AIR POLLUTION KILLING MORE PEOPLE THAN CIGARETTE SMOKING
Recently published research has revealed that air pollution is killing more people every year than cigarette smoking. According to the World Health Organization, air pollution is responsible for 8.8 million premature deaths per year globally,with ninety per cent of the global population breathing air that’s polluted enough to damage health. Air pollution effects go so far beyond our lungs and our breathing — to everything from heart attacks and strokes to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and premature births and miscarriages, now, are very strongly linked by the science to air pollution.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates smoking kills about 7 million people a year globally. To put this into perspective, this means that air pollution causes more extra deaths a year than tobacco smoking . I’m sure we all agree that urgent action needs to be taken.In fact, the scientists behind the research urged for a reduction in the emissions in accordance to the WHO guideline. “When we use clean, renewable energy, we are not just fulfilling the Paris Agreement to mitigate the effects of climate change, we could also reduce air pollution-related death rates by up to 55 percent.”
The common sense approach in this case would be to reduce emissions right ? With the help of policies and legislation.What is puzzling with the World Health Organization encourages measures to reduce emissions that include switching to other safer sources for generating energy and so forth, in order to urgently reduce these deaths. But when it comes to smoking related deaths , the W.H.O is reluctant to endorse tobacco harm reduction as a viable approach in the fight against smoking. In fact, they oppose it ! They’d rather increase taxes in the hope that this will discourage smokers from buying cigarettes, when stats have shown that this approach will take decades before desired results are met.Mind boggling !
Keeping people who smoke alive and preventing irreparable damage should be regarded as the most urgent priority in the fight against smoking .
