'Unseen' News and Views – By Baher Kamal & The Like
(UN News)* — An astonishing 99 per cent of the world’s population breathes polluted air that exceeds internationally approved limits, with negative health impacts kicking in at much lower levels than previously thought, UN medical scientists said on Monday [4 April 2022].
Noting that fossil fuels are responsible for most of the harmful emissions that are linked to acute and chronic sickness, the World Health Organization (WHO) called for tangible steps to curb their use.
The UN agency also urged more governments to take note that it has made significant revisions to its air quality indicators, including for particulate matter – known as PM2.5 – that can enter the bloodstream, along with nitrogen dioxide (NO2), another common urban pollutant and precursor of particulate matter and ozone.
Adam Isacson is Director for Defense Oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America
Migrant encampment in the border town of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Credit: Adam Isacson.
– “The migrants try to organize themselves to stay safe,” a humanitarian worker told me as we stood near a town square in Reynosa, Mexico, steps away from the U.S. border.
More than 2,000 people from many countries, blocked from asking for asylum in the United States, were packed into this square block, living under tents and tarps, amid port-a-potties and cooking fires. Children were everywhere.
This year’s World Health Day launched a new warning: more than 13 million deaths around the world each year are due to “avoidable environmental causes”. Credit: Bigstock
But this new alert should be no surprise: it rather constitutes the logic, expected consequence of the more and more intensive pressure of the life-keeping and life-saving natural resources.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 