Pratima H
Ridiculous as it seemed to read a tweet some days back that inhaling air in Beijing is apparently equal to smoking 21 cigarettes a day, the joke boomeranged when today new findings on air pollution billowed up.
Yes – Air pollution has killed about 7 million people in 2012, making it the world’s single biggest environmental health risk, as per the World Health Organisation (WHO).
This can translate into something else – that one in eight of all global deaths in 2012 was linked to polluted air making it equally scary (in fact more scary) vis a vis heart disease, strokes or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Think of deaths from lung cancer and acute respiratory infections and this is probably how a nightmare looks like.
Maria Neira, head of the WHO’s environmental and social public health department has already remarked that : The risks from air pollution are now far greater than previously thought or understood, particularly for heart disease and strokes.
It couldn’t get more spooky to find that outdoor air pollution exposure levels have risen significantly in some parts of the world, more so in regions with large populations going through rapid industrialisation, and now you can read – China and India.
Amidst this poltergeist around, industries of new spells are springing up – like face masks could be a multi-million dollar industry.
Air pollution in particular causes an estimated 350,000 to 500,000 premature deaths in China every year, as indicated in an article in medical journal ‘The Lancet’ co-authored by China’s former health minister, Chen Zhu. Corresponding to this consistently worsening state of air in concrete jungles, is a big face-mask industry growing in China.
Demands for pushing a national standard for anti-smog face masks and other consumer associations’ noise is fuelling newsreeels for understandable reasons.
From something used only by factory-workers, to something as critical to wear as shoes, face masks reflect the worsened state of the cities people live in.
And you thought you are better off than your nicotine-addicted colleague?
terracon April 15, 2014 at 11:10 PM
if you set back for a while a think about it,you will realise that nearly every country is ignorant when it comes to green life,the animals are dying daily,the north and south poles ice are melting,the planet is unbalanced and you see earth quakes,storms etc…and the scientist blame the ”nature” they act as if they don’t know,the thing is most of them know but they simply don’t want to to fix it really fast as if they want it to happen,i mean they take taxs from people who barely live their day by working hard just to feed them selfs and the family and the money goes to new weapon researchs and space technology,do we look like we need more weapons? or even space? at this moment?,why not learn from the ancients and try fix this planet first?,like designing new type of cars,power generators for homes and citys and other transports that won’t release pollution (which is possible) because the huge amount of taxs they get from people is more than enough to fix this planet,if most known countrys put fair amount of money,and forget politics,wars, and put it on a side and gather for sake of humanity would resault on ultimate piece and we could make haven in earth,just look to dubai as a very small of example,but those ignorants with stone minds care for money as if this ”money” will follow them to their coffins,all what i can say is if the person is totaly blind in his mind he won’t wake up until somthing slaps him,that slap is when earth releases more earthquakes in new regions that never had one before,and the sea levels raises,more heat from the sun,etc…,the good news though we can fix this really fast if we plant new trees on those regions who cuts them down for woods by destroying the forests without replanting them for money,also new type of technology can be made to fix all this mess or science tricks for example,building huge type of satellite that great a shield around earth to reduce the sun heat and tune it over each region to make it all warm and balance this will resault in less rain,wind speeds,etc…we could design technology to counter giant meteors even,also find a way on increasing the front earth shields from 3 to 5+ to be safer from suns ejections,for our better lifes,we don’t need cultures that makes us look racists,we simply need our selfs,time,and unity as one mind thinks as humans as one for the better future,our daily silly loops for money won’t take us anywhere but destruction while this poor planet is dieing slowly,goodluck humans.