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Map: Oysters, Reefs, and Swamps Protect Billions’ Worth of Real Estate—for Free

by donkorleone842 Posted on July 15, 2013

Mother Jones

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Among the hundreds of recommendations listed in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s $20 billion plan to protect New York from climate change is a call to stock up on oysters. Not the kind you’d want to knock back with a nice pilsner on a Friday afternoon: The idea is to build large underwater oyster reefs around the harbor that could prevent coastal erosion and absorb storm surges. “Soft” infrastructure like this—reefs, wetlands, dunes, and other “natural” systems—is gaining in popularity over “hard” levees and sea walls as an effective way to insulate cities from sea level rise.

Turns out, some of the best of these defenses might already be in place: Yesterday the journal Nature published the first-ever nationwide maps that reveal just how much existing coastal habitats are going to save our butts from rising seas and wild storms. Remove reefs, coastal forests, marshes, kelp beds, and other coastal habitats, the study finds, and twice as much coastline and 1.4 million more people will be highly exposed to climate risks.

Stanford marine ecologist Katie Arkema and her colleagues pulled a vast trove of data—Census Bureau population stats; property values from real estate site Zillow; wave and wind exposure data from NOAA; published climate models; and maps of coastal ecosystems from the scientific literature—and mixed them together to visualize where these natural systems offer the most, or least, protection.

The map below shows where the greatest risk from sea level rise and storm surge will be in 2100, based on models from the 2013 National Climate Assessment. Red areas represent not just places where sea levels are projected to rise the most, but also factor in the presence of protective offshore habitats; the type of shoreline (beach, cliff, etc.); and the spot’s exposure to wind, waves, and other weather. Coastal southern Florida, for example, which is generally expected to get inundated by sea level rise, actually appears yellow, because of its abundant ocean-absorbing wetlands. Except Miami, that is: That city, the little red dot at the bottom right corner of the state, is still screwed. But things could be worse. The inset bar graph shows how many more people would be in high-risk red areas if those natural barriers were removed; in Florida, roughly an additional 300,000 people would be exposed, in New York another 300,000.

Courtesy Nature

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Map: Oysters, Reefs, and Swamps Protect Billions’ Worth of Real Estate—for Free

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Zimmerman Has Been Found Not Guilty. Now What?

by gt67dx1 Posted on July 14, 2013

Mother Jones

After more than three weeks of testimony and nearly 17 hours of deliberation, the jury in the Trayvon Martin case has found George Zimmerman not guilty.

Zimmerman shot and killed the 17-year-old after a scuffle in a gated condominium complex in Sanford, Fla., on February 26, 2012. The case became a racially charged national story almost immediately due to the circumstances of Martin’s death—a black, unarmed teen shot after being tailed by Zimmerman for merely looking suspicious—and the fact that Sanford police did not arrest Zimmerman until 46 days after the killing.

But the actual trial boiled down not to racism or police inaction but whether or not Zimmerman wanted to kill Martin and if Zimmerman’s life was in danger when he pulled the trigger. To get a murder conviction, the prosecution had to prove to the six women on the jury that Zimmerman acted with malice or intent when he killed Martin. This was tough to prove, given that the victim wasn’t around to offer his version of events. During the trial, the defense sought to paint Zimmerman as a poor fighter who was overpowered by Martin and who came to fear for his life during the scuffle. During his closing statement, attorney Mark O’Mara brought a slab of concrete into the courtroom, arguing that the teen used the sidewalk as a weapon.

More on the Trayvon Martin Killing:


The Trayvon Martin Killing, Explained


Trayvon Martin’s Death Extends Sanford’s Sordid Legacy


Here’s the Latest in Race-Baiting Conspiracy Theories From the Right


Verdict Nears in Trayvon Martin Caseâ&#128;&#148;and the Right Fixates on Race Riots


Why the Latest Zimmerman Race Riot Conspiracy Theory Is the Dumbest Yet

“That is cement. That is a sidewalk. That is not an unarmed teenager with nothing but Skittles trying to get home,” he said. “That was someone who used the availability of dangerous items, from his fist to the concrete, to cause great bodily injury.”

The prosecution contended that Zimmerman killed Martin not because he had to, but because he wanted to. On Thursday, the judge in the case ruled that the jury could find Zimmerman guilty of a lesser charge of manslaughter. This option—described as a possible compromise by numerous legal observers—was not accepted by the jury.

