Big Brains6 Jul 2023

The Health Costs of Air Pollution

Many cities in the US have been experiencing smoky and hazy skies lately. Some of you have probably been affected by poor air quality due to the ongoing wildfires in Canada that are causing pollution to travel as far as Chicago and New York. On a former episode of our podcast, we spoke with some of the leading experts on air pollution about how this problem has been getting worse and the cost we’re all paying for it.

We’re taking a summer break while we work on some special episodes and will be back in August, but in the meantime we wanted to share some of our best and most relevant episodes. These episodes contain some fascinating and life-changing information for new and returning listeners.

We can’t always see the consequences of air pollution around us, but it’s costing us years off our lives. According to a new Air Quality Life Index report from the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC), air pollution is taking 2.2 years off the average global life expectancy. In some of the most polluted regions in the world, residents are expected to lose an average five years of their lives, if the current high levels of pollution persist.

While smog seem like a difficult problem to tackle, some countries have proven it’s possible to clean up the air. In the past seven years, China has reduced air pollution as much as the United States has in the past three decades. And since India’s Gujarat state launched the world's first clean air market in 2019, they’ve been successful in cutting particulate pollution by at least 20 percent.

In this episode, we speak with EPIC’s Air Quality Programs Director Christa Hasenkopf and EPIC’s South Asia Director Anant Sudarshan about why we need to treat air pollution as a global health threat—and what we can do about it.

Big Brains is sponsored by the Graham School for Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies.

Follow Big Brains:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/big-brains-podcast/

X: https://x.com/BigBrainsUC

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(219)

Our Untapped Superpower: Connecting With Others, with Nicholas Epley

Follow Big Brains: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/big-brains-podcast/ X: https://x.com/BigBrainsUC Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our...

14 Mai 38min

Why the Fed Matters Now More Than Ever, with Douglas Diamond

From setting interest rates to keeping inflation in check, the Federal Reserve sits at the center of some of the most important economic decisions shaping our daily lives. As the Fed prepares for new ...

30 Apr 37min

Anxious? Avoidant? How to Build More Secure Relationships

What if the way you relate to others isn’t fixed—but fundamentally changeable? In this episode, we speak with psychiatrist and neuroscientist Amir Levine, who is an Associate Professor of Clinical Psy...

16 Apr 36min

Could AI Models Forecast Extreme Weather Events? with Pedram Hassanzadeh

What if we could predict the world’s most dangerous weather events—not days, but weeks in advance? Extreme events like heat waves, hurricanes, and floods cause massive loss of life and billions in dam...

2 Apr 35min

Are Judges Too Powerful? The Rise of Universal Injunctions, with Samuel Bray

In recent years, a judge in one state had gained the power to halt policies across the entire United States. Known as nationwide or universal injunctions, these actions have become one of the sweeping...

19 Mar 40min

Could Data Centers Break Our Power Grid? with Andrew Chien

Artificial intelligence may live in “the cloud,” but its footprint is firmly on the ground. As AI systems grow more powerful, the data centers that train and run them are consuming massive amounts of ...

6 Mar 37min

Remarkable New Treatments for Spinal Cord Injuries, with Mohamad Bydon

When a two-year-old boy suffered a catastrophic injury that severed the connection between his skull and spine, doctors across Europe told his family there was no hope. His spinal cord was completely ...

19 Feb 26min

Can You Improve Your Working Memory and Attention? with Edward Awh

In today’s world, our brains are overloaded with information, making it hard to focus and remember. But what are the true limits of the human mind—and why do they exist? And why are some people seem s...

5 Feb 35min