Killer Air

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor CHERYL CRUZ Desk Editor PATRICK PANGILINAN Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

According to the World Health Organization of the United Nations, air pollution has contributed to an estimated seven million deaths worldwide in 2012. “Air pollution, and we're talking both indoors and outdoors, is now the biggest environmental health problem, and it's affecting everyone, both developed and developing countries”, says Maria Neira the public and environmental health chief of the WHO.

The new WHO research found that pollution can be linked to one death in eight globally in 2012, and that the biggest pollution-related killers are heart disease, stroke, pulmonary disease and lung cancer. It found the Philippines to be within the hardest-hit regions of that scourge. The global death toll included 4.3 million deaths due to indoor air pollution that is chiefly caused by cooking over coal, wood and biomass stoves, and attributed outdoor pollution to 3.7 million deaths.

These new figures are “shocking and worrying” for the WHO as its previous estimate for deaths related to air pollution released in 2008 put those related to outdoor pollution at only 1.3 million, and the number blamed at indoor pollution at 1.9 million. While the gap could be due to a change in research methodology between the 2008 and 2012 figures, the figures should still be frightening, both to individuals and policymakers. According to the WHO, an estimated 2.9 billion people in poor nations live in homes that use fires as their principal method for cooking and heating.

Neira warns that the risks from pollution are now far greater than previously thought or understood, particularly for heart disease and stroke; and emphasizes a need for concerted action to clean up the air we all breathe.

Cleaning up the air we breathe to prevent even more air pollution-related deaths and to improve the general quality of our lives will require the cooperation of the government and the private sector, especially in this country where garbage is still being burned in backyards, vehicular emission regulations are regularly violated, and it is very likely that millions still use wood or charcoal fires for cooking.

The public has to be made aware of the dangers and costs of air pollution and the government has to do a better job in crafting and enforcing policies that can protect and even improve the quality of the air in this country.*