Yeah, maybe there's a confusion between percentage and fraction, and this was meant to be 0.001 (not 0.001%). But if so, the error is not the journalist's: I clicked through and the original paper also contains this improbable figure.
Just the people living in Greenland, Lapland and the Antarctic scientists probably passes 70 thousand.
Unless they include people breathing in smoke from their wood fires as they roast their wild venison or salmon.
What makes you think the people living in Greenland, and Lapland aren't doing anything with diesel engines or industry? Wikipedia says Greenland's main industries are "fish processing, and oil, gold, niobium, tantalite, uranium, iron, and diamond mining".
Good point. I thought the fresh ocean winds would dilute those, though probably most of that takes place in closed environments.