This seems pretty poorly researched, or at least poorly presented.
The numbers the author uses to quantify "life cost", as far as I can tell, come entirely from one graph in the section "A heuristic to quantify harms". The author examined the life-years lost from exposure to ambient particles in multiple countries around the world, concluding that
>being exposed to 2500 PM2.5 for one year costs 1 DALY
But that line comes from a chart with a range of about 10-100 describing constant exposure to ambient particles. Even if we assume the author's line is correct, identifies a real effect, and correctly ascribes causality, it is not reasonable to draw the conclusions they do.
The author speculates burning a cone of incense, which will produce a concentration of about 4000 for a few hours. This is forty times the largest value on the graph and is some 100,000 times shorter in duration. It is ludicrous to try to extrapolate without a great deal more evidence.
And, obviously, the types of particles found in the air outside are not the same as the ones found inside.
It's a shame that there is some good information on this page ruined by this one bit of shoddy statistics.
The numbers the author uses to quantify "life cost", as far as I can tell, come entirely from one graph in the section "A heuristic to quantify harms". The author examined the life-years lost from exposure to ambient particles in multiple countries around the world, concluding that
>being exposed to 2500 PM2.5 for one year costs 1 DALY
But that line comes from a chart with a range of about 10-100 describing constant exposure to ambient particles. Even if we assume the author's line is correct, identifies a real effect, and correctly ascribes causality, it is not reasonable to draw the conclusions they do.
The author speculates burning a cone of incense, which will produce a concentration of about 4000 for a few hours. This is forty times the largest value on the graph and is some 100,000 times shorter in duration. It is ludicrous to try to extrapolate without a great deal more evidence.
And, obviously, the types of particles found in the air outside are not the same as the ones found inside.
It's a shame that there is some good information on this page ruined by this one bit of shoddy statistics.