The fact that Earth’s climate is rapidly changing as a result of human activity on our planet is an enormous problem. Forget about the pretend “debate” going on, where one side explains that we need to cut back on our dirty energy needs and production in order to try to slow down the general warming of our planet, while the other side pretends that God will let them keep their money in heaven. The fact remains that fossil fuels and unregulated and unsafe industrial production causes systematic pollution—pollution of our air and our water and the soil from which we get all of our food.
NPR is reporting on a new study showing that pollution was the cause of 9 million premature deaths in 2015, and the number of humans affected by pollution across the globe beats out those smoking tobacco and completely dwarfs people affected by AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and war.
The causes of death vary — cancer, lung disease, heart disease. The report links them to pollution, drawing upon previous studies that show how pollution is tied to a wider range of diseases than previously thought.
Those studies observed populations exposed to pollutants and compared them to people not exposed. The studies have shown that pollution can be an important cause of diseases — many of them potentially fatal — including asthma, cancer, neurodevelopmental disorders, birth defects in children, heart disease, stroke and lung disease.
More than 90 percent of the deaths associated with pollution occur in low- and middle-income countries, according to researchers. NPR interviewed Dr. Philip Landrigan, the lead author of the study, pediatrician, and professor of environmental medicine and global health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Asked about the economic disparity, Dr. Landrigan pointed to how many middle-income and low-income countries are industrializing at a breakneck pace in recent decades with little to no environmental regulation in place. He also explains how “environmental injustice” plays an enormous part in this development.
One blatant example is asbestos. About two million tons of new asbestos is produced every year. [Asbestos is outlawed in most of the developed world because of the high risk of lung cancer.] Virtually all of that goes to the world's poorest countries that have poor or no regulations against it. [According to reports it is used in the production of building materials, among other products.] It's going to continue to cause epidemics of cancer in poor counties. Another example is pesticides. About 20 percent of U.S. pesticide production is of pesticides not allowed in this country because of known health risks. So we export it to poor countries.
Then there is the international transfer of materials like old computers, cell phones, TVs, refrigerators from rich countries to the developing world. People break them up and try to extract valuable things like gold or copper, and pollutants get into the soil. Or lead batteries end up in developing countries and contaminate communities.
You can head over to this diary for more discussion.