Do you want to go on a trip to China? Take a mask because the air is very harmful to health, according to an American study.
A team from Berkeley Earth, an American NGO specializing in temperature and climate data analysis, observed the Chinese atmospheric situation at 1,500 different locations for 4 months and its results are alarming.
Pollution: 80% of Chinese people breathe unhealthy air
Staying 24 hours in Beijing has the same negative health consequences as smoking 40 cigarettes. Thus, in China, 80% of the population breathes a daily looks unhealthy or unhealthy for sensitive groups, according to the criteria of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Large cities are particularly affected by the fine particle pollution which “penetrates deep into the lungs and triggers heart attacks, strokes, lung cancer and asthma,” the researchers said.
One hour in Beijing would reduce life expectancy by 20 minutes
His origin ? The surrounding industrial areas with the combustion of coal, which produces sulfur dioxide harmful to humans. Richard Mueller, the scientific director of the NGO, also explains that every hour spent in Beijing would reduce life expectancy by 20 minutes. “It is as if every man, woman and child smokes 1.5 cigarettes per hour.”
Poor air quality is responsible for 17% of the country’s mortality. Each year, air pollution causes 1.6 million deaths, or 4,000 per day.
Air pollution in France
In France, the air quality is not very enviable either. The last pollution peaks in Paris in 2013 and 2014 showed that breathing city air was equivalent to passive smoking. Also, on December 13, 2013, the inhabitants of the Capital inhaled the equivalent of the smoke of 8 cigarettes in a room of approximately 20 square meters.
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