Air pollution and its risks

Global warming and air pollution are two problems caused by the combustion of fossil fuels. The burning of coal, oil and natural gas produces not only greenhouse gases but also a range of harmful air pollutants, including ozone, airborne particulates, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. Exposure to these pollutants can cause a number of adverse health effects.

Diseases of the heart or blood vessels, or cardiovascular disease, and in particular coronary heart disease (harm to the heart resulting from an insufficient supply of oxygenated blood) are leading causes of death. Accumulating evidence indicates that air pollutants contribute to serious, even fatal, damage to the cardiovascular system – and air pollution is a factor that you can’t control just through healthy lifestyle.

The mechanisms by which air pollution causes cardiovascular disease are thought to be the same as those responsible for respiratory disease: pulmonary inflammation and oxidative stress. The human brain is susceptible to grave harm from air pollution. Air pollutants can trigger strokes. They can also affect brain development and reduce human intelligence.

Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that can severely harm the brain and the developing nervous system. Human exposure to mercury occurs as a result of air pollution from natural sources, such as volcanoes but also from man-made sources like coal-fired power plants, cement kilns and industrial boilers. Humans are exposed primarily through fish consumption, with large tuna, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish having the highest methylmercury concentrations. Lead is a well-known toxic substance. Lead poisoning is particularly harmful during early childhood because children absorb lead from the gastrointestinal tract more readily than adults, and lead in the blood of children circulates into the brain more frequently.

Lung cancer, a killer in both men and women, is often (and accurately) associated with smoking tobacco. While that’s true, there are multiple other risk factors for developing lung cancer, including air pollution. Particulate matter and ozone in particular may affect mortality due to lung cancer. Future food production is highly vulnerable to both climate change and air pollution with implications for global food security.

Climate change adaptation and ozone regulation have been identified as important strategies to safeguard food production, but little is known about how climate and ozone pollution interact to affect agriculture, nor the relative effectiveness of these two strategies for different crops and regions. Global warming will reduce global crop production by more than 10 per cent by 2050 with a potential to substantially worsen global malnutrition in all scenarios considered.

Air quality management enables government authorities in collaboration with other stakeholders to:

• Identify and establish appropriate policies on air quality;
• Identify relevant legislative and regulatory requirements;
• Identify all sources of air pollution caused by human activities;
• Set appropriate objectives and targets for human and environmental health;
• Set priorities for achieving objectives and targets;
• Establish a structure and programmes to implement policies and achieve objectives and targets;
• Facilitate the monitoring of air quality and effects on human health and environment;
• Facilitate urban planning, corrective action and the prevention of adverse effects;
• Ensure compliance with emission and air quality standards.

SUMERA GHAFOOR

NFC, IET, Multan