For the people who believed that Zimmerman was guilty, this case±—and the Sanford police department’s reaction to it—was far more signficant than a local murder. It inspired deep emotions about the value of the lives of young black men, and this verdict will provoke deep feelings of disappointment and frustration for many who pushed for Zimmerman to be charged with murder.

But it’s not over. Now that the verdict is in, here’s what could happen next.

Federal charges: The Department of Justice launched an investigation last March to investigate whether Martin’s shooting amounted to a federal hate crime—that is, if Zimmerman followed and killed Martin because he was black. In July 2012, the FBI released a statement saying that investigators had found no evidence that Zimmerman was motivated by racism. The July statement indicates that federal charges are highly unlikely, but the DOJ has not announced that the case is closed. It’s still being brought up as a post-trial possibility. NAACP president Benjamin Jealous, for instance, said Saturday on MSNBC that “there are still additional legal avenues. He could still be charged with federal civil rights charges.”

Civil lawsuit: Martin’s family reached a settlement in April with the homeowners’ association of the subdivision where the killing occurred. The details of the settlement were not made public, but the Orlando Sentinel reported that the family was “said to” have been awarded at least $1 million. The suit did not include Zimmerman, but the family’s attorney Benjamin Crump has said that the family intends to sue their son’s killer at some point in the future. It’s not uncommon for families to seek a form of justice through civil courts, even when a the defendant is acquitted in criminal court. And the standards for judgments are different in such civil cases.

The public’s reaction: In the week leading to the verdict, speculation that people—specifically black people—would riot if Zimmerman were acquitted spread through the mainstream media, after taking off in the conservative press and cable news. What’s more likely, based on how Martin supporters have reacted initially—after the verdict was read, the crowd outside of the courthouse dispersed peacefully—is that protests (of the non-violent variety) against racial profiling will continue.

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Zimmerman Has Been Found Not Guilty. Now What?

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"Fruitvale Station" and The Weinstein Company’s Push for Social Justice

by Isaiah McKenna Posted on July 13, 2013

Mother Jones

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The tears had not yet dried, but immediately upon exiting theater 15 at San Francisco’s AMC Metreon for a screening of Fruitvale Station, each of us was handed a business card. On one side: an image of Michael B. Jordan (playing Oscar Grant) embraced by Ariana Neal (playing Grant’s daughter Tatiana). On the other side: a message encouraging us to channel our newfound rage, confusion, and sadness to fix the injustice we just witnessed on screen.

Call it insensitive, or call it smart marketing, but The Weinstein Company is hard at work making Fruitvale Station more than just something to watch while munching on popcorn. They’re engaged in a campaign to raise awareness about social injustice.

Photos by Brett Brownell

Just after midnight on January 1, 2009, Oakland resident Oscar Grant was riding home from San Francisco on the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), when he became involved in an altercation. The train stopped at Fruitvale Station and transit officers responded to the scene. While attempting to restrain Grant, officer Johannes Mehserle shot him in the back. A few hours later, Grant, the 22-year-old father of a 4-year-old girl, died at Highland Hospital.

Numerous cell phone users captured the scene and uploaded their videos. Bay Area residents were incensed and protests erupted. Officer Mehserle later testified that instead of grabbing a Taser, he mistakenly grabbed his gun. Mehserle was charged with murder, but a jury only found him guilty of involuntary manslaughter. He was releases after 11 months in prison.

The story of Oscar Grant left a painful scar on the Bay Area, and a literal one on the floor tile where he was killed. During filming of Fruitvale Station, actor Michael B. Jordon, who plays Grant, found a bullet hole where Grant was shot. “I remember putting my chest to the hole and being scared while I was shooting that scene,” he told the L.A. Times. The hole was later filled by BART officials, but Jordan told the paper, “There’s energy at that spot—people know it and what happened there. And oftentimes, people won’t stand at that end of the platform.”

Director Ryan Coogler helms this story of Grant’s final day, and included in his retelling is a brutally visceral recreation of what happened that New Year’s morning on the platform.

Coogler grew up near Oakland, and at the time of the shooting he was home on break from film school. He recently told the New York Times, “When we saw that happen to Oscar, and we saw it on video, it was like the wind getting knocked out of us. I was questioning who we were as a community.” Soon after the shooting, Coogler decided to make the film.

It’s beautifully and subtly acted by Jordon, Melonie Diaz (playing Grant’s girlfriend and mother of his daughter), and Octavia Spencer (playing Grant’s mother). Meanwhile, the other cast members come across so natural and real it’s as if we’re peeping through a key hole at a real family in the kitchen. This level of comfort makes Grant’s death feel personal, leaving you rooting for his survival in the midst of a painful awareness that history had other plans.

