In the News
January 24, 2019
From Thailand, to South Korea and India, polluted air has suffocated some of Asia’s largest cities, pushing authorities to step up measures to fight smog and protect their people from harmful particles entering the human body.
Despite governments’ various efforts to combat toxic air pollution, the situation is likely to persist as all of them face difficulties in balancing economic growth with improvements to the environment.
For weeks, Bangkok has not seen a clear sky. A combination of heavy traffic, construction works, the burning of crops, factory operations, coal-based electricity generation and almost no breeze have turned the air toxic. The most prominent pollutant in the city’s toxic air, PM2.5 — which has a diameter equal to or smaller than 2.5 micrometers and which can lodge deep in the lungs and cause respiratory and heart ailments — has reached unsafe levels by the country’s standards.
These days, it is not unusual to see people waiting in lines at pharmacies during their lunch break to buy face masks, like the N95 mask, which is designed to catch particles as small as PM2.5. But many pharmacies have posted signs reading: “We are out of N95 compatible masks.” Local supermarket chain Tesco Lotus even gave away the masks to attract customers.
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Air pollution is a serious threat to human health, potentially leading to illnesses such as pneumonia. The WHO has placed air pollution as the top priority of all threats to tackle in 2019. It estimated that nine out of 10 people in the world breathe polluted air every day. Dirty air kills 7 million people a year, the UN agency said.
The Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago has reported that air pollution cuts global average life expectancy by 1.8 years per person. The effect is more severe than smoking, which cuts life expectancy by 1.6 years, or HIV/Aids, which cuts it by 4 months.
“[This] tells citizens and policymakers how particulate pollution is affecting them and their communities and reveals the benefits of policies to reduce particulate pollution,” said Michael Greenstone, the director of the institute.