Many of us fear that our children and grandchildren are inheriting a damaged planet. In fact, younger generations are already taking a hit.
A new report from the medical journal The Lancet, found that children are especially vulnerable to CO2 emissions. Failing to limit these emissions would lead to health problems caused by infectious diseases, worsening air pollution, rising temperatures and malnutrition, New York Times reporter Kendra Pierre-Louis wrote.
The report compared human health consequences under two scenarios: one in which the world meets the commitments laid out in the Paris Agreement and reins in emissions so that increases in global temperatures remain “well below 2 degrees Celsius” by the end of the century, and one in which it does not.
“With every degree of warming, a child born today faces a future where their health and well-being will be increasingly impacted by the realities and dangers of a warmer world,” said Dr. Renee N. Salas, a clinical instructor of emergency medicine at Harvard Medical School and lead author of the United States policy brief that accompanied the report. “Climate change, and the air pollution from fossil fuels that are driving it, threatens the child’s health starting in the mother’s womb and only accumulates from there,” she said.
Children are especially vulnerable, partly because of their physiology. “Their hearts beat faster than adults’ and their breathing rates are higher than adults’,” said Dr. Mona Sarfaty, the director of the program on climate and health at the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, who was not involved in the report. As a result, children absorb more air pollution given their body size than an adult would in the same situation.
But unless nations halt emissions, air pollution, which, according to the report, killed seven million people worldwide in 2016, will quite likely increase. The burning of fossil fuels also releases a type of fine air pollution called PM 2.5 that can damage the heart and lungs when inhaled. Exposure to PM 2.5 air pollution is correlated with health problems such as low birth weight and chronic respiratory diseases like asthma.
Research published in The New England Journal of Medicine after the passage of policies designed to improve air quality “shows that the children who grew up when the air was better quality literally had more functioning lung tissue,” Dr. Sarfaty told The Times.
Part of the exposure risk that children face is simply that they spend more time outside than adults. Coupled with their differing physiology, it makes them more susceptible to fine particulate pollution. These same factors also mean they are more likely to suffer from the effects of extreme heat associated with climate change.
As heat waves become more severe, parents and coaches “may not realize that the children are more exposed and therefore more vulnerable,” Dr. Sarfaty said. A 2017 report that she helped prepare found that, in the United States, heat-related illnesses are the leading cause of death and disability in young athletes.
Air pollution became so severe in Delhi, India, recently that five million masks were distributed at schools. Officials were forced to declare a public health emergency and have closed city schools four days so far this month. "I didn't realize how bad it would get," one resident told BBC. "Do we really want our kids to grow up in such an environment? No one really cares; no one wants to improve the situation."
A Supreme Court-mandated panel imposed several restrictions in Delhi and two neighboring states, as air quality deteriorated to "severe" levels. Dangerous particulate levels in the air are about 20 times the World Health Organization (WHO) maximum. Delhi's Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the city had been turned into a "gas chamber."
In addition to the emissions associated with burning fossil fuels, the report said future generations would be exposed to a growing source of fine-particulate pollution: wildfires. As temperatures rise, wildfires are becoming more frequent, in part because hotter temperatures dry out vegetation, making it easier to ignite. The smoke, like the smoke that comes from burning fossil fuels, threatens human health.
According to the report published in The Lancet, since the middle of this decade there has been a 77 percent increase in the number of people exposed to wildfire smoke worldwide.
One way to reduce the threat to our children’s health is to increase the price paid so that it reflects such costs. In effect, we are subsidizing the damage to their lungs, brains, and other organs. Urge those who represent you on Capitol Hill to support one of the carbon tax bills now before the House and Senate.