No Other Choice

 

In anticipation of Children’s Environmental Health Day on Thursday, October 14, The PediaBlog will focus this week on environmental impacts to children’s health and well-being.

 

It is doubtful there are any adults living in the United States today who deny that breathing unclean air is harmful to our health. Even children, who are more susceptible to the damage caused by air pollution and learn about it in school science and health classes, know that air pollution is bad and clean air is good.

According to the World Health Organization, 91% of humanity live in areas where air quality exceeds international limits of air contaminants. WHO estimates that every year more than eight million people around the world die prematurely as a result of exposure to indoor and outdoor air pollution. That number includes tens of thousands of Americans.

Decades of occupational and community-based medical research shows that frequent exposure to outdoor (ambient) air pollution makes people sick. In its most recent policy statement update on “Ambient Air Pollution: Health Hazards to Children,” the American Academy of Pediatrics this past summer identified the fossil-fueled sources of air pollution that continue to endanger the health and well-being of our children despite efforts to improve the nation’s air quality over the last 50 years:

Ambient air pollution is produced by sources including vehicular traffic, coal-fired power plants, hydraulic fracturing [fracking], agricultural production, and forest fires. It consists of primary pollutants generated by combustion and secondary pollutants formed in the atmosphere from precursor gases. Air pollution causes and exacerbates climate change, and climate change worsens health effects of air pollution.

 

The main components of air pollution in modern times are often invisible — fine particulate matter (PM2.5), volatile organic compounds (VOCs; benzene, a potent carcinogen, is an example), nitrogen oxides (combining with VOCs to form ground-level ozone, a dangerous air toxic), carbon monoxide, and the primary greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide — and contribute to a growing list of chronic and serious health conditions in children:

Infants and children are uniquely sensitive to air pollution, because their organs are developing and they have higher air per body weight intake. Health effects linked to air pollution include not only exacerbations of respiratory diseases but also reduced lung function development and increased asthma incidence. Additional outcomes of concern include preterm birth, low birth weight, neurodevelopmental disorders, IQ loss, pediatric cancers, and increased risks for adult chronic diseases.

 

Huanjia Zhang reviewed a recent study that looked into “the pernicious impact of air pollution on birth outcomes worldwide.”

After analyzing available data from all inhabited continents, the researchers estimated that exposure to PM2.5—pollutant particles with widths 30 times smaller than a human hair—was linked to almost six million premature births and roughly three million underweight babies across the world in 2019.

The findings are “staggering,” Rakesh Ghosh, an environmental epidemiologist at University of California, San Francisco, and the lead author of the study, told EHN.

 

We now know in 2021 that air pollution is responsible for so many health problems through our lifespans. We know that the tiny particles, smelly vapors, and chemicals that constitute modern air pollution can impair fertility, complicate pregnancies, and lead to poor birth outcomes. Birth defects and neurodevelopmental delays (cognitive and learning problems, behavioral issues, and possibly autism) associated with some components of toxic air pollution lead to lifelong health burdens for young children, for their families, and for society. Air pollution disrupts pediatric lung growth and pulmonary function, resulting in higher rates and more frequent exacerbations of asthma in children. Lung cancer, bladder cancer, and other types of adult and childhood cancers are linked to air pollution, which impacts practically every organ system in the body — not just the lungs, but also the heart and brain, the liver and kidneys. Recent research describes the links between air pollution and the development of obesity, type 2 diabetes, anxiety, depression and other forms of mental illness, and in adults, dementia.

The AAP encourages pediatricians to advocate for strategies that will reduce fossil fuel emissions, and push for clean, renewable energy solutions that will help mitigate the impact of pollution and climate change, improving the health of people and the planet.

Individuals aren’t helpless in trying to reduce the risks to health and safety from air pollution. Even though it may not darken the sky as much as it used to, looks can be deceiving. If our own eyes can’t detect it, our noses often can (as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette so effectively reminded us of on Monday). And tools like the Environmental Protection Agency’s Air Quality Index (AQI) — www.airnow.gov — can help us keep track of ambient air pollution wherever we live, work, learn, and play.

We can keep our homes smoke-free, vent stovetops to the outside, change air filters on our home heating and cooling units regularly, and take steps to not let outdoor air pollution come inside our homes.

We can also acknowledge the climate reality that’s already here and demand intelligent policies that accelerate society’s inevitable transition away from harmful coal, oil, and natural gas, and move us ahead in the rapid development and deployment of renewable energy solutions, smart grids, electrification of transportation, regenerative agriculture, and conservation of public land and resources.

Can we do this — protect the health of our children by preserving the health of the planet? Do we have to ask that question as if adults really have any other choice? There is no other choice.

 

(Google Images)

 

source http://www.thepediablog.com/2021/10/12/no-other-choice/