大气污染双语新闻.docVIP

Research in China finds air pollution significantly shortened life expectancy 研究发现：空气污染显著缩短寿命 A new study links heavy air pollution from coal burning to shorter lives in northern China. Researchers estimate that the half-billion people alive there in the 1990s will live an average of 5 years less than their southern counterparts because they breathed dirtier air. 一项新的研究表明由于烧煤引发的严重空气污染将缩短中国北方居民的寿命。研究人员估计，因为呼吸更污浊的空气，上世纪90年代居住于北方的5亿居民要比南部的居民平均少活5年。 China itself made the comparison possible: for decades, a now-discontinued government policy provided free coal for heating, but only in the colder north. Researchers found significant differences in both particle pollution of the air and life expectancy in the two regions, and said the results could be used to extrapolate the effects of such pollution on lifespans elsewhere in the world. 中国可以用自身来做一个比较：几十年来，国家政策只允许给寒冷的北方地区提供免费的煤燃料供暖，现在这项政策已经被废止。研究人员发现，在南北两个地区，空气中颗粒物污染和人们的预期寿命都存在显著差异，而且研究结果可以用来推断在世界其他地方这种污染对寿命的影响。 The study by researchers from China, Israel and the United States was published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 这项研究由来自中国，以色列和美国的研究人员共同完成，并于周二发表在《美国国家科学院院刊》上。 While previous studies have found that pollution affects human health, “the deeper and ultimately more important question is the impact on life expectancy,” said one of the authors, Michael Greenstone, a professor of environmental economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 虽然之前的研究发现，污染会影响人体健康，但是“更深层和根本上更重要的问题是对预期寿命的影响。”该项研究的作者之一，麻省理工学院环境经济学教授迈克尔·格林斯通说。 “This study provides a unique setting to answer the life expectancy question because the (heating) policy dramatically alters pollution concentrations for people who appear to be of otherwise identical health,” Greenstone said in an email. “Further, due to the low rates of migration in China in this period, we can know people’s exposure over long time periods,” he said. “这项研究为回答有关寿命的问题提供了一个独特的情境，因为（供暖）政策极大地改变了看似健康状况相同的人生存环境的污染浓度，”格林斯通在一封电子邮件中说道，“此外，由于中国在此期间的低迁移率，我们就可以知道，人