Air Pollution Is the 'New Tobacco,' Warns WHO (theguardian.com)

The head of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said air pollution is the "new tobacco" that is killing 7 million people a year and harming billions more. "The world has turned the corner on tobacco. Now it must do the same for the 'new tobacco' -- the toxic air that billions breathe every day," said Tedros. "No one, rich or poor, can escape air pollution. It is a silent public health emergency." The Guardian reports: "Despite this epidemic of needless, preventable deaths and disability, a smog of complacency pervades the planet," Tedros said, in an article for the Guardian. "This is a defining moment and we must scale up action to urgently respond to this challenge." The WHO is hosting its first global conference on air pollution and health in Geneva next week, including a high-level action day at which nations and cities are expected to make new commitments to cut air pollution.

Tedros said: "A clean and healthy environment is the single most important precondition for ensuring good health. By cleaning up the air we breathe, we can prevent or at least reduce some of the greatest health risks." The WHO is working with health professionals not only to help their patients, but also to give them the skills and evidence to advocate for health in policy decisions such as moving away from fossil-fuel-powered energy and transport. "No person, group, city, country or region can solve the problem alone," he said. "We need strong commitments and actions from everyone."

Comments

Re:Nuclear Power

[blindseer]

It seems you fail to understand the problem. We've come to a point where we can no longer wait for some new technology to come along to save humanity, if the global warming alarmists are to be believed. We can't wait for some compressed air storage, or PowerWall batteries, or roofing tiles with solar cells in them, or whatever else is being worked on. We need to build out new low carbon generating capacity starting now, build it quickly, and displace the coal power that dominates energy production throughout the world. That includes nuclear power.

You want to see the nuclear power plants insured in full before they are built? What kind of insurance do you have against the failure of the world to reduce their CO2 production?

There is a choice, nuclear power or global warming. There is no third option because there is no time for a third option.

Just to be clear this does not mean nuclear power to the exclusion of all other energy sources. The world simply will not be able to reduce our CO2 production quickly enough if we don't build out "all the above" energy solutions. This means nuclear power must be part of the solution along with wind, solar, hydro, or whatever else you can come up with.

Whatever problem you can point out that nuclear power might have, like that insurance cost, will have to be ignored, dealt with, worked on along the way, or pushed off into the future. There isn't time to be bitching about little matters like insurance. This is a matter of runaway global warming if we can't bring down our CO2 production. Everything else is nothing by comparison.

Should Be Cautionary Tale for Alarmists

[Kunedog]

The two come together as long as there are no expensive filtering systems after that pipe of the nastiest type of diesel burning ship engines, for example. Natural gas powered vehicles are in the minority still.

There's still a difference though, and it matters. In fact, (automotive) diesel engines are pretty much the poster child for the kind of agenda that maximizes mileage and minimizes C02 emissions, at the cost of greatly increased toxic emissions/particulates (i.e. actual "air pollution" analogous to tobacco), resulting in much worse impacts on human health.

But the alarmists just get a free pass on that, I suppose . . . anything else might interfere with their next great policy idea.

Re:Best possible thing that could happen

[blindseer]

And they don't live among the type of people who pride themselves on driving huge diesel trucks and putting black smoke in everybody's face. I've said it many times before, but the best possible thing that could happen for BOTH the earth AND human beings is for the price of oil to skyrocket. Would it cause an economic disaster? Probably. Would it be worth it? You can bet your own health on it.

You want to see an environmental disaster? Go ahead, make oil prices "skyrocket". When winter comes people will be chopping down every tree in sight to burn for heat.

Oh, you want to subsidize heating fuel to counteract this? Go look at what happens in India. I had a friendly chat with a gentleman from India and he told me about how the auto-rickshaw drivers would run their gas engines on the kerosene intended for heating. Normally this would not work but desperate people get creative. They get the engine started on gasoline and then get it nice and hot, usually with the idle set high, then slowly switch over to kerosene. The engine will run, and leave a trail of blue soot behind. Enforcement is impossible because no one can afford to pay any fines. So many people do it that they can't lock them all up.

When people run out of wood to burn then they'll turn to burning whatever else they can find, plastics, rags, cattle dung, paper, paint, lubricating oil, whatever. They won't be burning them in a fancy stove with a catalytic converter, forced draft air, and electrostatic particle filtration. They'll be burning this junk in steel drums.

Go ahead. I dare you. Make oil prices "skyrocket" to save the environment. You'll wish you hadn't.