(Killing them at a rate that is a tiny fraction of the deaths related to fossil fuel and environmental pollution.)

Having wreaked havoc in international relations, set the global economy into a tailspin, and chipped away at the Constitution, Mr. Trump set his sights on a new project, the environment and clean energy.

By effectively emasculating the EPA and withdrawing from international agreements decades in the making, Trump has now set climate policy, perhaps eliminating any opportunity to slow global warming, back fifty years.

Well, he must be trying to protect American lives and the American way, right? Clean energy and all these EPA regulations must be harming Americans.

Let’s see.

Deaths Attributable to Clean Energy Sources in the United States

How many deaths are attributable to clean energy sources (such as wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear) in the U.S.

Based on the web‑retrieved scientific datasets, the key point is:

Clean energy sources cause extremely few deaths—effectively near zero—compared with fossil fuels.

1. Mortality Rates per Unit of Electricity (Global Data, Applicable to U.S.)

The leading scientific compilations provide death rates per terawatt‑hour (TWh) of electricity. These include deaths from both accidents and air pollution.

Clean Energy (Low‑Carbon Sources)

From Our World in Data (Markandya & Wilkinson; Sovacool et al.; UNSCEAR):

• Solar: ~0.02 deaths per TWh
• Wind: ~0.04 deaths per TWh
• Hydropower: ~1.3 deaths per TWh (higher largely due to rare but catastrophic dam failures, not routine operation)
• Nuclear: ~0.03 deaths per TWh (even including Chernobyl and Fukushima)

These figures are extremely low compared with fossil fuels.

And before anyone starts talking about the birds being killed by wind power (because we know supporters of fossil fuels care greatly for these creatures) U.S. estimates typically range from hundreds of thousands to around one million birds per year killed by wind turbines, depending on methodology and turbine growth.

Wind turbines kill far fewer birds than buildings, windows, power lines, or domestic cats, which together account for hundreds of millions to billions of bird deaths annually in the U.S.

Maybe we should get rid of cats?

Fossil Fuels (for contrast)

From Statista’s global mortality dataset:

• Coal: ~25–33 deaths per TWh
• Oil: much higher than renewables
• Biomass: also significantly higher

This demonstrates that clean energy technologies are among the safest ever used.

2. What This Means for the U.S. Specifically

Although the datasets are global, they apply directly to the U.S. because:

• The physical risk mechanisms (air pollution, accidents, radiation, turbine failures) are the same.
• U.S. regulatory standards are among the strictest in the world, which further reduces clean‑energy mortality below global averages.

Estimated U.S. Deaths from Clean Energy

Because the mortality rates are so low, and U.S. generation volumes are known, we can characterize the effects qualitatively:

• Wind, solar, nuclear:
  Deaths are effectively near zero per year.
  Any deaths would come from rare installation/maintenance accidents, not pollution.
• Hydropower:
  Also extremely low.
  There have been no large‑scale U.S. dam‑failure mass‑casualty events in the modern clean‑energy era.

Context: Fossil‑fuel deaths in the U.S.

Just for comparison, fossil‑fuel air pollution still causes over 50,000 U.S. deaths annually.

So clean energy saves lives by displacing far more dangerous energy sources.

3. Plain‑Language Summary

• Clean energy sources (wind, solar, nuclear, hydropower) cause almost no deaths in the U.S.
• Their mortality rates are 100–1000× lower than fossil fuels.
• Most U.S. energy‑related deaths result from air pollution from fossil fuels—not from clean energy.

Deaths attributable to rising air and water pollution from 1950–2025.

Summary of What the Data Shows (1950–2025)

1. Long‑term trend: Pollution‑related deaths have risen significantly

The earliest comprehensive global datasets begin around 1990, not 1950. However, historical research consistently shows:

• Industrialization in the mid‑20th century sharply increased pollution exposure.
• From 1990 to 2023, global deaths attributable specifically to air pollution increased from 5.99 million to 7.9 million annually.1
• This represents roughly a 32% increase over three decades.

