Dirty Air Set to Become Biggest Environmental Killer

Posted on Mar 15, 2012

Dave Morris, jenspie3 (CC-BY)

Fouled air blankets a street in Delhi, India, in 2009.

A new report predicts urban air pollution will become the No. 1 cause of premature death in the coming decades, beating out poor sanitation and dirty drinking water to take more than 3.5 million lives per year. —ARK

The Guardian:

Both developed and developing countries will be hit, and by 2050, there could be 3.6 million premature deaths a year from exposure to particulate matter, most of them in China and India. But rich countries will suffer worse effects from exposure to ground-level ozone, because of their ageing populations – older people are more susceptible.

The warning comes in a new report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which is a study of the global environmental outlook until 2050. The report found four key areas that are of most concern – climate change, loss of biodiversity, water and the health impacts of pollution.

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