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Where does air pollution come from?

(ourworldindata.org)
233 points kamaraju | 1 comments | 02 Apr 25 04:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.211s | source
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johnthesecure ◴[02 Apr 25 05:54 UTC] No.43553996[source]▶
It's interesting to see the number of deaths caused by pollution. But everyone will die of something. Could it be that many of those people whose death was caused by pollution may have been frail and close to death anyway? I wonder if it would be more useful to talk about quality-life-years (QUALYs) lost as a result of pollution. Probably much harder to get that data though.
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1. thaumasiotes ◴[02 Apr 25 06:03 UTC] No.43554028[source]▶
I think pollution is better thought of like starvation, as something that makes you frailer so that you end up dying over something that a healthier person would have survived. Pretty much the opposite of the perspective you take.

You don't see a lot of people arguing that starvation doesn't mean much because the deaths of starving people are more directly caused by disease or injury.