Wildfires driven by climate change contribute to as many as thousands of annual deaths and billions of dollars in economic costs from wildfire smoke in the United States, according to a new study.
The paper, published Friday in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment, found that from 2006 to 2020, climate change contributed to about 15,000 deaths from exposure to small particulate matter from wildfires and cost about $160 billion. The annual range of deaths was 130 to 5,100, the study showed, with the highest in states such as Oregon and California.
“We’re seeing a lot more of these wildfire smoke events,” said Nicholas Nassikas, a study author and a physician and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. So he and multidisciplinary team of researchers wanted to know: “What does it really mean in a changing environment for things like mortality, which is kind of the worst possible health outcome?”
wolfyvegan in wildfire
Smoke from climate-fueled wildfires contributed to thousands of US deaths over 15 years, study says
https://apnews.com/article/wildfires-pollution-climate-change-deaths-9b8c7459e1f27b7688a137a9f4ef0929cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/21910902