Mario Molina, the winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1995 and the only Mexican scientist to be honored with a Nobel, died last week in his native Mexico City. He was 77 years old.
By Gwynne Dyer – They teach you in journalism school never to use the phrase “…X has changed the world forever”. Or at least they should. Covid-19 is certainly not going to change the world forever, but it is going to change quite a few things, in some cases for a long time. Here’s eight of them, in no particular order.
Britain will ban the sale of new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars from 2035, five years earlier than planned, in an attempt to reduce air pollution that could herald the end of over a century of reliance on the internal combustion engine.
Scientists say breathing the heavily polluted air in Mexico City these days is like smoking somewhere between a quarter-and a half-pack of cigarettes a day.
By Antonio Guterres (*) Without ambitious action, the Paris agreement is meaningless. So I’m bringing world leaders together to build the future we need. Tens of thousands of young people took to the streets on Friday with a clear message to world leaders: act now to save our planet and our future from the climate emergency.
Nine out of ten people breathe polluted air every day. In 2019, air pollution is considered by the World Health Organization, WHO, as the greatest environmental risk to health.
The World Medical Association has echoed a high-powered call for health professionals to be more involved in the management of childhood exposure to air pollution. The call has come at the first World Health Organization conference on air pollution being held in Geneva.
Every day around 93% of the world’s children under the age of 15 years (1.8 billion children) breathe air that is so polluted it puts their health and development at serious risk. Tragically, many of them die: WHO estimates that in 2016, 600,000 children died from acute lower respiratory infections caused by polluted air.
This year the World Heart Federation (WHF) is raising awareness of an increasingly important CVD risk factor: air pollution. World Heart Day takes place this Saturday. The latest scientific evidence by Nature warns that exposure to nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter air pollution is clearly linked to CVD mortality. Poor air quality is also ranked as the 4th cause of Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) – one lost year of ‘healthy life’ – according to latest Global Burden of Disease study .
Air pollution levels remain dangerously high in many parts of the world. New data from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that 9 out of 10 people breathe air containing high levels of pollutants. Updated estimations reveal an alarming death toll of 7 million people every year caused by ambient (outdoor) and household air pollution.