Oregon Coal Exports?

A newly released study published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences confirms the facts about coal usage that everybody knows about but doesn't like to talk about - coal usage kills people through air pollution.  OK, we all know air pollution is a bad thing, but how bad?  The study was done in China and according to the Washington Post story on the subject, over 500 million people  in China are doomed to live 5.5 years less than those in areas of China not exposed to intense air pollution of coal burning.  That 500 million people is the equal of the population of the US and Brazil combined!

Starting in the 1950s, the Chinese government began providing free winter heating via coal boilers to people living north of the Huai River. Yet those living south of the Huai River didn’t get the free boilers. That gave the researchers a way to isolate the effects of air pollution. They then analyzed official data on both air quality and health between 1981 and 2000 to get a sense for the effects.
What they found was surprising. Concentrations of “total suspended particulates” were about 55 percent higher in the north, thanks to the heavy coal burning. And life expectancy for those living in the north was also about 5.5 years shorter — an effect due entirely to differences in cardio-respiratory problems, which is exactly what you’d expect if pollution was the cause. (There’s a long appendix detailing all the different controls they applied.)

The Oregon arguments for coal exports are jobs-based, everybody wants more jobs, but what about the undeniable pollution that will follow?  What about the 500 million people already doomed to an early grave?  The long term effects on people and the earth are pretty grave consequences, we might as well be exporting tons of opium to China, it would be about as bad as coal.  The resulting pollution will come right back to the US West Coast, just as it already is now.  It's a bad short sighted idea.