40 Percent of Global Death Attributed To Pollution

Take just a second and chew on that.  Sit back in you’re chair, take a deep breath and think. 40% of all death on this planet is directly related to Pollution.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, right?” Here is another way of looking at it. Pick 5 of you’re closest friends or family members. In a Global View, 2 of them are going to die because of pollution.

In 2006 and 2007, Blacksmith Institute and Green Cross Switzerland produced the first lists of the “Worlds Worst Polluted Places.” They were compiled based on a variety of criteria. Foremost among these was the impact of pollution on human health. As a result of these studies, a team of researchers studying population growth, pollution and disease found that 40 percent of deaths worldwide are caused by water, air and soil pollution.

They have produced a new report for 2008 called “The World’s Worst Pollution Problems: The Top Ten of the Toxic Twenty.

I am going to be highlighting one of the Top Ten, every day for 10 days, but before I get carried away, here is some more information on the report itself.

The Top Ten is a non-ranked set of global issues, which – in the overall judgment of a panel of expert adviser’s – represent ongoing activities and conditions that pose the greatest threat to human health. There were three primary factors taken into consideration when ranking the Top Ten.

1. The first was Toxicity. More innocuous contaminants received a lower ranking, while more dangerous substances, say mercury or lead, garnered a higher ranking.
2. The second primary factor to compiling the data was the Pathway, or how the pollutant is transferred to the population. People absorb contaminants through direct inhalation, drinking, bathing, eating or through skin contact. The more direct, the less diluted and therefore more dangerous the pathway, the higher the ranking the problem receives.
3. Finally, they evaluated Population. Here, it refers to the overall number affected by the pollutant globally.

Here is part one (Contaminated Surface Water) in the series.

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As always, keep up the good fight and Alter the Eco.

Source: Worstpolluted.org

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