CHINA: "It's As If Every Man, Woman, and Child Smoked 1.5 Cigarettes Each Hour…"

Berkeley Earth just released a study showing that air pollution kills an average of 4,000 people every day in China, 17% of all China’s deaths. For 38% of the population, the average air they breathe is “unhealthy” by U.S. standards. With unprecedented detail, the sources of pollution throughout China are mapped directly from ground-level measurements.
“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 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.