Two Harvard scientists, David Cutler and Francesca Dominici, have published a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association examining the Trump administration’s policies surrounding the environment. In it they estimate the impact on people’s health as a result of policies like repealing the Clean Power Act, rolling back the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards and other resulting automobile emissions protections, Trump’s attacks on clean water, and the EPA’s refusal to regulate toxic chemicals. Here are some of their projected estimates:
The long and short of it is, an estimated 80,000 people will die prematurely, and there will be easily over 1,000,000 respiratory cases in children over the next decade due to Trump and Scott Pruitt’s fossil-fuel agenda.That’s the long and short of it. The study makes sure to point out that the likelihood of 80,000 people dead with millions more sick in the span of the next 10 years, is an “extremely conservative estimate.” The reality is that there will likely be many more dead and many more people sick; and all of those sick people will face intense obstacles in the proceeding decade not studied here.