Cutting Emissions Benefits Our Health And Outweighs Costs Involved

September 30, 2014- Cutting carbon emissions from sources like power plants and vehicles can lower asthma rates and other health problems, a new study finds.

Many states have backed out from implementing carbon emission reduction policies because of the high costs involved. However, a new study suggests that the health benefits that come from breathing cleaner air more than make up for these costs.

Researchers from MIT looked at three policies achieving the same reductions in the US. They found that the savings on health care spending and other costs related to illness can be big -- in some cases, more than 10 times the cost of policy implementation.

Researchers noted that savings from reduced health problems could recoup 26 percent of the cost to implement a transportation policy, but up to 10.5 times the cost of implementing a cap-and-trade program.

Earlier this year WHO reported that air pollution exposure was responsible for 7 million premature deaths in 2012. Others statistics revealed that 40 percent of deaths linked to outdoor air pollution were from heart disease; another 40 percent from stroke; 11 percent from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD); 6 percent from lung cancer and 3 percent from acute lower respiratory infections in children.

Read the full HNGN.com post, Health Benefits of Reducing Emissions Outweigh Costs Involved, here.

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