On August 5 2020, Drew Shindell, a professor of Earth science at Duke University, appeared before the US House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Shindell is the lead author of the two most recent IPCC reports. He told the committee the latest study by his colleagues and NASA shows that “Over the next 50 years, keeping to the 2º C pathway would prevent roughly 4.5 million premature deaths, and about 3.5 million hospitalizations and emergency room visits.”
“Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment; but you humans do not. Instead you multiply, and multiply, until every resource is consumed. … There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern… a virus.” How fitting that the world today is in the grip of just such a virus and yet we shrug our shoulders and wonder when things will get back to normal — as if “normal” will somehow save us from ourselves.
A recent study from the national academies of multiple countries, including the US, concludes, “The scientific evidence is unequivocal: air pollution can harm health across the entire lifespan. It causes disease, disability and death, and impairs everyone’s quality of life. It damages lungs, hearts, brains, skin and other organs; it increases the risk of disease and disability, affecting virtually all systems in the human body.”
See Cleaning Up Our Polluted Air Would Save More Money Than It Costs
The effects of polluted air are twice as severe as previously thought, according to the latest research.