Outdoor air pollution results in 3.3 million deaths across the globe, and this already staggering number may double by 2050 if no measures are taken. “By integrating many global atmospheric quality models with satellite data and information on health, population and air quality sensors”, they have created an extremely detailed data on air pollution reasons and deaths.
According to Jason West from the University of North Carolina, who wasn’t affiliated with the study, these numbers are higher than they were expected to be 10 years ago.
Agriculture was the most surprising major cause of air pollution. The most common blame for poor air qualities are power plants, that kill an estimated 16,929 people per year, followed closely by agriculture with 16,221 deaths.
Stoves used to cook and heat homes – what the authors refer to as “residential and commercial energy use” – are the world’s largest contributor to deadly air pollution, researchers found.
Ammonia from fertilizers and animals drifts into cities and is a key ingredient in producing ozone and microscopic pollutants known as fine particulates that damage the heart and lungs, Lelieveld said in an conference call with reporters. That ammonia then combines with sulfates from coal-fired power plants and nitrates from bicycle.xhaust to form the soot particles that are the big air pollution killers.
Lelieveld said it will be a “win-win situation in both directions” if the world reduces carbon dioxide (considered the main gas causing global warming) because soot and smog levels would go down too.
“Agricultural emissions are becoming increasingly important but are not regulated”, said Allen Robinson, an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University, who was not a part of the study.
And it can be fixed at a “relatively low cost” if we do not want to problem to continue. The disturbing numbers bring to attention the need for cleaner air and the urgent issues yet unaddressed around Asian countries, where the numbers are the highest.
Their results show that in India and China, for example, emissions from heating and cooking, have the largest death toll, while in much of the United States and a few other countries, emissions from traffic and power generation are crucial.
One of the biggest surprises from this study was the finding, farming being the main cause behind air pollution in Europe, U.S, South Korea, Japan and Russia.
They used those to calculate the concentrations of fine particle matter in air pollution over time and from different emissions sources around the world.