{"id":164556,"date":"2020-04-22T15:37:41","date_gmt":"2020-04-22T19:37:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/?p=164556"},"modified":"2020-09-17T10:19:16","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T14:19:16","slug":"a-zero-emissions-boston-could-save-288-lives-and-2-4-billion-annually","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/news\/articles\/2020\/a-zero-emissions-boston-could-save-288-lives-and-2-4-billion-annually\/","title":{"rendered":"A Zero-Emissions Boston Could Save 288 Lives and $2.4 Billion Annually"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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April 22, 2020<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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\"Satellite
The 75-square-mile zone around Boston modeled in the study.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The City of Boston has set a goal<\/a> of becoming carbon neutral by 2050, mainly by cutting emissions. But what if Boston eliminated all emissions now?<\/p>\n

That is the question asked by a new School of Public Health study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The estimated answer: over 200 deaths avoided in Boston (and the rest of Suffolk County) each year, with reductions in fatal and non-fatal cardiovascular and respiratory illness extending far beyond the city, from Worcester to Barnstable and into southern New Hampshire and northern Rhode Island.<\/p>\n

The researchers also estimated that the resulting decrease in medical costs and lost\/reduced work could save $1.7 billion in Suffolk County, and $2.4 billion for the entire 75-square-mile zone modeled in the study.<\/p>\n

\u201cPublic health and climate policymaking are intertwined,\u201d says study lead author Matthew Raifman, a doctoral student in environmental health. \u201cWhile Boston\u2019s climate policies are focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, these actions will also likely reduce deaths and improve the quality of life of residents of Boston and the surrounding region.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn showing the substantial health and economic benefits that clean air can bring to Boston area residents, this study demonstrates that climate action isn\u2019t just about saving the planet; it\u2019s also about making us healthier,\u201d says study senior author Patrick Kinney<\/a>, Beverly Brown Professor of Urban Health and professor of environmental health.<\/p>\n

Raifman, Kinney, and colleagues modeled two scenarios using the US Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s Community Multiscale Air Quality model. In the first, the researchers created a model of 2011 emissions and estimated the status quo for two air pollutants known to harm health: PM2.5 <\/sub>(particulates with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers, or 3 percent of the diameter of a human hair) and O3<\/sub> (ozone).<\/p>\n

In the second scenario, the researchers set the human-made emissions from within Boston\u2019s city limits to zero. They defined human-made emissions broadly, including motor vehicles, generators, rail, industry, all oil- and gas-burning, shipping and boating along the coast, and residential wood fires.<\/p>\n

The researchers then compared PM2.5<\/sub> and ozone levels between the two scenarios to estimate the impact that eliminating emissions from Boston would have on air quality across the region. \u00a0They found that a zero-emissions Boston would halve PM2.5 <\/sub>concentrations in the city itself, and slightly decrease concentrations for the rest of the modeled zone. Concentrations of ozone would also decrease across much of the modeled zone, although Boston and areas west of the city would actually see an increase in ozone during warmer months\u2014which the researchers explain is because of the reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions that would normally transform ozone into other compounds.<\/p>\n

The researchers then used the EPA\u2019s Environmental Benefits Mapping and Analysis Program (BenMAP) Community Edition v1.5 to estimate how these changes in PM2.5 <\/sub>and ozone would affect health at the county level.<\/p>\n

They estimated that these changes would result in 288 fewer deaths per year across the 75-square-mile area, mainly in Boston and the Greater Boston area. This would be 6 deaths avoided per 100,000 people in the region\u2014which the researchers note is roughly equivalent to the state\u2019s motor vehicle crash fatality rate.<\/p>\n

The health benefits from the decrease in PM2.5 <\/sub>would mainly override the health harms of increased ozone. The researchers estimated that a zero-emissions Boston would prevent 116 non-fatal heart attacks, 46 cardiovascular hospitalizations, 117 cases of chronic bronchitis, and over 17,000 asthma attacks across the zone, again mainly in Boston. However, the high ozone levels would increase emergency room visits for asthma and respiratory hospitalizations.<\/p>\n

Looking at the effects by race and ethnicity, the researchers found that the greatest reduction in deaths and non-fatal health issues relative to population size would be in people of color, and particularly black people, who the researchers note currently bear the greatest burden of environmental injustice and are more likely to live in Boston than any other area in the larger modeled zone.<\/p>\n

The researchers estimated that the decrease in deaths, hospitalizations, days of missed work, and other benefits of a zero-emission Boston would translate to savings of $1.7 billion for Suffolk County, $182 million for Norfolk County, $159 million for Middlesex County, and tens of millions of dollars in savings for other surrounding counties in eastern Massachusetts and bordering states.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this study, we focused only on the City of Boston\u2019s climate action plan, but it\u2019s important to note that Boston\u2019s actions will not occur in a vacuum,\u201d Raifman says. \u201cMany cities across the region are pursuing similar climate goals. The sum may be different from the parts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study was co-authored by Armistead Russell and T. Nash Skipper of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the George Institute of Technology.<\/p>\n

\u2014Michelle Samuels<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Air pollution from just the City of Boston contributes to nearly as many deaths across the region as car crashes do, as well as non-fatal cardiovascular and respiratory disease and days of missed work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10989,"featured_media":164564,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"tags":[2142,1538,1818,3371,1767,3334,2366,2143,2070,2178,2023,2300,2454,2418,2124],"bu-publication":[3516],"sphnews-article-category":[3519,3529,3531,3540],"sphnews-topic":[],"bu_edition":[],"media_type":[],"profile_tax":[2248],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/164556"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10989"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164556"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/164556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":172851,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/164556\/revisions\/172851"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164556"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=164556"},{"taxonomy":"sphnews-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sphnews-article-category?post=164556"},{"taxonomy":"sphnews-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sphnews-topic?post=164556"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=164556"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=164556"},{"taxonomy":"profile_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile_tax?post=164556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}