But after years of anger and tension in the Bay Area, The Weinstein Company, which purchased Fruitvale Station for $2.5 million at Sundance earlier this year, is using it as an opportunity.

As stated in big bold letters at the top of the post-screening business cards, they’re inviting everyone to “Commit to end social injustice in the name of Oscar Grant.” (A fitting sentiment, although the enticement of winning a gift card is jarring in this context.) The film’s website encourages visitors to share stories of overcoming prejudice, bullying, social injustice or mistreatment with their “I AM __” campaign. And of course they’re taking to social networking, such as this recent Instagram photo. Wish them luck. They’ll need it.

Fruitvale Station opened in limited release Friday July 12, and wide release on July 19.

Here’s the trailer:

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"Fruitvale Station" and The Weinstein Company’s Push for Social Justice

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Caught on Film: The Dark World of Truck Stop Sex Workers

by Laura Brown Posted on July 13, 2013

Mother Jones

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“The truth is, making the movie was a really traumatic experience. I suspect I may have developed some mild PTSD.” This is how filmmaker Alexander Perlman describes shooting Lot Lizard, his hypnotic new documentary about truck stop prostitution. While his claim might sound hyperbolic—or like a canny bit of marketing—it rings true: He logged thousands of miles and hundreds of hours to make the film, braving roach motels, crack highs, and homicidal pimps. Indeed, what Perlman captures in Lot Lizard is visceral and harrowing.

The film’s three protagonists—Betty, Monica, and Jennifer—work on the fringes of the trucking industry. America’s Independent Truckers’ Association estimates there are nearly 5,000 truck stops across the country, and although many offer nondescript places to sleep, eat, or shower, many others host a bustling shadow economy of sex and drugs. Lurk on truckers’ online message boards long enough and you’ll likely come across what amounts to a guide to interstate sex, replete with lurid tall tales (see here, here, and here).

A police intervention program in Texas that works?

Life on the road, they say, is lonely. To quote one trucker in Lot Lizard: “These walls close in on you. Being in this truck can actually make you crazy.” As Perlman discovered, however, the women—and, occasionally, men—who cater to this loneliness don’t fare much better. Betty and Monica are addicted to crack, Monica is homeless when she’s not crashing with friends or sympathetic drivers, and both are entangled in dysfunctional relationships. “I can feel money,” Betty says, a kind of human divining rod, and yet she spends most of the film desperately searching for just that.

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Caught on Film: The Dark World of Truck Stop Sex Workers

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Why the Latest Zimmerman Race Riot Conspiracy Theory Is the Dumbest Yet

by h0di80ju Posted on July 12, 2013

Mother Jones

The conservative blogosphere is brewing with ominous warnings about the inevitable riots they think will come if George Zimmerman is acquitted of charges related to his killing of unarmed teen Trayvon Martin. (My colleague Lauren Williams has rightly questioned this mania here.) An email this week from Everett Wilkinson, a former tea party leader in Florida who now runs something called the Nation Liberty Federation, outlines many of the leading (and recurring) conspiracy theories about the verdict’s aftermath, which he naturally thinks will include riots: martial law. FEMA camps. But he offers up some of the new ones, too.

Among those is the suggestion that the New Black Panther Party is busing people to Florida for the specific purpose of inciting riots after Zimmerman presumably walks out of court a free man. Wilkinson writes:

Reports have come in from eye witnesses in Sanford, Florida that the New Black Panther Party, an extremist group that has called for the killing of George Zimmerman if he is found not guilty, is busing in thousands to that town. Sanford is the location of the trial and near the place where the shooting of Trayvon Martin by Zimmerman occurred. There have been threats of riots if Zimmerman is not found guilty and it is believed that the New Black Panther Party and other extremist groups will attempt to take advantage of racial tensions after a non guilty verdict by organizing riots.

Wilkinson points out that the New Black Panthers supposedly put out a “dead or alive” poster with Zimmerman’s face on it last year—proof that the “eye witnesses” in Sanford must be right. He writes ominously, “When Zimmerman was first arrested the Black Panthers threatened to burn the whole state of Florida down.” Wilkinson suggests that the Obama administration might be bringing in Russian soldiers to fight off the angry mobs (through FEMA, naturally), a claim that follows on the heels of his suggestion earlier this year that Russian intelligence was warning that President Obama was creating teams of “death squads,” a story that originated on a hoax website.

