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BILLIONS OF PEOPLE worldwide are at risk of dying early due to the effects of cooking, heating and lighting their homes with fossil fuel fires.
That’s the conclusion of a report released this morning in the Lancet medical journal.
Three billion people (about one third of the global population) use solid fuels like coal, wood or charcoal, for functions otherwise performed by gas and electricity.
Primarily living in Asia and Africa, these 600-800 million families are at an increased risk of diseases such as lung cancer, according to the British and American researchers.
The combined effects of smoky and dirty fossil fuels, burned in an open fire or stove, in a home with poor ventilation, ultimately killed between 3.5 and 4 million people in 2010 alone.
This map shows the regions worst-hit by deaths from household air pollution: Africa, India, Asia and parts of South America and even Central Europe.
Household air pollution from these fuels is causing early deaths among affected populations, as well as major health problems like COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), asthma, lung cancer, pneumonia, and respiratory tract infections .
What exacerbates these enormous public health problems, the study found, is the shoddy healthcare available to women and children, who are especially vulnerable to the effects of coal and wood burning.
Governments and experts in worst-hit countries simply must do more to bring down the death rates, says co-lead researcher William Martin, from Ohio State University.
Scientists and health professionals in countries where household air pollution is still widespread need to work with governments and international health agencies to increase awareness of the huge toll that it is exacting on the population.
There are many gaps in our knowledge of how to effectively measure and prevent household air pollution, but this problem cannot be solved until the global community recognises the scale of this problem and commits to coordinated and concerted action.
Scroll down to read the report in full, or for a short explanation of how burning fossil fuels translates into millions of deaths per year, check out this video:
http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2014/09/hapcommission.pdf
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Living is killing us.
Living… what’s that. We just exist
Which rocket scientist came up with this gem of information? In fairness, burning anything, including gas, in a place with poor ventilation is going to cause problems. You don’t need degrees out your ar5e to point that out.
I think the pertinent info here is not the simple fact that solid fuels cause respiratory problems but the scale, geography and demography of the death toll. How are we supposed to tackle a problem if we don’t know who, how or where it’s impacting?
It kind of put it in perspective when people are moaning about nuclear power potential for accidents or wind power turbine killing a few birds or looking ugly…
Burning fossil fuels is more damaging by a factor of thousands. It just kills people slower and with more prolonged suffering while wasting most the energy produced.
Depends on how you burn them. If you burn wood in good modern stoves it is safe and non-polluting. Home-built rocket stoves use tiny amounts of fuel for huge heat gain.
I’m calling bull on the data gathering or results. China seems to be less affected than most of Africa, despite a denser population and the smog problems they have because of rapid industrialisation. Just to put it into context, their pollution is so bad it’s being detected on land in Japan…
It’s being detected in California
I agree more scare mongering.They are pissed cause so many people not paying the big fish for their heating. Humans have been alive and lived long before big co ops control.
@karen, you seem to be forgetting life expectancy. Yes humans have been around but it’s our life expectancy that has gone through the roof thanks to modern western meds and living standards
Is it still ok to bbq or will that give me cancer now too?
It’s only bad to bbq Marlboro lights
This is ridiculous. sure many of the elderly people in Ireland were rared in houses that cooked on open fires
With chimneys
Sure, and chimneys all they do is put the stuff out there for everybody to breathe.
Another Green con job
Another conspiracy loon
Avina Laaf .. Its called green fascism..
# new stupid rules implemented, taxes, restrictions, control the masses. …
The rule is not stupid, but you are.
By forcing car manufacturers to make more efficient engines, eventually we have less polluting cars. If they don’t do it of their own will, we have to regulate and make them do it.
Look everyone who has ever drank water has died…..
Should we all stop or is it to late
We are all going to die anyway…
…..”And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment”:: Hebrews 9:27
I’d imagine a lot of these people have no access to gas or electricity and even if they did could not afford it, so stop using fossil fuels and wood and starve or freeze to death ( in a Eco friendly way of course).
3bn is about 1/3 of the global population, which is just over 7bn? Hmnm ok…you don’t understand basic maths.
What do we use to generate our power wouldn’t be fossil fuels would it ? If that’s the only type of fuel you have then you will use it. Most people in the world have no choice. We however do but we still use it.
It’s about time this problem was publicised. People have this wholesome view of wood burning fireplaces. The reality is that all sorts of carcinogens are output from a wood and coal fires, even if you to smokeless. While most of the harmful material goes straight up the chimney, it doesn’t just make its way up into the stratosphere for us to never see again, it falls back down onto all of your neighbours.
Wood fires should be banned.
TURFS UP?????!!!!! Seems inappropriate for this article.
I warned Patrick Joseph not to be sucking at the turf. Would he listen? Had to be pumped out in A&E. Very good article.
Whaaaat ?? Never !!
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