More ways cars are killing us
2025-09-18 19:01:20.991696+02 by Dan Lyke 0 comments
Wildfire smoke could soon kill 71,000 Americans every year
As climate change makes such conflagrations ever more catastrophic, that mortality is only going to escalate. A new study in the journal Nature estimates that wildfire smoke already kills 40,000 Americans each year — the same number who die in traffic crashes — and that could rise to more than 71,000 annually by 2050 if emissions remain high. The economic damages in the United States may soar to over $600 billion each year by then, more than all other estimated climate impacts combined. And the problem is by no means isolated to North America: A separate paper also publishing today estimates that 1.4 million people worldwide could die prematurely each year from smoke by the end of this century — six times higher than current rates.
Or Anne Lutz Fernandez @lutzfernandez.bsky.social
One way that cars kill us has exceeded another way that cars kill us.