Amount at which the EPA historically valued each human life when conducting economic analyses of proposed regulations: $6.1 million

Amount the EPA considers each person worth as of 2003 (while GW Bush has been president): $3.7 million
— from Mother Jones

All the car pollution you inhaled as a child could shave more than 20 years off your life.

Most people realize that breathing pollution day in and day out affects your lungs. Most people overlook what it does to kids. They probably shouldn’t.

If you grew up near busy streets or a freeway, damage to your lungs from the chronic pollution affects you the rest of your life.

In fact, growing up near busy streets is probably going to shorten your life.

Pollution absorbed into your lungs when they were still growing increases your odds of having a heart attack or a life-threatening respiratory condition earlier than everyone else, according to a recent study from USC’s Keck School of Medicine.

USC researchers monitored thousands of southern California children, some as long as eight years. Those raised near busy streets and freeways

• have diminished lung capacity
• are more likely to develop asthma
• have increased odds of heart disease
• have increased likelihood of developing a life-threatening respiratory condition, starting as early as their 50s

This “big risk factor,” according to James Gauderman, the author and principal investigator, makes it likely that these people will die from a case of the flu or pneumonia — illnesses that are more typically associated with deaths of people who are much older.

People with severe damage have no lung capacity to draw on when they become ill with a respiratory illness.

How to fight auto pollution

If you have children and live near busy streets, ensure that there are as many plants as possible between your children and the streets. Plants help scrub pollutants.

If you drive busy streets, remember the children who must live on them. Keep your car tuned up, so you send less toxic clouds their way.

Even better, take public transportation, walk, or ride a bike.