Water pollution–attributable deaths are less consistently tracked in the modern datasets, but WHO and IHME place diarrheal and sanitation-linked mortality at over 1.4–1.7 million deaths per year globally in recent decades (not included in most “air pollution” datasets).
Note: No quantitative 1950–1989 global mortality databases exist for combined air + water pollution.

2. Air Pollution Mortality (Modern Detailed Data: 1990–2025)

Current annual burden (2023 estimates)

• 7.9 million deaths attributable to air pollution worldwide in 2023.
  – Primarily from heart disease, stroke, respiratory diseases, diabetes, cancer.1
• 86% (6.8 million) were from noncommunicable diseases.1
• 600,000+ deaths linked to dementia for the first time (reported in 2025).1

Exposure trends

• 36% of the world’s population still exposed to PM2.5 above WHO’s least stringent target.2
• 2.6 billion people exposed to household air pollution from solid fuels.2

Global share of total deaths

• Air pollution contributes to one in ten deaths globally each year.3

3. Water Pollution Mortality

While the search did not surface a unified “air + water pollution” mortality series, WHO’s water/sanitation data (not in the retrieved sources) typically shows:

• Approximately 1.4–1.7 million annual deaths in recent decades from unsafe water, sanitation, and hygiene.

The datasets for water pollution rarely extend reliably back to mid‑century (1950s–1970s).
However, historical global mortality from contaminated water was substantially higher in 1950 and has declined due to sanitation improvements.

4. Combining Air + Water Pollution (1950–2025): What We Can Say with Confidence

Because only air‑pollution mortality is tracked with consistency over time:

1950–1990 (qualitative historical trajectory)

• Both air and water pollution deaths were significantly higher than today in the Global South and rapidly industrializing regions.
• Air pollution deaths increased through mid‑20th‑century industrial growth.
• Water‑pollution deaths were far higher pre‑1970s due to lack of water treatment and sanitation.

1990–2025 (quantitative era)

• Air pollution deaths increased from ~6 million to nearly 8 million per year (≈+32%).1
• Water‑related deaths have gradually decreased due to sanitation improvements, though precise annual global series was not found in retrieved sources.

Comparison of Deaths from Air vs. Water Pollution (1990–2025)

1. Air Pollution Deaths (1990–2025)

Modern data on global air‑pollution mortality is extensive.

Key findings

• Air pollution contributes to millions of premature deaths annually.
  
  
• Deaths from air pollution have increased by more than 10% since 1990.
  
  
• In 2023, air pollution was responsible for 7.9 million deaths globally (from the State of Global Air dataset covering trends from 1990 to 2023).
  
  

Trend summary

From 1990 → 2023:

• Increase in global air‑pollution deaths.
• Air pollution remains one of the world’s leading risk factors for death, accounting for 1 in 10 global deaths.
  
  

2. Water Pollution Deaths (1990–2025)

Unlike air pollution, the web search did not return any global, long‑term datasets on water‑pollution mortality for 1990–2025.

This absence is expected—global water‑pollution death figures are usually embedded within:

• “Unsafe water, sanitation, and hygiene” categories (WHO/GBD),
• Focused on diarrheal disease,
• And not presented in long‑term trend datasets like air‑pollution deaths.

What we know (contextual, but not from retrieved sources)

• Unsafe water typically contributes to 1.4–1.7 million deaths per year globally (WHO/GBD).
• Long‑term trend: declining since the 1990s due to improved sanitation and water treatment—but this was not present in the tool‑retrieved data, so cannot be cited directly.

3. Direct Comparison (Based on Search‑Retrieved Data)

Air Pollution

• Robust 1990–2023 trend data available.
• Deaths rose from ~6 million to ~8 million per year.
  32

Water Pollution

• No long‑term datasets were returned by the search.
• No 1990–2025 death series available in tool‑retrieved sources.

Conclusion

• Air‑pollution deaths increased significantly from 1990 to 2025.
• Water‑pollution deaths cannot be quantitatively trended from the available sources, as no data was returned.
• Based on global patterns (non‑cited), water‑related deaths likely declined, while air‑pollution deaths rose.