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Health
Benefits Linked To
Cutting Greenhouse Gases
Excerpt
By Keith Mulvihill, Reuters Health Writer
NEW
YORK (Reuters Health) - Reducing emissions of greenhouse gases
produced by the burning of fossil fuels not only will put the
brakes on global warming, but would also benefit public health,
according to an international group of scientists.
``There is
little doubt that air pollution from current patterns of fossil-fuel
use for electricity generation, transport, industry, and housing
are already sickening or killing millions throughout the world,''
write Dr. Luis Cifuentes, of Pontificia Universidad Catolica de
Chile in Santiago, and colleagues.
In the August
issue of the journal Science, the research team reports on how
cutting pollution could benefit public health over the next two
decades in Mexico City; New York City; Santiago, Chile; and Sao
Paulo, Brazil.
These cities
have a combined population of 45 million people, the authors note.
Based on current
data, the researchers calculated the potential health benefits
of using existing technologies that would reduce greenhouse gas
emissions from fossil fuels.
Such efforts
would reduce particulate matter and ozone levels by 10% and ``thereby
avoid some 64,000 premature deaths, 65,000 chronic bronchitis
cases, and 37 million person days of restricted activity or work
loss in these four cities through 2020,'' Cifuentes and colleagues
report.
``For every
day that policies to reduce fossil-fuel combustion emissions are
postponed, deaths and illness related to air pollution will be
increased,'' the researchers conclude.
``There is
no silver bullet out there,'' co-author Dr. Devra Lee Davis of
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania told Reuters
Health.
``What is
required is a major commitment to adopt many different policies
that reduce total carbon emissions in many different sectors,''
she added. ``In the study we show that these technologies exist
and can be adopted immediately...with immediate positive effects.''
SOURCE:
Science 2001;293.
Reference
Source 89
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