Blue Skies Bluer?
| Autor: | Marshall JD; Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo-Engineering, University of Minnesota , Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, United States., Apte JS; Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, University of Texas at Austin , Austin, Texas 78712, United States., Coggins JS; Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota , St. Paul, Minnesota 55108, United States., Goodkind AL; Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota , St. Paul, Minnesota 55108, United States. |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Zdroj: | Environmental science & technology [Environ Sci Technol] 2015 Dec 15; Vol. 49 (24), pp. 13929-36. Date of Electronic Publication: 2015 Nov 23. |
| DOI: | 10.1021/acs.est.5b03154 |
| Abstrakt: | Unlabelled: The largest U.S. environmental health risk is cardiopulmonary mortality from ambient PM2.5. The concentration-response (C-R) for ambient PM2.5 in the U.S. is generally assumed to be linear: from any initial baseline, a given concentration reduction would yield the same improvement in health risk. Recent evidence points to the perplexing possibility that the PM2.5 C-R for cardiopulmonary mortality and some other major endpoints might be supralinear: a given concentration reduction would yield greater improvements in health risk as the initial baseline becomes cleaner. We explore the implications of supralinearity for air policy, emphasizing U.S. Conditions: If C-R is supralinear, an economically efficient PM2.5 target may be substantially more stringent than under current standards. Also, if a goal of air policy is to achieve the greatest health improvement per unit of PM2.5 reduction, the optimal policy might call for greater emission reductions in already-clean locales-making "blue skies bluer"-which may be at odds with environmental equity goals. Regardless of whether the C-R is linear or supralinear, the health benefits of attaining U.S. PM2.5 levels well below the current standard would be large. For the supralinear C-R considered here, attaining the current U.S. EPA standard, 12 μg m(-3), would avert only ~17% (if C-R is linear: ∼ 25%) of the total annual cardiopulmonary mortality attributable to PM2.5. |
| Databáze: | MEDLINE |
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