“Toxic air will shorten children’s lives by 20 months, study reveals”

• This article is about the impact of toxic air from pollution on the health of people, specifically focusing on the lifespan of children and the number of months they will lose. While the article addresses a global average, it specifies that those in underdeveloped countries will have more months taken off than more developed countries; for example, South Asian children are expected to lose an average of 30 months from their lifespan, whereas children from the United States are more likely to lose four or five months. This is occurring due to air pollution both indoors and outdoors from PM2.5, which is a size of particulate notorious for causing health issues. This major study was just released this year yet does not make clear the numbers for comparison. While there are specific areas that are more affected than others, this issue is global and affects everyone. The cause of this toxic air comes from industrialization in underdeveloped countries and factors like reliance on solid fuel. For richer countries, the ground-level ozone creates similar pollution due to traffic and other industrial processes.
• This article is incredibly relevant to society, as it acts as statistical data to prove pollution is creating issues upon society. It also brings an urgency to the problem of air pollution; future generations will continue to suffer if the issue is not confronted soon. By looking at the graphs provided, it shows that toxic air pollution is about equivalent to death rate as tobacco smoking, which is alarming as well.
• This is relevant to environmental sustainability, as it shows a connection between the triple bottom line. Society suffers because politicians do not want to address the overall environmental issues that are occurring. This negligence is what has allowed air pollution to cause so many deaths and create as much damage as it has.
• Some questions this article raised for me were: How does a carbon emissions ban play a part in this and how is the outcome affected? Does the number of months lost correlate to specific states in the United States, as in do some states have lower number of months lost compared to the general country’s average? Lastly, what is this data being compared to come to this conclusion? It is a rather alarming statement, so an initial study would be useful to have.

Works Cited

Harvey, Fiona. “Toxic Air Will Shorten Children’s Lives by 20 Months, Study Reveals.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 3 Apr. 2019, www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/03/toxic-air-will-shorten-childrens-lives-by-20-months-study-reveals.