16 Per Cent Of All Deaths Due To Pollution: Report

Pune Mirror , Monday, October 23, 2017
Correspondent :
“This is the first global analysis of the impacts of pollution – air, water, soil, occupational – together as well as exploring the economic costs and the social injustice of pollution,” says Bruce Lanphear, health sciences professor at Simon Fraser University in Canada, and author of The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health.

The report features solutions and recommends how the problem can be solved. It includes examples and case studies of pollution control success.

The report commission found that diseases caused by pollution were responsible in 2015 for an estimated 9 million premature deaths – 16 per cent of all deaths worldwide.

To put that into perspective, that’s three times more deaths than AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined; and fifteen times more than all wars and other forms of violence.

Pollution kills more people than smoking, hunger and natural disasters, and in some countries, it accounts for one in four deaths, the report found.

The report says pollution disproportionately kills the poor and the vulnerable, with nearly 92 per cent of pollution-related deaths occuring in low- and middle-income countries. Within countries, pollution’s toll is greatest in poor and marginalised communities.

Children face the highest risks because small exposures to chemicals in utero and in early childhood can result in lifelong disease and disability, premature death, as well as reduced learning and earning potential.

The report also closely ties pollution to climate change and biodiversity. Fossil fuel combustion in higher-income countries and the burning of biomass in lower-income countries accounts for 85 per cent of airborne particulate pollution.

Major emitters of carbon dioxide are coal-fired power plants, chemical producers, mining operations, and vehicles. Accelerating the switch to cleaner sources of energy will reduce air pollution and improve human and planetary health.

“Pollution, which is at the root of many diseases and disorders that plague humankind, is entirely preventable,” Lanphear says.

 
SOURCE : http://punemirror.indiatimes.com/others/scitech/16-per-cent-of-all-deaths-due-to-pollution-report/articleshow/61175221.cms
 


Back to pevious page



The NetworkAbout Us  |  Our Partners  |  Concepts   
Resources :  Databases  |  Publications  |  Media Guide  |  Suggested Links
Happenings :  News  |  Events  |  Opinion Polls  |  Case Studies
Contact :  Guest Book  |  FAQs |  Email Us