http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/07/03/1300018110caol deprives 5.5 years of life span! all over the media, i didn't read throughly, though i ahve my doubts:
1st: such study is rather difficult, it's very hard to pin effects on a single factor "beyond resonable doubt". smoking causes lung cancer, now all accepted, but it took a long and hard road to get here, decades of persisting sicentific study, not mentioning big tobacco's anti efforts.
2nd: all authors are economists! can you believe that? how could such a serious topic not involves real "scientist", say epidemiologists and some1 who really studies biomed? and this got published in PNAS? i couldn't help wondering any kind of factors above science itself at play in this matter?
make no mistake, coal is dirty, is harmful, but that harmful? like tobacco? i want more data, sorry, not from those "economsits", even if it's from MIT