Nobody pretends that polluted air isn’t terrible for your health. Clean up the skies over any dirty city and the people who live there will all but certainly become healthier. That, at least, has been popular wisdom, but until now, no one had ever put it to the statistical test. Now someone has and the results are striking: According to a study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine, when local governments decide to scrub out the smog, local residents actually live an average of five months longer.
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