Back in 1970, Los Angeles was known as the smog capital of the world — a notorious example of industrialization largely unfettered by regard for health or the environment. Heavy pollution drove up respiratory and heart problems and shortened lives.
But 1970 was also the year the environmental movement held the first Earth Day and when, 45 years ago this month, Congress passed a powerful update of the Clean Air Act. (Soon after, it was signed by President Richard Nixon, and it was followed by the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency and passage of the Clean Water Act, making him one of the most important, though underappreciated, environmentalists in American history.)
Since that time, the Clean Air Act has repeatedly been challenged as costly and unnecessary. As a fight brews over President Obama’s new use of the law to address global warming, it’s worth re-examining the vast difference the law has already made in the quality of the air we breathe, and in the length of our lives.
Numerous studies have found that the Clean Air Act has substantially improved air quality and averted tens of thousands of premature deaths from heart and respiratory disease. Here, I offer new estimates of the gains in life expectancy due to the improvement in air quality since 1970 — based on observations from the current “smog capital” of the world, China. (To learn more about how this was calculated, click here.)
For several decades starting in the 1950s, China’s government gave residents in the northern half of the country free coal for winter heating, effectively creating a natural experiment in the health impact of pollution. My colleagues and I recently compared pollution and mortality rates between the north and south of China and calculated the toll of airborne particulate matter, widely believed to be the most harmful form of air pollution, on life expectancy.
Applying that formula to E.P.A. particulate data from 1970 to 2012 yields striking results for American cities.
In Los Angeles, particulate pollution has declined by more than half since 1970. The average Angeleno lives about a year and eight months longer. Residents of New York and Chicago have gained about two years on average. With more than 42 million people currently living in these three metropolitan areas, the total gains in life expectancy add up quickly.
But some of the greatest improvements occurred in smaller towns and cities where heavy industries appeared to operate with few restrictions on pollution.
In 1970, the Weirton, W.Va.–Steubenville, Ohio, metropolitan area had particulate concentrations similar to current-day Beijing. A child born there today can expect to live about five years longer than one born in 1970.
More than 200 million people currently live in places monitored for particulates in 1970 and today. (The E.P.A. focuses on the most heavily populated or polluted areas of the country, which is why these calculations exclude approximately 115 million people.) On average, these people can expect to live an additional 1.6 years, for a total gain of more than 336 million life-years.
Not all of these benefits came from Clean Air Act regulations. Other factors include local regulations and the shifting of relatively dirty industries abroad. But the Clean Air Act was a primary cause.
The history and impact of the Clean Air Act can serve as a valuable case study for countries that are struggling today with the extraordinary pollution that we once faced. In Northern China, where pollution is curtailing lives by an average of five years, the government has at last declared a “war on pollution.” While enforcement is not perfect, the government has improved transparency and amended environmental protection laws to impose stricter punishments against polluters.
In India, pollution is abridging the average person’s life by about three years. But the growing outrage has not yet coalesced into forceful action, although it’s possible that pressure to take steps against climate change will also have an effect on improving air quality.
The hundreds of millions of life-years saved from improved air quality in our country didn’t happen by accident or overnight. This happened because a collective voice for change brought about one of the most influential laws of the land.
As the United States and other nations continue to debate the costs of environmental regulation, they can do so with the knowledge that the benefits can be substantial. As proof, we need look no further than the five extra years residents of Weirton-Steubenville are living and the hundreds of millions of years gained by Americans throughout the nation.
An earlier version of a chart with this article misidentified a metro area that gained significant life expectancy from the Clean Air Act. It is Youngstown, Ohio, not Youngstown, Pa.
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Nelson Alexander
New York September 25, 2015Please, liberals. Stop the debate about "Climate Change." Once the issue of carbon emissions entered this speculative, prognostic realm the carbon industry has been winning.
It is quite obvious to everyone that if you sit in your garage with the car motor running, it's not good. The planet is like a garage. Carbons pumped into the air don't go away. They aren't vacuumed away into outer space.
So the idea of pumping all the buried carbons of the last billion years into the air in 100 or 200 years should be very, very obviously a bad idea. Climate aside. Yet the financial "asset" of these still unburned carbons underwrites trillions of dollars in speculation and "nominal wealth."
Case closed. This should be so obvious, without all the endless debate about whether man-made climate change or any other scientific fact is "really true." Please, liberals, restructure the debate. You are on the losing side of "postmodernity."
frederik c. lausten
verona nj September 25, 2015I remember vividly driving down the Garden State Parkway from Northern Jersey with my family heading to the Jersey Shore on weekends. There was this one area where all the petrochemical plants were located and you could smell the sweet stench of the pollutants they released into the air miles before and after you passed by that blighted spot. People would be rolling up their car windows because the smell was so strong. Drivers were accelerating just to get away from the area. How ironic that the man who was so vilified his entire life by the liberal media, Richard Nixon, was instrumental in creating an agency that cleaned up these areas across our great country once and for all. And how the current Republican Party is trying mightily to destroy or neuter this same agency.
