How ‘bout some serious air-care, for once – please?

Every year in the world as many as six-and-a-half-million people are losing their lives too soon from the effects of polluted air – 3 million related to outdoor air pollution and three-and-a-half million from polluted air which is indoors, according to World Health Organization estimates.

It was four years ago that I penned the “Cutting transportation emissions – Seriously? Action speaks louder than words” post on Nov. 21, 2012. In that post I wrote:

“According to the American Lung Association, more than 127 million Americans are affected: a full 40 percent of the U.S. population – a number that, ideally, should be zero.”

The reality is that there should not be one single premature passing tied to the miasma otherwise known as air pollution – period! But the other reality, a sad one: there are. In fact, within a year-and-a-half’s time, three people I know left this earth much too soon as each had cancer of the lung. One smoked; the other two did not.

Health issues associated with toxic air pollution:

From “Putting into context air-pollution-statistical ‘estimates’”:

“The WHO identifies specific linked diseases such as acute lower respiratory infections in children, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), ischaemic heart disease, lung cancer and stroke with the following breakdowns for both indoor and outdoor pollution:

“Indoor air pollution-caused deaths (in percent):

• Acute lower respiratory infections in children – 12
• COPD – 22
• Ischaemic heart disease – 26
• Lung cancer – 6
• Stroke – 34

“Outdoor air pollution-caused deaths (in percent):

• Acute lower respiratory infections in children – 3
• COPD – 11
• Ischaemic heart disease – 40
• Lung cancer – 6
• Stroke – 40

“(Source: “7 million premature deaths annually linked to air pollution,” news release, The World Health Organization, Mar. 25, 2014, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-pollution/en).”

Air pollution refugees

On Dec. 16, 2007, The Fresno Bee put out a special installment titled: “Fighting For Air.” Among the chock-full-of-related top-to-bottom-of-page content (no advertisements here), profiled are the lives of people and their families forced to relocate because their physical health had deteriorated, so much so, they could no longer live in the San Joaquin Valley of California – reportedly, the region of the country with the worst fine particulate matter problem. One of the people mentioned in the special report was former Fresno historian and book author and journalist, Catherine Rehart. According to information in the Bee, Rehart had what her doctor referred to as “non-infectious bronchitis,” which her doctor believed to be smog and soot-aggravated, the medical professional advising the Fresno resident to leave the Valley and its unhealthy air behind. If she didn’t, Rehart faced the prospect of worsening health. The writer, journalist, book author, historian did, in fact, leave. But, several years ago I learned through a friend that Rehart had, most unfortunately, passed away. Meanwhile, there were at least 10 families so profiled.

Moreover, another lady, who moved to Pismo Beach on California’s central coast and where air is a far improvement over what it is in the Valley, must wear a mask in combo with a filtering system to help screen out impurities in the air when returning to the Valley, according to information in the Bee. Doctors, apparently, were not able to come up with a definitive diagnosis at the time, however.

Oh, and in another section of the special installment, based on a 2005 California Health Interview Survey, roughly 75,000 out of approximately 225,000 children in Fresno County have asthma. Not surprising then that, “Fresno is state’s asthma capital,” is the corresponding article’s title where this so-referenced information appears. Overall, about 1 in 5 in the Valley are asthma sufferers.

It more or less goes without saying that I would like to, someday soon, see a follow-up report to learn what if anything has changed; what’s improved and/or worsened and/or what hasn’t.

Now I’ve seen everything …

As an aside, the neighbor who lives across the street, who typically mows and cares for his own lawn, yesterday, had, for whatever reason, utilized the services of professionals to take care of that very task. For the chores at hand, there were no fewer than four yard-care implements employed: an edger, a (leaf?) blower and two mowers – though I’m not sure both mowers were working. I made it a point to stay inside my home across the street at the time and for reasons not too difficult to imagine, I kept all of my windows and doors shut. Though, through my kitchen window, I periodically caught a glimpse of outside work being done in said neighbor’s front yard.

Both lawn mowers were on the front driveway and from what I could tell only one was powered up; running but just sitting there. Meanwhile, of the two yard-care workers, one using an edger was engaged in front-yard-based edging duties. (For the record, up until that time, I had not ever seen this work being done with a running mower just sitting there unused). At any rate, upon the edging being finished with the edger now put away, it was then that this same yard-care professional went and grabbed the already running gasoline-powered mower and proceeded to mow the lawn. Yesterday, luckily, thankfully, the air here was on the low side of the moderate range on account of a storm that recently made its way through.

The point of all of this is, if I hadn’t seen what I saw, I probably would not have believed it. Could it have gotten any worse? Actually, it could have, had it been a day with unhealthful air.

So, how ’bout it – for once, some “serious” air care, please? Please?

Images: NASA (upper); U.S. National Institutes of Health: National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (middle)

This post was last revised on Jun. 10, 2020 @ 1:40 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time.

– Alan Kandel