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Here are the world’s worst cities for air pollution (Al Gore Suicide Watch)
QZ/Quartz ^ | 10/20/2013 | By Ritchie King and Lily Kuo

Posted on 10/20/2013 7:43:59 PM PDT by My Favorite Headache

Here are the world’s worst cities for air pollution, and they’re not the ones you’d expect.

In 2010, some 223,000 people around the world died from lung cancer caused by exposure to air pollution, the World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday. And more than half of those deaths are believed to have been in China and elsewhere in East Asia. Here are the world’s worst cities for air pollution, according to the WHO. +

air-pollution-by-city

Exposure to air pollution is getting worse in parts of the world, especially industrializing countries, according to the WHO. The WHO’s key announcement yesterday was that it has included outdoor air pollution on its definitive list of the world’s known carcinogens—an addition that, it hopes, will get governments to do something about it. Air pollution is the world’s worst environmental carcinogen and more dangerous than second-hand smoke, for instance, the health body said. +

As the chart above shows, the cities with the worst air are often not big capitals, but provincial places with heavy industry in them or nearby. Ahwaz, for instance, in southwestern Iran, far outstrips infamously polluted cities like New Delhi or Beijing, with 372 parts per million of particles smaller than 10 micrometers (PM10), compared to the world average of 71. Life expectancy for the city of 1.2 million residents is the lowest in Iran. +

Why so bad? In Ahwaz, Iranian meteorology officials have blamed the US for the spike, claiming the presence of US forces in Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s destroyed agriculture and caused desertification. But researchers cite heavy industry in and around the city, like oil, metal and petrochemical processing, and blame the desertification on the draining of marshes and a national project that has diverted local water away from the city.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: algore; globalwarming; pollution; who
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To: Jim Robinson

Watch out, Jim.
algore’s coming for ya.


21 posted on 10/20/2013 8:12:18 PM PDT by onyx (Please Support Free Republic - Donate Monthly! If you want on Sarah Palin's Ping List, Let Me know!)
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To: My Favorite Headache

Notice that all the EU cities are in former Soviet Bloc countries. That’s the dirty little secret that leftists want hidden. For all the talk of the damage that capitalists do to the environment, the damage is multiplied when a government controls the production.


22 posted on 10/20/2013 9:07:44 PM PDT by sharkhawk (Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall.)
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To: My Favorite Headache

Dallas just isn’t in the same league as the pollution overseas when actually measure it.


23 posted on 10/20/2013 9:11:06 PM PDT by MrEdd (Heck? Geewhiz Cripes, thats the place where people who don't believe in Gosh think they aint going.)
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To: My Favorite Headache

Horton doesn’t really give a “WHO”.


24 posted on 10/20/2013 10:12:30 PM PDT by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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To: GeronL

To #15> re “moving Ahwaz”. No problem if everyone pushes at the same time.

Or they could all knit blankets to cover the desert. Whichever is easier.


25 posted on 10/20/2013 10:14:49 PM PDT by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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To: My Favorite Headache

How did Tokyo get off the list? At one time the air was so bad that people used to weear face masks and there were oxygen dispensers on the streets [similar to parking meters] where you deposited so many yen for several minutes’ worth of raw oxygen.


26 posted on 10/20/2013 10:24:43 PM PDT by MasterGunner01
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To: freedumb2003

I lived in Pasadena in the early ‘70s. On bad days, my eyes felt like the air had as much sulfuric acid as oxygen.


27 posted on 10/20/2013 10:36:39 PM PDT by AZLiberty (No tag today.)
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To: left that other site

Yup. Kilauea Volcano, and today and yesterday have been oppressive, but only several days per year in Hilo proper. If they are considering the southern and southwestern parts of the island, the vog has been regular for quite a while. It could stop at any moment, or run for eternity


28 posted on 10/20/2013 10:42:16 PM PDT by jobim (.)
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To: My Favorite Headache

Lots of sandy places on that list. And not much water to wet down the dirt.


29 posted on 10/20/2013 11:10:52 PM PDT by rfp1234 (Impeach We Much!)
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To: MadMax, the Grinning Reaper

lol


30 posted on 10/20/2013 11:32:41 PM PDT by GeronL
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To: My Favorite Headache
I would like to see Fairbanks, Alaska's numbers divided up between seasons, summer and winter.

In winter there are thousands of wood stoves caused by the outrageous price of other sources of energy.

In summer, we are usually surrounded by tens of thousands of square miles of uncontrolled forest fires. I have asthma and sometimes it hurts to breathe. It feels like someone is standing on my chest. I am not bothered in winter...

31 posted on 10/21/2013 12:57:14 AM PDT by snowtigger (. Thanx to Charlie Daniels, " Let them win, or bring them HOME")
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To: jobim

Indeed. That is why I felt it was inappropriate to list Hilo as a “Polluted” City!

And i would put up with the vog...I LUV DA BIG ISLAND!
Aloha.


32 posted on 10/21/2013 4:28:49 AM PDT by left that other site (You Shall Know the Truth, and the Truth Shall Set You Free...John 8:32)
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To: sharkhawk

Indeed.
My Best GF was in Romania when Ceausescu was removed.

There was a grey city (cement plants), a red city (bauxite), a white city (God Knows), and thousands of filthy orphanages for “the CHILDREN”.

A real workers paradise.


33 posted on 10/21/2013 4:32:17 AM PDT by left that other site (You Shall Know the Truth, and the Truth Shall Set You Free...John 8:32)
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To: My Favorite Headache

Perhaps they are not real but the imagination of some agenda driven wackos developing and then feeding numbers to the paper.


34 posted on 10/21/2013 4:36:04 AM PDT by bert ((K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 ..... Travon... Felony assault and battery hate crime)
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To: Paulie

Perhaps this is Al’s way of going “international.” Funds here must be drying up.


35 posted on 10/21/2013 5:06:05 AM PDT by stilloftyhenight (TEA baby! Let's roll!)
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To: My Favorite Headache
Each one run by an Islamist a Communist a Liberal or a Democrat (oh never mind I'm being redundant).
36 posted on 10/21/2013 10:19:16 AM PDT by jmaroneps37 (Conservatism is truth. Liberalism is lies.)
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To: snowtigger

I was wondering why Fairbanks was on the list


37 posted on 10/21/2013 10:45:13 AM PDT by bigbob (The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly. Abraham Lincoln)
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