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I don't think it's an unreasonable claim for fossil fuels to account for the vast majority of air pollution deaths

But apparently it is: I certainly didn't peg desert dust to be top spot. Anakin was right

https://ourworldindata.org/data-review-air-pollution-deaths

The comment I was replying to saying that almost all diseases and cancers are caused by it isn’t the same thing though. Disease and cancer has been around for a long long time before the use of fossil fuels.

I think "almost all diseases/cancers [that are] linked to pollution" is a much more likely read than "almost all diseases/cancers [are] linked to pollution"

Admittedly I did smush the two together so I'd have to rethink whether "all deaths [that are] linked to pollution" is as reasonable as "all deaths [that are] linked to air pollution" -- I suspect it probably still would be because of the sheer scale of fossil fuels, but regardless, desert sand still beats fossil fuels anyway

My interpretation of the statement was that it means all kinds of these diseases are linked to air pollution, not all cases.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com