In China, Coal Pollution Shortens Lives by 5 Years

The air in many of China's citiesis among the dirtiest in the world, but how does that translate to effects on human health? An economist at MIT ran the numbers to quantify just what how much a city's air can shorten a person's life. And he made creative use of a quirk in China's history to do so. The Huai River runs horizontally across China, unofficially splitting the country in two: the North and South. During the country's central planning period in the mid 20th century, the Chinese government implemented a winter heating policy that shares its name with this river. The government provided boilers and free coal to cities north of the river from 1950 to 1980, but not in the warmer climates to the south. Many of these boilers are still in use today. Because the river provides a clear divide between where the coal burning was and ...