The scientific team at the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health was particularly harsh in their latest report: death and disease rates caused by pollution are higher than ever. They cause 1 in 6 deaths worldwide and disproportionately affect developing areas.
“There's not much that can be done about it,” he said Rachel Kupka, executive director of the commission and one of the report's co-authors. Coordinated action is needed by world governments and international agencies to mitigate pollution while also addressing other threats such as climate change and biodiversity loss.
If it sounds disastrous to you, it's actually even worse
The new estimate is based on previous research by the Lancet Commission, which estimated the victims of pollution at around 9 million deaths in 2015. Following the same criteria for the estimates, the researchers found an almost unchanged number: and it is not a good news, indeed. The decline in deaths due to improvements in domestic air and water (a factor generally due to poverty) has been largely offset by air pollution, such as particulate matter, which has claimed even more lives.
Overall, deaths caused by so-called “modern” types of pollution (those related to industrialization, fossil fuels, and exposure to chemicals) have increased by over 66% in the last 20 years.
Pollution, the most insidious enemies
Over 6,5 million deaths per year are due to air pollution. In the dock are tiny particles known as PM 2,5, 30 times smaller than the width of a human hair. They are produced by fires and fossil fuels: they settle deep in the lungs and cause respiratory, cardiovascular and neurological damage. In 2021, an estimate by researchers at the University of Chicago, estimated that exposure to PM 2,5 takes away approx 21 billion years of life expectancy every year.
Other concerns expressed in the report concern chemical pollution (especially in low- and middle-income countries, where two-thirds of the world's chemical production is concentrated). Lead from electronic waste, contaminated paints and spices it claims 1 million deaths a year, and poisons the blood of 800 million children.
The total of 1,8 million deaths per year, moreover, is "largely underestimated": this is what another of the co-authors of the report, Prof., says. Philip Landrigan.
Anti-pollution efforts? Virtually nothing
The commission concludes that world governments have made “little effort” over the past 5 years to reduce their populations' exposure to pollution. Health efforts (also thanks to Covid) have focused practically only on infectious diseases, taking resources and efforts away from the environmental fight.
This is not to say that nothing has been done, of course. In recent years, Europe, China, India and other countries have worked to reduce deaths from pollution, inspired by the guidelines of the World Health Organization, which introduced even more rigorous standards.
However, Kupka and colleagues say much, much more needs to be done. When world governments truly recognize that pollution is an urgent priority, they will introduce more serious measures than the current ones. For example, a draconian standard on car emissions, an all-out fight against microplastics or a perpetual ban on the use of lead-based dyes.
In short: things that stop pollution at the source, not that simply try to manage it. You can't "manage" a Holocaust.
