Pollution, a threat that knows no borders 26:09
(CNN Spanish) -
It is necessary to change the narrative about climate change and environmental problems, and understand that they will not only affect future generations.
They are a reality that impacts today and impacts our health.
That is what Dr. María P. Neira, director of the Department of the Environment, Climate Change and Health at the World Health Organization (WHO) raises.
Within the framework of Earth Day, Guillermo Arduino interviewed the WHO expert in Digital Encounter.
Here we share some of the main messages he left.
'Shaking' the idea we have about climate change
For Dr. Neira it is necessary "to shake off a little some ideas that we already had about what climate change or the Earth or the environment means."
The goal is to understand that "it is also a health issue that is affecting us."
"The moment people make this connection between health and climate change, a kind of click will take place, a fundamental change", which will increase the level of ambition in the objectives of the fight against climate change, he considers.
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“I think that on some occasions, when we have talked about climate change, perhaps people have not felt that this touched them directly.
That is, they have seen it as something that will affect future generations, which has to do with other parts of the planet where people have more difficulties and more poverty, which in the end were specific meteorological phenomena that we could manage, "he explains.
The best tool is education, says Dr. Neira.
And in this sense, he believes that there is hope: the environmental culture of children "is definitely changing" with respect to that of other generations.
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7 million die a year from air pollution
Seven million people die each year from air pollution, recalls Dr. Neira.
This is a figure that, in his view, "has not been heard enough."
Behind the air pollution that causes this number of deaths and climate change is a shared cause: the burning of fossil fuels.
And air pollution causes chronic respiratory diseases like asthma, acute illnesses like pneumonia, and others like lung cancer.
The effects go beyond the respiratory system, explains the expert.
When toxic substances pass into our blood system "they can reach any organ in our body" and cause cardiovascular diseases, cerebral strokes and other conditions.
Globalization makes us more vulnerable
What role does globalization play?
Dr. Neira points out that “air pollution knows no borders.
He does not know where one country begins and another ends.
And he also warns that globalization "also makes us more susceptible or more vulnerable to emerging infectious diseases."
And he insists that we do not realize that a lack of "empathy" and "respect for the ecosystems we are destroying" ultimately hurts us all.
We are little predators.
Really everything we touch we contaminate », he reflects.
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"The planet seems very big, but in the end we are very small within the planet" and what happens in one place affects others, he explains.
The example is clear: the plastic that reaches the oceans, even if it is in a remote part of the planet at first, "we are going to end up eating it because we eat the fish that are in that sea."
That is why he appeals to "change the narrative."
“We have to understand how it can affect our survival and also, perhaps, change the narrative that we have used so far to say that it will affect us for generations to come, that it will affect polar bears or glaciers.
No. It will affect us.
Today it is affecting us, "he says.
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The politicization of caring for the environment
The WHO specialist affirms that "of course there has been a politicization" of issues related to the environment.
"It seemed like to be on the left it was mandatory to be an environmentalist and to be on the right you had to be an anti-environmentalist," he recalls.
However, he insists that there is a new generation who, he believes, "will surely change things" and give us "many lessons."
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Water, a problem for more than half the world
Access to drinking water, as well as sanitation, continues to be a problem for more than half of the world's population.
And this is especially visible in times of pandemic.
“It is ironic that in a pandemic like this, where one of the most basic public health recommendations is 'wash your hands', it is interesting and paradoxical that one says 'wash your hands' when for many people washing their hands is a very serious problem. serious because you don't have water, you don't have soap, "he says.
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It is not just the water, he says, there is also a problem in access to energy.
«There is still a large part of the population, almost half of the world's population, that cooks as in prehistory: with a fire, you put wood, you light it and there you cook or heat or light the house.
And that means that this incomplete combustion, those particles, you are breathing them in and you are swallowing them and you take them to your lung, "he explains.
A small percentage of the population generates global warming
Are we all equally responsible for global warming?
Dr. Neira explains that no: "Right now the one who generates global warming is a very small percentage of the population," she says.
And he explains that, on the contrary, a large percentage not only do not contribute, but are still unable to access energy sources.
A cloud of aerosol against global warming 1:18
Fossils must return to earth, "where they should never have come from"
Making a transition to clean energies will not only have health benefits, it also has economic advantages, explains the expert, and states that each year US $ 400,000 million is spent in the world to subsidize fossil fuels (without considering the cost to treat combustion-related illnesses, which is $ 5 trillion).
«The economic argument is very proven.
And, in fact, this is why many of the most powerful nations are now moving to renewable energy, because they understood that it is not profitable to continue with fossil fuels.
And the economy, and the countries that are going to be winners in economic terms, are on the side of clean energy, "he says.
"Fossils have to go back to being fossils, we have to put them back in the ground, where they should never have come from," he considers.
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