Noted: The June 16 news article “Study: Air pollution reduces global life expectancy by more than two years” made the startling point that breathing dirty air has more of an impact on global life span than alcohol, cigarettes, terrorism or conflict. Think this is just a problem for the more crowded and less-developed parts of the world? A study conducted at the University of Wisconsin at Madison showed that eliminating air pollution caused by burning fossil fuels would prevent 50,000 premature deaths and provide more than $600 billion in health benefits each year in the United States.