In addition to flooding and other extreme weather events, smoke from the wildfires that have blanketed many parts of North America in recent months has also had an economic cost.
At the height of the smog in June, baseball games and shows were cancelled, schools were closed and flights were delayed. To assess the consequences, studies attempt to quantify the most significant economic benefits.
An article (new window) appearing in the Review of Economics and Statistics business journal estimates that between 2007 and 2019, income in the United States fell by an average of $125 billion a year due to wildfires is.
Air quality doesn’t just affect health, says David Molitor, study co-author and associate professor of finance and economics at the University of Illinois. It appears in economic productivity statistics.
Researchers have found that exposure to smoke can lead to lost income in several sectors, from manufacturing to agriculture and real estate. Additionally, they note that older workers and people of color were disproportionately affected.
A different geography of smoke than that of fires
The study is based on satellite imagery of wildfire smoke, air quality data, and labor market data across the United States.
One of the things that surprised me about wildfire smoke is that the geography of the smoke in the United States is very different from that of the fires, says David Molitor.
It turns out that the Midwestern United States has the highest number of smoking days per year on average. There aren’t many fires in this area, but there is a lot of smoke.
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At the end of June, smog changed the landscape in Mauricie and Centre-du-Québec.
Photo: Radio Canada
4000 to 9000 premature deaths
Wildfires release fine particles called PM2.5 with a diameter of 2.5 microns or less, which is about 30 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. These particles, which can get into the lungs and blood, are particularly harmful for people with previous illnesses.
Another study (new window) published last month in the multidisciplinary journal Science of the Total Environment concluded that smoke particles from wildfires in the United States could ultimately cause between 4,000 and 9,000 premature deaths . United States.
According to the study, they could also cause between US$36 billion and US$82 billion in healthcare costs annually.
Shuai Pan, the lead author, had previously studied the impact of pollution from the transportation sector. During his doctoral research in the USA, he became interested in the consequences of forest fire smoke. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, China.
Epidemiological research suggests that wildfire smoke exposure is associated with increased mortality and some common respiratory diseases, Shuai Pan says.
“It’s not new that wildfires cause air pollution that negatively affects human health, but we really wanted to provide numbers,” he adds.
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According to Health Canada, numerous studies have shown that airborne PM2.5 particles are strongly associated with cardiovascular and respiratory mortality and morbidity parameters.
Photo: BC Wildfire
For this study, Shuai Pan and his research colleagues used satellite data on wildfire emissions and air quality collected between 2012 and 2014. They created a model that estimated the impact wildfire smoke could have on human health and the economy.
For example, according to the study, Los Angeles, a city in the western United States prone to many fires, could suffer 119 premature deaths and a financial drain of $1.07 billion per year. Those numbers would be much higher if the research were based on that summer’s smoky air, Shuai Pan believes.
A week of smoke, more than 1 billion dollars
Amid a record wildfire season in Canada, Dave Sawyer, an environmental economist at the Climate Institute of Canada, attempted to calculate the health costs of smoke in the country. He estimates that smoking-related health care costs totaled CA$1.28 billion during a particularly smoke-heavy period June 4-8.
According to Dave Sawyer, the economic cost of wildfire smoke is another reason to take action on climate change.
In the meantime, David Molitor believes more research is needed on the most effective ways to reduce harmful exposure.
“I think this is where adaptation and behavioral adaptation can play a big part,” he said. This shows that installing an air filtration system in a home, office or school can go a long way in reducing the effects of smoke exposure.
With information from Benjamin Shingler