Facts: The pollution
The new report has been produced by a research association called the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution. It is about both air, water and soil where the pollutants include:
Air: small particles (PM2.5) ozone, oxides of sulfur, nitrogen.
Water: mercury, nitrogen, phosphorus, plastics, petroleum waste.
Soil: lead, mercury, pesticides, industrial chemicals, electronic and radioactive waste.
Source: Lancet Planetary Health
– These are terrible numbers, almost elusive.
This is what Bertil Forsberg, professor of environmental medicine at Umeå University, says about the new research report presented in the journal Lancet Planetary Healthbut which he himself did not participate in the work with.
And the numbers are undeniably difficult to digest: One in six deaths in the world can be linked to environmental pollution. Air pollution alone is estimated to lead to 6.7 million deaths each year. While lead and other chemical pollutants are estimated to shorten the lives of 1.9 million people annually.
When it comes to chemicals, the numbers are also probably at the bottom because many substances are not tested properly to see how harmful they are, according to the report based on data from 2019.
The worst affected are poor parts of the world. 90 percent of pollution-caused deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. But we in Sweden are far from being spared. Air pollution shortens the lives of 6,000–7,000 Swedes every year, according to research in which Bertil Forsberg participated.
Affects the heart and vessels
These deaths are mainly caused by small particles, called PM2.5, which come from wood burning and wear and tear from tires and roads. Concentrations have decreased in Sweden in recent decades and about half of the deaths are due to particles traveling here with the air masses from other countries, says Bertil Forsberg.
How then do the pollutants affect our bodies? When it comes to the biggest culprit – air pollution – it is contrary to what one might think, not the lungs that mainly take a beating, but the heart and blood vessels.
– Most premature deaths linked to pollution are due to heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular diseases, says Bertil Forsberg.
Globally, the number of deaths due to environmental problems found mainly in poorer countries – such as polluted drinking water and poor indoor air caused by fires – has decreased since 2015. But this is offset by the deaths linked to industrial society pollution from traffic, power plants and industries.
These deaths have increased by 66 percent since the turn of the millennium – from about 3.8 million in 2000 to 6.3 million in 2019.
Worse than alcohol
As a result, environmental pollutants have far more human lives on their conscience than, for example, alcohol and drugs – as well as the infectious diseases malaria, HIV and tuberculosis combined. Researchers also believe that pollution is a greater threat to human health than war, terrorism and climate catastrophes.
Despite this, few countries have done anything about the problem, according to the researchers, who in their report criticize the world’s decision-makers for grossly underestimating how pollution affects everyone’s health and longevity.
– They direct a real boot to decision-makers and authorities that focus on, for example, chemicals of dubious importance, various infections and obesity, instead of on how well-known pollutants affect public health. And I can only agree, says Bertil Forsberg.
He believes that there are often significantly higher requirements to limit possible health risks when it comes to, for example, new chemicals, compared with how we handle older pollutants such as harmful particles in the air we breathe.
– It gives the public a distorted picture of what constitutes the major health risks in the environment.
“The biggest existential threat”
In their report, the researchers also emphasize that the deaths are completely unnecessary because the causes can be prevented. Efforts to reduce air pollution also provide double benefits as they also have an effect on climate change, they emphasize:
“Pollution is still the biggest existential threat to human and planetary health and jeopardizes the sustainability of modern societies. Preventing pollution can also slow down climate change – giving a double benefit to the planet’s health – and our report calls for a massive rapid transition from all fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy, “said Professor Philip Landrigan, of Boston College in the United States, in a statement.
To overcome the harmful environmental pollutants, the researchers give eight recommendations. Among other things, they want a counterpart to be set up for the UN’s climate panel IPCC, where the countries of the world could cooperate on pollution, as well as for countries’ governments to set aside more money to control them.
“We can not continue to ignore environmental pollution. We are going backwards,” the researchers write.