Wildfire Air Quality Is the Norm Elsewhere.

People wearing smoke masks; children going stir-crazy indoors; families driving hours to find fresh air--alarming as it is to some, the unhealthy air that enveloped California during the recent wildfires is all too familiar to millions of people around the world.

"I don't want to minimize how devastating the California fires were or the poor air quality they caused, but these conditions are really the norm for people living in many other parts of the world," says Nina Brooks, a doctoral candidate at Stanford University's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences.

Brooks does field work in Dhaka, Bangladesh, for a Stanford-led project to make brick manufacturing cleaner. The air quality index in Dhaka during the winter, where more than 1,000 brick kilns operate, typically hovers above 150--a level considered unhealthy for all groups--but often spikes much higher.

Globally, long-term exposure to outdoor air pollution is responsible for 4,200,000 deaths, according to the World Health Organization. 'The poor, young, and elderly are most vulnerable," says Marshall Burke, assistant professor of Earth system science. "Climate change can exacerbate the situation by driving meteorological conditions conducive to forming ozone and increasing the chance of wildfires, among other impacts."

Burke coauthored a study showing that exposure to particulate...

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