The WHO (World Health Organisation) published on Tuesday 28 April a report on the human and financial costs of air pollution. This estimate, which concerns 53 countries in Europe and Asia, mentions 600,000 induced illnesses and premature deaths, and evaluates the cost at more than 1,000 billion euros.
Source: www.novethic.fr
Atmospheric cancer is the disease of the century!
We will die from not breathing.
You can't escape the air you breathe.
When the cost of energy rises, trade-offs are possible. If you have doubts about the healthiness of certain food products, you can change creamery. When the air quality deteriorates, what do you do? You can only avoid it for a minute... before taking another deep breath. Did you know that you breathe 20 to 25,000 times a day? The equivalent of 12 m3 of air? When the air around you is polluted, you're perfusing it at a rate of 8 litres a minute! If you want another equivalent, this atmospheric cancer, you get a lungful every 30 seconds.
And when your lungs are under attack and COPD is at the top of the list of chronic diseases (another estimate from our friends at the WHO) ... will you breathe with your liver?
Since 1986, we've known that clouds don't stop at borders, and neither does air pollution. And it doesn't matter, because the good news is that we don't even need to import this air pollution, we produce it ourselves, locally. When it comes to air pollution, we're atmospherically independent. We produce it ourselves, locally, made in France.
For a long time now, we have been aware of the link between environmental risks, particularly those linked to various forms of pollution, and their consequences in terms of health risks. Air pollution is undoubtedly the most visible phenomenon - paradoxically - and the most immediately alarming. No-one can escape it, it's a 'fair' pollution in that it affects everyone, rich and poor, it's a long-term pollution but one that kills today (see the repeated WHO reports), and it's a pollution that hits where it hurts: a/ our health (mine and my children's, not that of the biosphere or polar bears) b/ the public cost of public health impacts and c/ economic competitiveness (absenteeism, reduced work rates, loss of attractiveness, etc.).
For all these reasons, this air pollution is both very insidious ... and very virtuous:
- it thwarts the theories of climatoseptics (who could argue that air pollution is not due to human activity?);
- it forces politicians to act (theoretically);
- it brings us closer to environmental deadlines that are often perceived as very long term;
- It costs lives, foreign currency, competitiveness and productivity (which is why China is so concerned about it);
- it is directly experienced and suffered by public opinion, which is less and less tolerant of it and makes this known to the "decision-makers";
- it is an accelerator of alternative innovations ...
See on Scoop.it - Alain Renaudin