Half of all Mongolians now live in Ulaanbaatar, the world's coldest capital. Staying warm is killing some of them. As Tracy McVeigh writes in a lengthy piece for the Guardian, with temperatures dropping as low as -18 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter, the population leans on coal for survival: about 70% of the nation's energy comes from it, and the average home burns 50 pounds of it a day in winter months, sending pollution levels sky-high. In January 2018, levels of PM2.5—extremely small carcinogenic particles—in Ulaanbaatar were 133 times what the World Health Organization deemed safe.
The government banned raw coal in the capital in response, but introduced a coal briquette that contained new toxic compounds that have been linked to a rise in carbon monoxide deaths. The country of 3.48 million has recorded more than 800 such deaths over the past seven years, but that's just one sliver of the pollution-related deaths, which are caused by everything from respiratory diseases to liver and lung cancers. "Women try to time pregnancies to avoid the coldest months, when the rates of miscarriage and premature birth soar," writes McVeigh. Some see low-hanging solutions: insulating homes could slash pollution by as much as half, and Mongolia's great expanse of land and blue skies lend themselves to thermal, solar, and wind energies. "But plans touted before have come to nothing." (Read the full story.) (This content was created with the help of AI. Read our AI policy.)
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