Air pollution raises the risk of death for many decades after exposure, according to the longest-running study to date.
The analysis of 368,000 British people over 38 years also showed that those living in the most polluted places have a 14% higher risk of dying than those in the least polluted areas. Those exposed to particulate air pollution were more likely to die from respiratory problems, like pneumonia, emphysema and bronchitis, and also from cardiovascular problems, like heart attacks.
In Inadia Delhi, a city of 25 million people and nine million vehicles, routinely experiences fine particulate pollution above 300 micrograms per cubic metre; the EU’s legal limit is 25. According to New Delhi US Embassy Air Pollution: Real-time Air Quality Index (AQI) is 200 means totally Unhealthy.
A recent study in Nature found that more people 1.4 million people a year in China and 650,000 in India die from air pollution than malaria and HIV combined.
Clean air should be a global priority, and it is puzzling that it is not. Unlike, say, climate change, toxic air is identifiable by the layperson, indisputably of the here-and-now, and kills rich as well as poor, which should make it a seductive subject for problem-solving by politicians.
Perhaps air pollution hasn’t been solved because no one makes a fuss: scarier than the smog in Delhi, Kolkata and London is the stoicism of residents for whom bad air has become part of daily life. I suppose it’s understandable why they’re not taking to the streets.
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/environment
The analysis of 368,000 British people over 38 years also showed that those living in the most polluted places have a 14% higher risk of dying than those in the least polluted areas. Those exposed to particulate air pollution were more likely to die from respiratory problems, like pneumonia, emphysema and bronchitis, and also from cardiovascular problems, like heart attacks.
In Inadia Delhi, a city of 25 million people and nine million vehicles, routinely experiences fine particulate pollution above 300 micrograms per cubic metre; the EU’s legal limit is 25. According to New Delhi US Embassy Air Pollution: Real-time Air Quality Index (AQI) is 200 means totally Unhealthy.
A recent study in Nature found that more people 1.4 million people a year in China and 650,000 in India die from air pollution than malaria and HIV combined.
Clean air should be a global priority, and it is puzzling that it is not. Unlike, say, climate change, toxic air is identifiable by the layperson, indisputably of the here-and-now, and kills rich as well as poor, which should make it a seductive subject for problem-solving by politicians.
Perhaps air pollution hasn’t been solved because no one makes a fuss: scarier than the smog in Delhi, Kolkata and London is the stoicism of residents for whom bad air has become part of daily life. I suppose it’s understandable why they’re not taking to the streets.
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/environment
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