Clearly Wilkinson doesn’t know much about the New Black Panthers aside from the overhyped reports about them on Fox News during the past few presidential campaigns. For one thing, they probably don’t need a bus. Most of their members could fit in a taxi. And they’re not especially good at organizing anything, even voter intimidation. Their erstwhile leader, Malik Zulu Shabazz, got his start in DC in the 1990s while at Howard University’s law school, running as a candidate for the DC city council and trying to organize boycotts of Korean merchants in DC’s poor, black neighborhoods. His first moment in the limelight came after he organized anti-Semitic chants at a Howard rally in 1994. Shabazz was good at getting himself in the news and not much else. Little has changed in that regard since 1995, when now-Slate editor David Plotz wrote this seminal profile of the guy. (A sampling: “Seated in the tiny chair in the tiny room, Shabazz looks somewhat like an overgrown schoolboy—an impression magnified by the large zit erupting beneath his right nostril.”)

The reports and emails from Nation Liberty Federation vastly overestimate the potential of the Panthers to mobilize people. The Panthers themselves tweeted recently that even they don’t think they could organize the kind of chaos conservatives warn about, saying, “If Zimmerman is acquitted there is likely to be unrest all over America. It will be way beyond the capacity of the NBPP.” (The NBPP tweet that they will not be engaging in any unlawful activity, either.)

The Nation Liberty Federation’s rhetoric suggests that if there are going to be riots after a verdict, the people we might want to be worried about are the white ones. Wilkinson, who is white, has some advice for readers on protecting themselves against “flash mobs”:

The obvious things you need are firearms, ammunition, maps, food, water, full tank of gas and/or “Bug Out Bag Survival Bag” and/or “Urban Survival Kit.” I would also highly recommend a CB radio or ham radio because the cell phone towers may be overloaded or shut off.

One of the reason’s why Americans beat the British is because they organized as militia units. Remember also Korean shop owners that protected their shops during the LA riots. We must learn to work as teams. Talk to your friends and family and come up with a plan to protect as a unit.

We are expecting martial law declared, similar to Boston or Katrina Hurricane, in any area affected by riots or that Obama feels wants to control. Unless you like the idea of spending anytime in a FEMA Camp, I would recommend bugging out of the area at the first sign of unrest if you live in an infected area. Plan on having to be on the the move within 15 minutes of an riot…

Don’t be surprised if Russian or other foreign troops come to help the DHS! Rumor has it that Obama has positioned at least 15,000 Russian troops.

If you find yourself in the immediate area of a “flash mob,” riot or protest, leave immediately. This is not the time to be hero or argue. You will only become a victim. Hopefully you have a firearm to defend yourself, but you need to use it to help you extract from the area. In other words, “shoot, scoot and run.”

It wouldn’t take many paranoid, angry gun owners to create a bloodbath in Florida after a Zimmerman verdict, a prospect that seems far more frightening than Malik Shabazz and a cab full of New Black Panthers.

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Why the Latest Zimmerman Race Riot Conspiracy Theory Is the Dumbest Yet

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Can a "Sharknado" Really Happen?

by Carson Silverman Posted on July 11, 2013

Mother Jones

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Courtesy of Syfy

“Global warming IS the reason…”

So exclaims a local TV news reporter as a sharknado—a climate change-abetted windstorm that sucks in an armada of malevolent sharks—approaches the heart of Los Angeles. As the sharknado descends, the cyclone starts flinging horrifying sharks at an innocent public and Tara Reid. The only logical way to defeat a sharknado is with chainsaws, shotguns, handguns, helicopters, crudely made bombs, and selfless acts of brawny heroism.

Sharknado, which premieres Thursday, July 11 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Syfy, is a movie for our times. Not only does it address the hotly political issue of climate change, it also features a storeowner who claims that the National Security Agency—the gigantic entity that Edward Snowden pissed off—is responsible for generating and unleashing sharknados on the American people. (The female newscaster, not the small businessman, is right, though this doesn’t turn out to be much comfort to her, since she gets devoured by a shark during a live broadcast.)

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Can a "Sharknado" Really Happen?

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Confirmed: Fracking Triggers Quakes and Seismic Chaos

by DenaeTina858 Posted on July 11, 2013

Mother Jones

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World map vector: Antun Hirsman/Shutterstock

More Mother Jones coverage of fracking.


