A new study suggests that Air Pollution caused by many factors including climate change will lead to deaths in the future if it remains un-dealt with. Air is vital to survival and if it is polluted to the point that it becomes toxic to the body, then people will definitely die from inhaling polluted air.
Based on the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, if the situation does not improve, there could be about 60,000 deaths linked to air pollution by the year 2030. The number is expected to rise by 260,000 in the year 2100 if the problem with air pollution remains unattended.
Deaths by air pollution
Currently, there are about 5.5 million deaths worldwide attributed to air pollution, according to CBS News. Experts say that the new study is the most comprehensive analysis on how climate change affects the health of the public, particularly air pollution. In order to arrive at their findings, the researchers used data from various global modeling groups in France, UK, Japan, U.S. and New Zealand.
The culprit is the rising temperature. The hotter the climate is, the faster air pollutants form and accumulate in the atmosphere and eventually contaminate the air. Lead author of the study, Jason West, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina's environmental sciences and engineering department said that the places that are getting drier because of Global warming are where air pollution concentrations are more likely to increase.
Global effect
According to the study, the changes will be felt globally, which means air pollution-related deaths will increase worldwide if the trends continue at this rate. Air pollution creates toxic contaminants that attack a person's heart and respiratory system. Some conditions that could be attributed to air pollution are heart attacks, cardiopulmonary disease, stroke and lung cancer.
This means the air affects a human's health immensely.
In order to lessen the global effect of climate change on the human body, efforts in slowing down global warming should be launched and executed steadfastly. The changes people do today can make a great impact on the future. However, the recent government move led by President Donald Trump slowed down the efforts to counteract the effect of global warming by withdrawing the country's membership from the Paris Climate Change agreement.
With the agreement in place, there is a specific target that many nations in the world need to abide by in order to combat the rising temperature. It is a collaboration between more than 190 countries. But the U.S.' decision to back down from the agreement could impact on the efforts to fight the problem.
This means responsible citizens in the county, as well as non-governmental organizations, need to escalate their efforts to help curb the warming of temperatures. One sure way to fight it is by reducing greenhouse emissions. Reducing greenhouse gasses will not only benefit the environment but it will be beneficial for the human body, too.
Aside from air pollution-related deaths, climate change can also lead to more health problems like heat stress, a fast proliferation of infectious diseases and less food and clean water sources.
