Air pollution - the silent killer
These are hectic times, Corona has reached all of our everyday life. People start to panic, hamster shopping is the result. Yet air pollution is a much greater and omnipresent danger to life.
Thus one can confidently speak these days of an air pollution pandemic that is afflicting mankind.
According to the latest findings of the Max Planck Institute in Mainz, air pollution reduces average life expectancy by three years on a global average - a frightening fact that makes one think.
Everyone should also rethink their perception, considering that air pollution causes more damage than violent conflicts such as wars and infectious diseases. That makes almost nine million deaths per year from lethal emissions!
"Air pollution exceeds malaria as a cause of premature death by a factor of 19 and HIV/AIDS by a factor of 9. Since the health effects are so enormous and affect the population worldwide, one could say that our findings point to an air pollution pandemic," Jos Lelieveld, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, is quoted in a memo from his institute.