The underlying research is suggesting that air pollution is the primary cause of 1/6 deaths worldwide [1], and fossil-fuel air pollution specifically 1/15. I'm

The underlying research is suggesting that air pollution is the primary cause of 1/6 deaths worldwide [1], and fossil-fuel air pollution specifically 1/15. I'm not sure it passes the sanity check (wouldn't we have noticed sooner?). If air pollution is really responsible for 1/6 deaths then we've got a massive low-hanging fruit to greatly improve our life expectancy and quality of life that we should take advantage to remedy with gusto! But—I would like to see the counters and follow up studies with more conservatively tuned variables to see if they've over-projected by an order of magnitude or more. Regardless, we should reduce air pollution, but the science should inform our level of resource allocation and intensity. If it's really responsible for 16% of all deaths, then resources at least equal to those spent fighting comparable sources of death should be spent eliminating air pollution. [1] 8.8 million per year in abstract: https://academic.oup.com/cardiovascres/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cvr/cvaa025/5770885 https://academic.oup.com/cardiovascres/advance-article/doi/1... over 55 million globally annually