General

World o Declinism

This story was briefed on page A14 of the WSJ yesterday. I didn’t see it anywhere else. 

LOS ANGELES — Cleaner air over the past two decades has added nearly five months to average life expectancy in the U.S., according to a study.

Researchers said it is the first study to show that reducing air pollution translates into longer lives.

Between 1978 and 2001, Americans’ average life span increased almost three years to 77, and as much as 4.8 months of that can be attributed to cleaner air, researchers from Brigham Young University and the Harvard School of Public Health reported in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.

Some experts not connected with the study called the gain dramatic.

“It shows that our efforts as a country to control air pollution have been well worth the expense,” said Joel Kaufman, a University of Washington expert on environmental health.

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