child with asthma was about $4,000.
In 2016, worldwide, there were 6.1 million early deaths from air pollution, or 12% of the death rate. Of these, 4.1 million were due to outdoor air from vehicles, coal plants, and steel mills. In India, as many as 1.6 million deaths were due to air pollution. In poorer countries, inside air pollution from heating or cooking fires were responsible for 2.6 million deaths per year. These deaths occur through lung cancer and emphysema.
In the US, there are 200,000 early deaths a year from air pollution. These are skewed to men, poor people, and African-Americans. Blacks are three times as likely to die from air pollution. In California, as many as 24,000 deaths a year may be due to ultra fine particles in cardiopulmonary disease, and they can cause diabetes, hypertension, and bowel disease. Ultra fine particles kill 80,000 to 100,000 Americans a year, according to the EPA.
Jane Hall, a CSU Fullerton Professor of Environmental Economics, found that the costs of ozone and PM2.5 in the South Coast basin was $22 billion a year.
In China, there were 700 deaths per million inhabitants, due mainly to high-stack, households, and agriculture. The same is true of North Korea. Other countries were at most a half of that. Coal was only a small fraction of the pollution.
The WHO database cites PM10 levels by region, and groups countries by income as High (HI) or Low and Middle Income (LMI). They average 2008-2015 to avoid fluctuations. The worst region is Eastern Mediterranean HI with about 210 microgram per cubic meter. Next is Eastern Mediterranean LMI at 158. These are followed by Southeast Asia at 123 and Africa at 119. Below this is Western Pacific LMI at 104, but it’s HI is only 40. America HI is only 31, and America LMI is 44. European LMI is 55, and European HI is only 25. The world average is 85.
The worst world cities at PM10 from 2011-2015 are Riyadh at about 360, Ma’ameer at 255, Delhi at 230, Cairo at 180, Doha at 160, Ulaanbaatar at 160, Dahka at 155, Dakar at 145, Abu Dhabi at 130, and Mumbai at 120. Beijing is at 105, and Shanghai at 80. The WHO air quality guidelines for annual mean PM10 are only 20, and for PM2.5 only 10. For 24-hour means, the guidelines are 50 and 25, respectively.
From 2008-2013 from WHO data, air pollution increased by 8%. America, Europe and Western Pacific HI have been reducing their pollution. Southeast Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean have been increasing theirs. Still, this data is old, and everyone is striding to lower their pollution. WHO is working on an update.
