Fighting climate change: Good for your health & diet

Cutting emissions of black carbon pollution and the greenhouse gas methane could do more than help control the planet’s rising fever, according to a new study led by NASA. It could also prevent millions of premature deaths and boost the world’s crop yields, the research finds.

“Protecting public health and food supplies may take precedence over avoiding climate change in most countries, but knowing that these measures also mitigate climate change may help motivate policies to put them into practice,” says lead researcher Drew Shindell of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

“We’ve shown that implementing specific practical emissions reductions chosen to maximize climate benefits would also have important ‘win-win’ benefits for human health and agriculture,” he says.

A combination of 14 pollution-control strategies could curb projected global warming by around 0.5 degrees C (0.9 degrees F) by 2050, boost annual farm yields by up to 135 million metric tons by 2030 and beyond and prevent between 700,000 and 4.7 million premature deaths caused by air pollution each year, the study concludes.

Measures examined in the study include stopping leaks from coal mines, oil and natural gas facilities, and long-distance pipelines; improving wastewater treatment and landfill emissions controls; doing more to aerate rice paddies; and tackling emissions from livestock manure.

Those pollution controls would also more than pay for themselves in all the benefits they generate, researchers found. While the cost of abating methane emissions, for example, is less than $250 per metric ton, the resulting benefits would be valued at $700 to $5,000 per metric ton.