Pollution Article 2
 

Recently the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere passed the 415 parts per million. Even if global heating can be kept within the Paris agreement target of 1.5C to 2C, the survival of many of the Earth’s species will continue to shrink at an alarming rate. Today, more than 80% of wastewater is dispersed into streams, lakes and oceans without treatment, along with 300m-400m tons of heavy metals, toxic slurry and other industrial discharges.

 

Plastic waste has increased tenfold since 1980, adversely affecting 86% of marine turtles, 44% of seabirds and 43% of marine mammals, while fertiliser run-off has created hundreds of “dead zones” affecting an area the size of the UK. The question is: How much more can the Living Earth take?

 

Environmental scientist and health epidemiologists have applied improved research methodologies and satellite imagery in order to arrive at their unsettling conclusion that fossil-fuels related air pollution is more damaging to global human health than previously estimated.

 

A major research report by the Lancet in 2019 found 4.2m annual deaths from air pollution, this new research deploys a more detailed analysis of the impact of sooty airborne particles thrown out by power plants, cars, trucks and other sources. This particulate matter is known as PM2.5, - particles less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter – or about 30 times smaller than the diameter of the average human hair. These tiny specks of pollution, once inhaled, lodge in the lungs and can cause a variety of health problems.

 

Air pollution caused by the continuing use of fossil fuels such as coal and oil was responsible for millions of deaths globally in recent years.

 

For some time now, scientists have been warning that the chemical pollution that pervades the planet now threatens the stability of global ecosystems upon which humanity depends.

 

For climate scientists chemical pollution has crossed a “planetary boundary”, the point at which human-made changes to the Earth push it outside the stable environment of the last 10,000 years, or so..

 

There has been a fiftyfold increase in the production of chemicals since 1950, and this is projected to triple again by 2050. The pace at which societies are releasing chemicals into the environment is not consistent with staying within a safe operating space for humanity.

 

For a long time scientists have known that chemical pollution is dangerous. Their work brings chemical pollution, especially plastics, into the story of how people are changing the natural world, and not always in positive ways. Whether or not, chemical pollution has crossed a planetary boundary is complex. There are also a huge number of chemical compounds registered for use – about 350,000 – and only a tiny fraction of these have been assessed for safety.