This story and headline hit me between the eyes:
Air pollution shaves off 2.2 years of average life expectancy worldwide
The average person is losing about 2.2 years of life expectancy due to air pollution, according to new research by the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute.
Worse, the obvious dangers of a worldwide addiction to fossil fuels are fed and dealt by big corporations and their servants in public offices are old news as shown by the same Chicago research institute's 2018 report:
EPIC's new Air Quality Life index measures single greatest threat to human health
Fossil fuel-driven particulate air pollution cuts global average life expectancy by 1.8 years per person, according to a new pollution index and accompanying report produced by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, [EPIC].
That's a 20%+ jump worldwide in just three years.
* And do you remember that the Wisconsin DNR -
Foxconn's 4 air emission permits go through DNR speed-dating
and the US EPA - separately quickly, and knowingly - had approved allowing more air pollution over Southeastern Wisconsin - where air quality is regularly degraded.
The US EPA's politically-driven loophole created during the previous administration was closed by team Biden, while the Wisconsin DNR's emission permits remain in Foxconn's hands despite production at the Racine County site that 'justified' the permits - or production of any kind - having never begun.
We are so blasé, we are in such denial about the state of the state and the world that publicly-issued permits to add 800 or so tons of air pollutants annually gather as much concern as a potato chip bag lying in the gutter.
* And air quality harmful to people, businesses and life it self is also a byproduct of an expanding wildfire season raging in the US West -
The Rim Fire burned more than 250,000 acres (1,000 km2) of forest near Yosemite National Park, in 2013. (US Gov't. photo, via Wikipedia)
- that right now is as close to Wisconsin as the Minnesota portion of the Boundary waters:
Progress made on northern Minnesota wildfires, but burning could last until snowfall
Climate change is a human-driven crisis, and humans don't have too much time to make a meaningful impact on the head start we've given it.
And people across Louisiana are out of time, thanks to superstorms - wildfires' climate change catastrophic cousin.