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1.6 Million People Die in China Every Year Because of Air Pollution: Study

If you were in China now, every hour of exposure would reduce your life expectancy by 20 minutes. It’s like every man, woman and child smoked 1.5 cigarettes each hour. Air pollution is that bad in the communist country, at least that is what a recent study done by Berkeley Earth claims.
Digital commercial televisions screens playing an actual sunrise in Beijing a while ago 1 photo
Photo: www.dailymail.co.uk
Remember those digital commercial televisions screens playing an actual sunrise in Beijing a while ago? Some said it’s a horror prank of some peculiar sort. That’s how bad it got that day, and the image toured the world media. Sure, China’s government has announced big plans to reduce the massive pollution the country is struggling with, investing millions in alternative energy power sources, such as wind and hydro harvesting.

Nevertheless, things are dangerous, and a recent study shows how bad they've gone. In April 2014, Berkeley Earth began a major new effort to collect and analyze the world’s air pollution data. This August, their first scientific paper on air pollution in China was accepted for publication by PLOS One. According to the Institute, the paper included four months of data, which later were completed with further information.

In total, they have analysis and data for 16 months, April 2014 through August 2015. “We found that 1.6 million people are dying every year from air pollution in China, and we have also been able to identify the sources of the air pollution,” researchers explain.

Sure, the world’s most populous country may be at the top of the chain, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t all affected.

Air pollution is the greatest environmental disaster in the world today,” says Richard Muller, Scientific Director of Berkeley Earth, coauthor of the paper. “When I was last year in Beijing, pollution was at the hazardous level; every hour of exposure reduced my life expectancy by 20 minutes. It’s as if every man, woman, and child smoked 1.5 cigarettes each hour,” he said.
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