Phil
Buffalo September 25, 2015Melissa Lee on CNBC's Fast Money show said of Volkswagon "No one has been killed". Good luck trying to change the attitude of the 1%.
Judy
New York City September 25, 2015So how many years did Volkswagen's cheats steal from Americans?
Rick
Summit, NJ September 25, 2015The article doesn't make clear how much shorter lives are in Los Angeles than in less polluted cities. Although the article does state that Los Angeles is improving, it also makes clear that Los Angeles has long been the dirtiest city in America. Has this shortened the lives of Los Angelenos by five years or by ten years? The author should present the scientific results of how much lives in Los Angeles are shortened compared to other cities in America.
CarolinaFran
SC September 25, 2015...and then there's Volkeswagon....
Kevin Cahill
Albuquerque September 25, 2015It's about time that the NYT paid attention to this issue. Air pollution doesn't just raise the level of the oceans. It also kills people. Tax coal.
Boston Benny
Boston September 25, 2015Gah!
Clean air is something that shouldn't be an issue. BUT once again, the effects of Citizens United is making it obvious that top 1% determines what is best for the rest of us
Jim
Austin September 25, 2015Tell the Republicans
LarryAt27N
South Florida September 25, 2015"...it’s worth re-examining the vast difference the law has already made in the quality of the air we breathe, and in the length of our lives."
I suspect that elders of the Koch family of Coal, Oil, and John Birch Society fame would beg to differ with the conclusions printed here.
Anne
Princeton, NJ September 25, 2015Hah hah. I have an even more detailed comment awaiting moderation, wherein I do make a simple arithmetic error. 6.6 is 1/5 of 33, not 1/20!! Still, the effect is, as a certain presidential contender would say, yooouge! It's yoooouge!
Tom
Sonoma, CA September 25, 2015This article makes it really clear: when Republicans talk about defunding or reducing the power of the EPA, they're advocating for shortening people's lives by years, not days or hours. They'll say it's for jobs, but what job would you sign up for if it took years off of your life – and off of the lives of your loved ones?
J
C September 25, 2015What amazes me is that free-marketers don't understand why we should control pollution. The reason is: you need to PAY for what you GET. Pollution is waste disposal into my air and water. You should PAY ME to dispose of waste in my air and water. If you refuse to pay me (and I want a lot, because I want to live as long as possible), then I reserve the right to bring the government hammer down on your non free market, wanting everything for free, polluting, butts.
Harvey Black
Madison, Wisconsin September 25, 2015Related to this commentary is a study by the Pew Charitable Trusts concluding that industry typically overestimates the costs of regulation.
http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/fact-sheets/2015/05/go...
nhhiker
Boston, MA September 25, 2015Yes, the 1960s cars had no emission controls, except for positive crankcase ventilation valves (PCV) in California. But, they were beautiful!
http://www.iagclassics.com/carpages/1965-Buick-Skylark-GS-For-Sale.html
Kathy K
Bedford, MA September 25, 2015In the early 60's I visited my cousins in Torrance, CA. I noticed that at night no stars were visible even though we weren't near heavily lit areas. Even in Boston, we could see many stars at night. When I asked my cousins they said that this was normal. Just shows that we aren't helpless in fighting pollution.
WmC
Bokeelia, FL September 25, 2015Quoting from an article that appeared in the Atlantic in 2012:
"The EPA concluded that the total monetized health benefits from the Act during the 20-year period ranged between $5.6 and $49.4 trillion. The central estimate for benefits was $22.2 trillion. During that period, the costs to comply with the act were estimated to be approximately $0.5 trillion. Thus the net direct benefits were between $5.1 and $48.9 trillion, with a central estimate of $21.7 trillion. The benefit-cost rations were 43.4:1 for the central estimate and 11:1 and 97.8:1 for the extreme estimates. Who among us has an investment that has performed this well?"
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/09/how-the-clean-air-act-...
The benefits of the Clean Air Act, in other words, are clear and cost-effective, and the evidence of same is readily available.
Unfortunately, we have a faction in congress that appears to be incapable of reading, understanding, and grasping the implications of a simple costs/benefits analysis.
Kip Hansen
is a trusted commenter On the move, Stateside USA September 25, 2015The statistical methods that claim to separate out the deaths from "air pollution" from general deaths are generally, scientifically, not valid.
While President Obama is blaming [sharply reduced] air pollution for rising asthma rates, this guy credits reduced air pollution with reduced incidence of respiratory diseases thus "saved" lives.
Both claims are based on the misuse of statistics to "prove" their desired point. Both are equally false.
There is no creditable evidence that "air pollution", in general, *causes* heart disease of any kind. What has been found, statistically, is an association with higher air pollution and more heart disease (by a tiny fraction) in the same group of people. Also found are falling incidence of heart disease with falling air pollution, and lengthening life spans (in the USA) alongside of reduced air pollution. NONE of these associations prove causation.
What is known is that living and growing up in a smokey house or hut, and I mean so smokey that yours eye water, is bad for lung health -- something people always knew. So, you want your inside cooking (and heating) stove to be gas or electric, not burning wood or dung or coal, which smoke up your home and damages your health.
