Study identifies outdoor air pollution as ‘largest existential threat to human and planetary health’
Since the turn of the century, global deaths attributable to air pollution have increased by more than half, a development that researchers say underscores the impact of pollution as the “largest existential threat to human and planetary health.”
The findings, part of a study published Tuesday in The Lancet Planetary Health, found that pollution was responsible for an estimated 9 million deaths around the world in 2019. Fully half of those fatalities, 4.5 million deaths, were the result of ambient, or outdoor, air pollution, which is typically emitted by vehicles and industrial sources like power plants and factories.
The number of deaths that can be attributed to ambient air pollution has increased by about 55 percent—to 4.5 million from 2.9 million—since the year 2000.
Deaths from ambient air and chemical pollution were so prevalent, the study’s authors said, that they offset a decline in the number of deaths from other pollution sources typically related to conditions of extreme poverty, including indoor air pollution and water pollution.
“Pollution is still the largest existential threat to human and planetary health and jeopardizes the sustainability of modern societies,” said Philip Landrigan, a co-author of the report who directs the Global Public Health Program and Global Pollution Observatory at Boston College. [Continue reading…]