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Confirmed: Fracking Triggers Quakes and Seismic Chaos


The Surprising Connection Between Food and Fracking


Mark Ruffalo, The Fracking Foe


WATCH: “It’s the Wild F*ing West Out There”


Meet Harold Hamm, Oil Tycoon and Romney’s Top Energy Advisor


The Texas Fracking Billionaire Who’s Bankrolling National Politics

Major earthquakes thousands of miles away can trigger reflex quakes in areas where fluids have been injected into the ground from fracking and other industrial operations, according to a study published in the journal Science on Thursday.

Previous studies, covered in a recent Mother Jones feature from Michael Behar, have shown that injecting fluids into the ground can increase the seismicity of a region. This latest study shows that earthquakes can tip off smaller quakes in far-away areas where fluid has been pumped underground.

The scientists looked at three big quakes: the Tohuku-oki earthquake in Japan in 2011 (magnitude 9), the Maule in Chile in 201 (an 8.8 magnitude), and the Sumatra in Indonesia in 2012 (an 8.6). They found that, as much as 20 months later, those major quakes triggered smaller ones in places in the Midwestern US where fluids have been pumped underground for energy extraction.

“The fluids kind of act as a pressurized cushion,” lead author Nicholas van der Elst of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University explained to Mother Jones. “They make it easier for the fault to slide.”

The finding is not entirely surprising, said van der Elst. Scientists have known for a long time that areas with naturally high subsurface fluid pressures—places like Yellowstone, for example—can see an uptick in seismic activity after a major earthquake even very far away. But this is the first time they’ve found a link between remote quakes and seismic activity in places where human activity has increased the fluid pressure via underground injections.

“It happens in places where fluid pressures are naturally high, so we’re not so surprised it happens in places where fluid pressures are artificially high,” he said.

The study looked specifically at Prague, Oklahoma, which features prominently in Behar’s piece. The study links the increased tremors in Prague, which has a number of injection wells nearby, to Chile’s February 27, 2010, quake. The study also found that big quakes in Japan and Indonesia triggered quakes in areas of western Texas and southern Colorado with many injection wells. The study is “additional evidence that fluids really are driving the increase in earthquakes at these sites,” said van der Elst.

Animated GIF: fracked Up?

Drillers inject high-pressure fluids into a hydraulic fracturing well, making slight fissures in the shale that release natural gas. The wastewater that flows back up with the gas is then transported to disposal wells, where it is injected deep into porous rock. Scientists now believe that the pressure and lubrication of that wastewater can cause faults to slip and unleash an earthquake.

Illustration: Leanne Kroll. Animation: Brett Brownell

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Confirmed: Fracking Triggers Quakes and Seismic Chaos

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"The Bridge": A Serial Killer Drama That’s Also About Immigration Politics, Corruption, and Human Trafficking

by William V. Wainscott Posted on July 11, 2013

Mother Jones

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If you’ve heard of The Bridge, chances are good that you’ve heard it favorably compared to two cable-TV powerhouses: The Wire and Homeland. Given the fact that both are critical darlings—and that the former is frequently heralded as the greatest thing to ever happen on TV—this likely puts a hunk of pressure on creators Meredith Stiehm and Elwood Reid. (Stiehm is herself an alumnus of the Homeland writers’ room.) But if The Bridge‘s first three episodes are any indication, it might just have a shot at measuring up.

The new series (premiering Wednesday, July 10 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on FX) is a loose adaptation of the eponymous Danish/Swedish cop drama, which revolves around the murders of a Swedish politician and a Danish prostitute, and the subsequent murders. The cross-border premise was intriguing enough to warrant an upcoming British/French version, as well. The American incarnation kicks off at the Bridge of the Americas, a border crossing between Ciudad Juárez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas, where the remains of a controversial, anti-immigration American judge and a Mexican prostitute have been dumped. El Paso detective Sonya Cross (the reliably awesome Diane Kruger) and Chihuahua state police officer Marco Ruiz (the Oscar-nominated Demián Bichir) arrive on the scene to find the body parts literally straddling the painted border line. As the body count rises, and a mysterious man takes responsibility for the slayings, the detectives find themselves working closely together, in both jurisdictions. Ruiz is the troubled family man resisting the temptations of drug-cartel bribery, and Cross is the by-the-book hard case with Asperger’s. She is attentively watched over by her boss, Lt. Hank Wade (Ted Levine, who has a fair share of experience with detective shows and serial killers).

