The enviros claim 1,000 deaths per day. Show us a body!!–more–>
From the U.S. China Institute:
ON AN AVERAGE DAY IN CHINA outdoor air pollution causes the premature death of roughly 1,000 people. This is the conservative estimate of World Bank researchers utilizing surveys collected by Chinese government agencies and scholars. A number of news organizations reported that an internal World Bank report put the number who die prematurely each year at 350,000 to 400,000. The World Bank’s preliminary report states that air pollution costs the average Chinese urbanite 18 years of life. In 1997, the World Bank estimated 50,000 Chinese died prematurely each year due to air pollution.
But there are still no reports of deaths from air pollution in China since Steve Milloy wrote this op-ed in January.
Read “Show Us the Bodies, EPA.”
How would they know? They’re too busy prematurely dying from poverty and statism. A lot can happen in 12 years. Chicago was blanketed in smog from cars and the steel industry in 1973. In 1985, Obama organized Chicago, steel was dead and the air was clear. Gary IN never quite recovered.
How many people actually die in China each day?
Even without specific deaths related to China’s urban pollution, we can agree that pollution like this can’t be good for anyone’s health.
With greater freedom, China would have vastly greater wealth. With greater wealth, we get the opportunity to use resources for environmental concerns and all other needs. But the stifling hand of command economics still holds onto most of the world’s economies. Even those that did best when they were freest, like ours, seem to be coming under that life-stifling grip.
How does one define “premature death”?
I conclude China should have adopted capitalism (so to speak) sooner.