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Cutting global warming pollution would not only make the planet healthier, it would make people healthier too, new research suggests.
Slashing carbon dioxide emissions could save millions of lives, mostly by reducing preventable deaths from heart and lung diseases, according to studies released Wednesday and published in a special issue of The Lancet British medical journal.
"Relying on fossil fuels leads to unhealthy lifestyles, increasing our chances for getting sick and in some cases takes years from our lives," US Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in atelecastbriefing from her home state of Kansas. "As greenhouse gas emissions go down, so do deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. This is not a small effect."
Instead of looking at the health ills caused by future global warming, as past studies have done, this research looks at the immediate benefits of doing something about the problem, said Linda Birnbaum, director of the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Some possible benefits seemed highly speculative, the researchers conceded, based on people driving less and walking and cycling more. Other proposals studied were more concrete and achievable, such as eliminating cook stoves that burn dung, charcoal and other polluting fuels in the developing world.
Andcutting carbon dioxide emissionsalso makes the air cleaner, reducing lung damage for millions of people, doctors said.
"Here are ways you can attack major health problems at the same time as dealing with climate change," said lead author Dr. Paul Wilkinson, an environmental epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Wilkinson said the individual studies came up with numbers of premature deaths prevented or extra years of life added for certainlocales.
For example, switching to low-polluting cars in London and Delhi, India, would save 160 lost years of life in London and nearly 1,700 in Delhi for every million residents, one study found. But if people also drove less and walked or biked more, those extra saved years would soar to more than 7,300 years in London and 12,500 years in Delhi because of less heart disease.
(Read by Guanny Liu. Guanny Liu is a multimedia journalist at the China Daily Web site.)
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(Agencies)
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最新研究表明，減少溫室氣體排放不僅能改善地球環境，還可以改善人們的健康。
上周三在英國醫學期刊《柳葉刀》特刊上發表的研究報告顯示，減少二氧化碳的排放可以拯救數百萬人的生命，尤其是可減少由心臟病和肺病所導致的可預防性死亡。
美國衛生與公眾服務部部長卡瑟琳?西貝利厄斯在家鄉堪薩斯州的一次電視廣播簡報會上說：“對礦物燃料的依賴導致了不健康的生活方式，增大了人們患病的風險，有些情況下還會縮短人們的壽命。隨著溫室氣體排放的減少，由心血管和呼吸道疾病導致的死亡病例也會減少。這個影響可不小。”
美國國家環境健康科學研究所所長琳達?伯恩鮑姆稱，和以往一些關注未來全球變暖所導致的疾病的研究不同，該研究主要著眼于解決此問題所帶來的立竿見影的益處。
科研人員坦承，有些行為帶來的潛在益處似乎很不穩妥，如少開車、多走路和多騎車。而其它一些方案則更加具體可行，如減少發展中國家燒畜糞、木炭、或其它污染燃料的廚灶的使用。
醫生們表示，減少碳排放還可以凈化空氣，減少數百萬人的肺部損傷。
研究報告的主要撰寫者、倫敦衛生及熱帶醫學學院環境流行病學家保羅·威爾金森博士說：“這些辦法可以讓人們在應對氣候變化的同時解決主要的健康難題。”
威爾金森稱，一些個體研究指出，在某些地區，減少碳排放讓很多人免于早亡，或使人們的壽命得以延長。
例如，某項研究顯示，如果在倫敦推廣小排放量汽車，可使每百萬居民的壽命延長160年，在印度德里為1700年。但如果人們同時少開車、多走路或多騎車，則可減少心臟病患病率，從而使這兩個數字分別達到7300多年和1.25萬年。
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（中國日報網英語點津 Julie 編輯蔡姍姍） |
