Beijing's particulate matter levels fell from over 100 micrograms per cubic meter in 2013 to just over 50 by 2018 — a dramatic improvement China achieved faster than the US ever did after the Clean Air Act.
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At 46:55 · chapter starts 43:55
Greenstone has always argued that the 'holy grail' of pollution research is long-run variation — not day-to-day fluctuations, but the kind of persistent difference that policy actually creates. The Huai River heating policy, which gave free coal to provinces north of the river and nothing to provinces south, with limited migration between sides, offered exactly that. [1] — Michael Greenstone "China's Huai River heating policy drew an arbitrary line across the country: free coal for the north, nothing for the south. Because migrat…" 43:50 Among roughly 40,000 people in urban areas within five degrees latitude of the river, people born just north lived about 3 years less than those born just south. In subsequent research, Greenstone extended the analysis to children born between 1975 and 1982: north-side children completed nearly a full year less of education and, observed as adults, earned 13% less. Greenstone calls this the first large-scale evidence on the impacts of long-run early childhood pollution exposure at the concentrations that prevail across much of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa today.
People born just north of China's Huai River — where coal heating caused heavy pollution — lived on average 3 years less than those born just south.
Children born just north of China's Huai River — where free coal heating created persistent pollution — completed almost one full year less of education than children born just south.
Adults born just north of the Huai River — exposed to coal smoke from China's heating policy — earned on average 13% less than those born just south.
Michael Greenstone argues that because we have ignored the cognitive costs of pollution, we have been understating total losses from air pollution by about 50%.
Beijing's particulate matter levels fell from over 100 micrograms per cubic meter in 2013 to just over 50 by 2018. Greenstone estimates a child born in 2018 will live 1.4 years longer than one born in 2013 — a pace of cleanup the US never matched after its own Clean Air Act.
Dan Gilbert's research found that the psychological immune system — the brain's ability to justify and find satisfaction in choices — activates most powerfully when a decision is perceived as irreversible.
Barry Schwartz's research found that maximizers — people who try to optimize every decision — tend to achieve objectively better outcomes but report lower happiness than satisficers who choose 'good enough.'
Research consistently shows that while people may initially regret poor decisions, in the long run they regret the decisions they didn't make — inaction — far more than the ones they took.
A study showed that men in committed relationships who briefly viewed 10 attractive women's faces reported a measurable decrease in relationship satisfaction immediately afterward, illustrating evolutionary mismatch with modern media.
Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert, who previously didn't believe in marriage, immediately proposed to his long-term girlfriend after his own research showed that constraints increase satisfaction with choices.
Animals first sensed light 540 million years ago, triggering an evolutionary acceleration known as the Cambrian explosion within 10 million years.
It is estimated that half of all cortical activity in the human brain is involved in visual function, underscoring vision's central role in intelligence.
Cognitive neuroscience literature shows that by age 6, humans can recognize tens of thousands of different object categories — far more data than early AI systems were trained on.
Only about 3% of FDA-approved drugs have genuinely unclear mechanisms of action, making an unknown mechanism a meaningful early red flag for any compound.
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