Temperature variability also factors into this. Though by itself is not a major factor, it seems to be a combination of things.
If anything we are not "killing the planet" we are destroying the conditions that allow life to thrive on Earth. I've been following these links since 2013 and more studies are showing this could be a "thing."
"Here we estimate associations between multiple environmental factors (air quality, residential greenness, mean temperature, and temperature variability) and self-assessed mental health scores for over 20,000 Chinese residents. Mental health scores were surveyed in 2010 and 2014, allowing us to link changes in mental health to the changes in environmental variables. Increases in air pollution and temperature variability are associated with higher probabilities of declined mental health. Mental health is statistically unrelated to mean temperature in this study, and the effect of greenness on mental health depends on model settings, suggesting a need for further study. Our findings suggest that the environmental policies to reduce emissions of air pollution or greenhouse gases can improve mental health of the public in China."
"The air pollution disasters in London in 1952, the Meuse valley in 1930, and in Donoroa, Pennsylvania, in 1948 made it clear that extremely high levels of particulate-based smog could produce large increases in the daily mortality rate."
If anything we are not "killing the planet" we are destroying the conditions that allow life to thrive on Earth. I've been following these links since 2013 and more studies are showing this could be a "thing."
"Here we estimate associations between multiple environmental factors (air quality, residential greenness, mean temperature, and temperature variability) and self-assessed mental health scores for over 20,000 Chinese residents. Mental health scores were surveyed in 2010 and 2014, allowing us to link changes in mental health to the changes in environmental variables. Increases in air pollution and temperature variability are associated with higher probabilities of declined mental health. Mental health is statistically unrelated to mean temperature in this study, and the effect of greenness on mental health depends on model settings, suggesting a need for further study. Our findings suggest that the environmental policies to reduce emissions of air pollution or greenhouse gases can improve mental health of the public in China."
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10196-y
More importantly:
1. Air Pollution Linked to Mutations https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2002/12/air-pollution-linked...
2. Air pollution causes sperm mutations https://www.nature.com/news/2008/080113/full/news.2008.439.h...
3. January 1994 What Are People Dying of on High Air Pollution Days? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00139...
"The air pollution disasters in London in 1952, the Meuse valley in 1930, and in Donoroa, Pennsylvania, in 1948 made it clear that extremely high levels of particulate-based smog could produce large increases in the daily mortality rate."
Edit: A Few more from earlier times:
1996 Feb: Psychiatric aspects of air pollution. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8637739
December 1984: Air pollution and depressive symptomatology: Exploratory analyses of intervening psychosocial factors https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01256411
Nov. 2, 1999 Air Pollution Linked to Increased Heart Rate https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/19991102/air-pollution-linke...
1981 Dec The psychological effects of indoor air pollution. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1805416/
June 1989 Psychological effects of air pollution on healthy residents—A time-series approach https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02724...