We all know that turning off lights and buying energy-efficient appliances affects our financial bottom line.
We all know that turning off lights and buying energy-efficient appliances affects our financial bottom line. Now, according to a new study by University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers, we know that saving energy also saves lives and even more money for consumers by alleviating the costs of adverse health effects attributed to air pollution.
Writing this week in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, a team led by UW–Madison postdoctoral researcher David Abel tabulates both lives saved and cost benefits to consumers of improved health outcomes due to reduced energy consumption.
“By saving electricity, we can also save lives,” says Abel, of the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment in UW–Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. “There is a range of health benefits. It’s a bonus. We find there are extra health reasons to turn off a light.”
Read more at University of Wisconsin-Madison
