Bad News Travellers: A Year In This City Is The Equivalent Of Smoking 183 Cigarettes
Thinking about spending time abroad? New research could derail your travelling plans.
A new study released by the European Transport & Environment association has found that spending time in various popular European destinations is the equivalent of smoking cigarettes regularly.
In France, spending just a few days in Paris is like smoking two cigarettes. However over in Prague, the same mini-vacation will leave you feeling the effects of four cigarettes. But it could be worse in Beijing: picking up a deck of smokes will be cheaper than the airfare, because that's what your lungs are in store for.
Dublin and Barcelona didn't rank as poorly, with the same amount of time spent there equating to smoking one cigarette.
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Among the worst culprits were Milan ( 3 cigarettes), London ( 2.75 cigarettes) Vienna and Rome ( both 2 cigarettes).
The biggest revelation from the research is that the damage to your lungs isn't caused by passive smoking but rather air pollution.
During the investigation, scientists converted the air particles from the ten largest European tourist cities into the cigarette equivalent.
"Air pollution is the second highest environmental concern for Europeans and research suggests tourists are shunning Hong Kong due to its bad air," says the association.
"Summer is the busiest period for city trips in Barcelona and London."
The study comes after further concerns were raised following recent heat-waves over Europe.
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"For the United States and Europe, air pollution is equivalent in detrimental health effects to smoking 0.4 to 1.6 cigarettes per day. In China the numbers are far worse; on bad days the health effects of air pollution are comparable to the harm done smoking three packs per day (60 cigarettes) by every man, woman, and child," says climate organisation Berkeley Earth.
“Air pollution is arguably the greatest environmental catastrophe in the world today.”
