And the guys at Berkeley Earth ought to put out whatever they’ve been smoking and come down to Earth.
So (above) that’s the claim.
It’s based on an error from Richard Muller (you’ll remember him as the fake climate skeptic-turned-believer from a few years ago) that smoking a cigarette is equivalent to inhaling air with a PM2.5 level of 22 micrograms/cubic meter — or about 22 micrograms/cubic meter x 24 cubic meters of air/day = 528 micrograms of PM2.5/day.
Then, according to more misinformation from Muller, if San Francisco air has a PM2.5 concentration of 246 micrograms/cubic meter, then inhaling it is like smoking 246/22 or 11 cigarettes per day.
Doesn’t get much wronger than this.
Smoking a cigarette is worth inhaling 10,000 to 40,0000 micrograms of PM2.5, according to EPA researchers:
That’s a lot more than Muller’s calculus of 528 micrograms/day from a single cigarette.
So if San Francisco air contains 246 micrograms of PM2.5/cubic meter and you inhale that for 24 hours, you inhale 246 micrograms/cubic meter x 24 cubic meters or 5904 micrograms of PM2.5 — about half of a cigarette.
So Muller — like any good climate bedwetter — is only off by a factor of 20 or so.
Muller is further incorrect in comparing breathing polluted air to smoking. Smokers inhale deeply while polluted air-breathers generally inhale much more shallowly — especially when air is foul. It’s a reflex-like response.