What is the cost of doing nothing about air pollution?

      Already, some members of the new incoming Congress is complaining about the air quality agreement reached by President Obama and the Chinese. The reaction to it goes along the line of "it will cost taxpayers and businesses too much." My question is, what is the cost of not doing it? Even if you have your doubts about global warming, there is another side that is not being mentioned by the media and that is the actual deaths from air pollution recorded each year. A study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology concluded that there are about 200,000 early deaths from air pollution each year in the U.S. alone. What is the cost to those families, our health care system, our communities, and, yes, to taxpayers? China has an incentive also. Early deaths in China attributed to air pollution are at a minimum of 300,000 to 500,000 people per year. Another study concludes that there are 1.2 million deaths. This new agreement for the two biggest polluters, with a deadline of 2025 in the U.S. and 2030 in China, will not eliminate fossil fuels, but rely more on technology to advance cleaner emissions. So I ask again, what is the cost of doing nothing? I cannot bring back my mother who died prematurely from COPD, but I'd like to know that my children and their children will breathe cleaner air.