Air pollution has lots of effects. But I think the thing we worry about most is the shortening of life and reducing people's life expectancy.
40 years ago we were thinking about this issue and began what was called a six-city study. And that study showed that people living in more polluted cities had the shorter life expectancy, who increased respiratory problems, but also through increased heart attacks, increased strokes.
As air quality has gotten better in those communities, we've seen that those people are living longer and have better health.
Air pollution comes from combustion and we're burning fuels for produce energy, to produce heat, to drive our cars, all the things we think about in terms of our day to day life contribute to this.
An air potion is not independent of global warming issues. The same sources that are contributing to global warming are also causing air pollution in this country and in developing countries.
When you think about the need for increased electricity, cooking women being exposed, their children being exposed, heating using wood crop residues, dung, even automobiles congestion, building up in these developing countries needing to increase exposures. That we see in the news all the time now.
We have seen improvements in air quality over the past 40 years in the United States and Europe. And other developed countries too. This has been due to controls on automobile emissions, reductions in emissions from power plants, and other industries in increased fuel efficiency. And as air pollution gets better, even at these very low levels we have currently.
We can see improvements in health in terms of extended life expectancy, reduced asthma attacks, reduced hospital admissions. That's it. We must take some action if we want to make our air fresh again.