What may at first sound like another tired, gritty, and gimmicky police procedural briskly evolves into something sprawling and timely. The series examines the real-world problems of Juárez—an area where the drug war and killing is so bad that local businesses demand UN peacekeeping forces. The show offers a panorama of law enforcement officers, journalists, immigrants, drug lords, and ordinary citizens whose lives collide during the murder spree. And the butcher at the center of all this is a (supposedly) high-minded serial killer who uses slaughter to make social and political points: Will well-off American society pay more attention to the daily horrors south of the border if he brings that reality to the nation’s doorstep?

The Bridge unfolds as an intense, thoughtful look at human trafficking, drug cartels, police corruption, immigration, poverty, and border tensions—all wrapped up nicely in the form of a buddy-cop show.

Check out this TV spot for the new series:

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To read more of Asawin’s reviews and culture reporting, click here.

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"The Bridge": A Serial Killer Drama That’s Also About Immigration Politics, Corruption, and Human Trafficking

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Google Hosts Fundraiser for Climate Denier Sen. James Inhofe

by mAskasieie45gg Posted on July 10, 2013

Mother Jones

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This story first appeared on the Guardian website and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Google, which prides itself on building a “better web that is better for the environment”, is hosting a fundraiser for the most notorious climate change denier in Congress, it has emerged.

The lunch, at the company’s Washington office, will benefit the Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe, who has made a career of dismissing climate change as a “hoax” on the Senate floor.

Proceeds of the July 11 lunch, priced at $250 to $2,500, will also go to the national Republican Senatorial Committee.

It’s the second show of support from Google for the anti-climate cause in recent weeks.

Last month, the Washington Post reported that the internet company had donated $50,000 for a fundraising dinner for the ultra-conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute—topping the contributions even of the Koch oil billionaires.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has launched multiple lawsuits aimed at trying to discredit the science behind climate change—accusing scientists of fraud. None have so far succeeded.

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Google Hosts Fundraiser for Climate Denier Sen. James Inhofe

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China’s Coal Reliance Reduces Life Expectancy by 5.5 Years, Study Says

by mr2ql Posted on July 9, 2013

Mother Jones

This story first appeared on the Guardian website.

Air pollution causes people in northern China to live an average of five and a half years shorter than their southern counterparts, according to a study released on Monday that claims to show in unprecedented detail the link between air pollution and life expectancy.

High levels of air pollution in northern China—much of it caused by an overreliance on burning coal for heat—will cause 500 million people to lose an aggregate 2.5 billion years from their lives, the authors predict in the study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The geographic disparity can be traced back to China’s Huai River policy, which, since it was implemented between 1950 and 1980, has granted free wintertime heating to people living north of the Huai River, a widely acknowledged dividing line between northern and southern China. Much of that heating comes from the combustion of coal, significantly impacting the region’s air quality.

“Using data covering an unusually long timespan—from 1981 through 2000—the researchers found that air pollution…was about 55% higher north of the river than south of it,” the MIT Energy Initiative said in a statement.

“Linking the Chinese pollution data to mortality statistics from 1991 to 2000, the researchers found a sharp difference in mortality rates on either side of the border formed by the Huai River. They also found the variation to be attributable to cardiorespiratory illness, and not to other causes of death.”

The researchers, based in Israel, Beijing, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, gauged the region’s air quality according to the established metric of total suspended particulates (TSP), representing the concentration of certain airborne particles per cubic meter of air.

The study concluded that long-term exposure to air containing 100 micrograms of TSP per cubic meter “is associated with a reduction in life expectancy at birth of about 3.0 years.”

Air pollution has been the subject of widespread public outrage in China since January, when Beijing’s air quality index (AQI)—a similar metric to TSP—regularly exceeded 500, the scale’s maximum reading, for weeks on end. On January 12, Beijing’s AQI hit a record 755, 30 times higher than levels deemed safe by the World Health Organization.

Past studies have established a link between air pollution and reduced life expectancy. One recent large-scale study concluded that air pollution contributed to 1.2 million premature deaths in China in 2010.

Yet according to Michael Greenstone, an economics professor at MIT and one of the study’s authors, this study is the first to precisely quantify their relationship. “Demonstrating that people die a bit earlier because of pollution is interesting and helps establish that pollution is bad,” he said. “But the most important question, the next question that needed to be answered, is what’s the loss of life expectancy? How much should society be willing to pay to avoid high levels of pollution? This study was structured so we could answer that question.”

China’s central authorities are keenly aware that environmental degradation has become one of the country’s leading causes of social unrest. Last month, China’s cabinet revealed 10 new measures intended to combat air pollution, and state media reported that Chinese courts can now impose the death penalty on serious polluters.

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China’s Coal Reliance Reduces Life Expectancy by 5.5 Years, Study Says

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