Today's Washington Post featured an article on the number of deaths attributable to air pollution in the US- about 17,900 per year, mostly associated with agricultural emissions. (Original research here.)
While that's sad, it doesn't surprise me. The award for the surprising result of the day on pollution goes to Nature Communications, which finds that water pollution in lakes is associated with a great deal of methane emissions: the researchers estimate the damages in the trillions of dollars- estimates range from a minimum of $500 billion / year to upwards of $2 trillion per year. That is a jaw-dropping number; for Lake Erie, they say that the costs exceed the money spent on beach trips and sport fishing by a factor of 10. Picture from Twitter link.