1960's-style LA smog is also known to harm your health.
EPA stats show America's air is vastly cleaner now than 60 years ago, and in almost all places, cleaner than EPA targets for various pollutants. http://www3.epa.gov/airtrends/aqtrends.html
sherparick
locust grove September 25, 2015But I thought you guys wanted to go back 60 years and get rid of the Clean Air Act! The fact is our collective action through Government to correct his huge market failure has extended life, and probably saved hundreds of billions in medical costs.
Mark
Brooklyn September 25, 2015Wow, the Clean Air Act was genius.
We increase regulation on air polluters, so they take their dirty industry and move to a different country with it. Then we still get our cheap products, but we don't have to live with the pollution. Plus, the greenhouse gas emissions from production are no longer our fault. Nice!
I'm sure when China implements new regulations on pollution, their manufacturers will invest in expensive technology to clean up manufacturing rather than following the example of our manufacturers and decamping for cheaper pastures, right?
sherparick
locust grove September 25, 2015Well, I guess they would have to move to another planet, since there not to many "pastures" after China and India. One of Rush LImbaugh's greatest "achievements" was turning the average Republican and Conservative against environmental laws and regulations on behalf of his rich buddies in the fossil fuel and chemical industries. In 1990 George H.W. Bush and most Republicans passed amendments to the Clean Air Act that reduced acid rain pollution and signed a treaty banning Flourocarbons to save the Ozone UV shield in the upper atmosphere. It is unthinkable that this could happen today. Instead his son is running on a promise to make the Clean Air and Water Acts "dead letters" as far as law in concerned and basically place the U.S. on the same environmental level as China.
Brian Hague
Texas September 25, 2015I'm not surprised about the life expectancy in Pueblo, Colorado. I lived there for a few years.
One thing that you should attribute to the increase in life expectancy is the closure of the Steel Mill there (the union strike that never ended). There is a lot of data that shows the 1980's as the final "smog" years in Pueblo, not due to any EPA regulations, but because there is no longer as much work being done at that mill.
BenR
Wisconsin September 25, 2015When I hear calls for deregulation, I always wonder how free market forces could possibly have a positive impact on pollution.
SMC
West Tisbury MA September 25, 2015The major beneficiaries are the cities in Red States, the ones most adamant against environmental regulations. Maybe Red Staters should think about it a bit more.
O'Brien
Airstrip One September 25, 2015As an outdoor aficionado, I favor clean air as much as anyone. but the Clean Air Act does not account for the difference in life expectancy data between Beijing and Los Angeles (or most other places in the USA) over time.
It's the smoking, stupid. In China, half the population still smokes cigarettes. In America, it's about a fifth of the population.
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.PRV.SMOK.MA
Control for that variable, and then get back to us. Thank you.
David Gregory
Deep Red South September 25, 2015Richard Nixon gets way too much credit for the Clean Air Act of 1970.
Factually, the bill was written in Congress on a bi-partisan basis and had wide political support from the grass roots, as Americans were aghast at the deteriorating state of our environment.
Nixon, being a shrewd politician, signed the bill. There have been few elected Republicans since willing to do anything but gut environmental laws.
From Nixon's comments on signing the bill:
"How did this come about? It came about by the President proposing. It came about by a bipartisan effort represented by the Senators and Congressmen, who are here today, in acting. Senator Randolph, Senator Cooper, and Congressman Springer represent both parties and both Houses of the Congress."
J McGloin
Brooklyn September 25, 2015Evidence that policy is moved by people on the street. We all must be involved in making policy, and in the long run the mass have more power than the lobbyists, when they choose to excessive it.
Dr. George F Gitlitz
Sarasota, FL September 25, 2015Though these local results are certainly impressive, we must point out, again, that since 1950, the decade cited in the article, total world CO2 emissions have gone from about 6 billion metric tons per year to about 39-40 billion. And that during that same time span world population has approximately tripled, to about 7.3 billion people. And we've also cited papers which have found that, per ton of CO2 saved, investment in family planning and population control can be up to 20 times more effective, and less expensive, than measures to reduce carbon itself. The "upshot" is that both strategies should be pursued, but population reduction is not on the minds of any responsible world leader -- certainly not this otherwise very admirable Pope, and not Pres. Obama, nor the Chinese. China should return to its one-child policy, and the rest of the world should follow them. Global warming will NEVER be reversed unless we do this. Never.
vulcanalex
Tennessee September 25, 2015Yes and CO2 is not a pollutant, global warming is not something that can be stopped, just adapted to. And global warming will never be "reversed" by human activities or changes. Thinking that it can is foolish at best.
J McGloin
Brooklyn September 25, 2015Vulcanelex, CO2 becomes a pollutant when so much I'd enjoyed that we increase its presence in the air and oceans by a third in two hundred years.
Most climate scientists say that warning could be reversed if we stopped burning so much fossil fuels.
The foolish thing is to put of moving to solar, wind, and other renewables, which will be cheaper in the long run, and save lives lost to breathing air pollution, and reverse global warming. A win, win, win.
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