An incredible paper today in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science (PNAS). The study indicates that the burning of coal in areas north fo the Huai River is causing a loss of 5.5 years of life expectancy for the 500 million residents who live there. Click the image above to read the paper in PNAS. It is NOT behind a pay-wall. Louise Watt in Huffington Post also has a good piece on this if you want the plain language version. The BBC has a very good piece as well and has covered it on air extensively today.

Chinese officials are facing increasing pressure to do something about their hazardous smog. I suspect this study will be the impetus to make major changes, and once they decide to do something, it can happen fast under their one party system. Coal is literally killing their people and they know it.

You might want to remember that the next time you turn on a cable news network and watch a program sponsored by “clean coal”.

There’s no such thing. It’s an advertising slogan with nothing behind it, because the failed attempts to make it clean end, up with a cost that makes every other fuel look like free energy. Image above from urbantimes.co.