The report finds the majority of pollution-related deaths today come from what it calls modern sources, such as lead and chemical exposure and ambient air pollution primarily through the burning of fossil fuels, what the authors refer to as "the unintended consequence of industrialization and urbanization."

The levels of pollution stemming from current economic models reflects "the throwaway culture" that Pope Francis has condemned and "certainly in no way constitutes good stewardship of our planet," said Philip Landrigan, co-lead author and the director of the Global Public Health Program and Global Pollution Observatory at Boston College.

"We're locked into this economic model, which is focused obsessively on short-term gain, on the gross domestic product," Landrigan told EarthBeat. "We ignore natural capital, the ecosystems. We ignore human capital, people. We just burn through natural resources, we burn through people with the goal of creating ever-greater profit margins."

Deaths from modern forms of pollution have risen 66% since 2000, the report stated, and have essentially wiped out gains in lowering mortality rates from water and household air pollution achieved through improved water and sanitation access and cleaner ways of household cooking and heating.

Overall, the death toll from pollution each year eclipses that from malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis combined is on par with smoking-related deaths and is more than the 6 million people who have died so far from the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 90% of pollution-related deaths are located in low- and middle-income countries.

The findings, based on data from the 2019 Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factors study, were published May 17 in The Lancet Planetary Health, a subset of The Lancet medical journal, one of the world's oldest and most widely respected medical publications.

The report's authors said that despite its massive threat, pollution has been a largely "overlooked" problem and increasingly countries must work together in its mitigation.

"Pollution has typically been viewed as a local issue to be addressed through sub-national and national regulation or, occasionally, using regional policy in higher-income countries.

It is increasingly clear that pollution is a planetary threat, and that its drivers, its dispersion, and its effects on health transcend local boundaries and demand a global response," the report's authors said.

Landrigan, a pediatrician and epidemiologist, told EarthBeat that the world's religions can play an important role in reducing global pollution by raising the moral and ethical dimensions of polluting the planet and also speaking directly with industry and corporate leaders.

"I think religious leaders have an opportunity here to step up … and say, 'Hey, we simply can't go on this way. We've got to move to a more sustainable, more circular economy where it isn't just about more and more and more every day of the week.' Because what we're doing can't go on," he said. "There's going to come a point of no return."

In his 2015 encyclical, "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home," Francis bemoaned how "some forms of pollution are part of people's daily experience" and referenced the millions of premature deaths resulting from such conditions.

Last September, the pope said in a message to the Council of Europe that all people have a right to a "safe, healthy and sustainable environment."

The Lancet report follows up on a similar study in 2017, which also showed pollution responsible for 9 million annual deaths — a figure that has remained unchanged since 2015. What has changed are the sources driving mortality rates, with deaths from modern pollution sources having "increased substantially" over the past 20 years, the report said.

Overall, air pollution is responsible for 6.5 million deaths each year, with 4.5 million of those from ambient air pollution.

An estimated 1.3 million deaths are tied to water pollution; 1.8 million to lead and other chemical pollution, such as a group of chemicals known as PFAS and neonicotinoids, one of the most widely used types of insecticide; and 875,000 from occupational pollution. Modern sources account for roughly 5.8 million deaths, compared to 3.7 million from traditional sources that have historically been associated with extreme poverty.

The problem of pollution is most severe in low- and middle-income countries, according to the report, and especially acute in Asia and Africa, though in the latter historical forms of pollution are still the predominant causes of disease and death. More than 2 million people die annually from pollution in both China and India, though China has far fewer deaths (367,000) from household and water pollution than India (1.1 million). In terms of pollution deaths per 100,000 people, African nations of Chad (305), Central African Republic (299), Niger (241) and Somalia (237) are hit hardest, compared to the United States at 44 deaths per 100,000 people.

The report draws clear lines between pollution, climate change and biodiversity loss, calling them "the key global environmental issues of our time" whose solutions are "intricately linked" and mutually beneficial. One example it cites is to drastically cut emissions of short-lived climate pollutants, like methane, soot and hydrofluorocarbons that simultaneously pollute the air and capture heat in the atmosphere.

The report found that global chemical manufacturing has increased at a rate of roughly 3.5% per year, and will double by 2030. While gasoline and paint have been historical sources of lead exposure, people are encountering it more and more through poor recycling of car batteries, lead chromate added to spices and lead added to cookware and pots.

Rachel Kupka, a co-author of the report and executive director of the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution, said that lead exposure is especially harmful for children, with one in three children globally experiencing lead poisoning, which can hinder cognitive development.

"What we're finding now is that lead, even very low levels of exposure, are contributing to a much higher burden of disease than anticipated before," she told EarthBeat.

"It's very bad news for people and the planet that air pollution is getting worse and chemical pollution is getting worse," Landrigan said, adding, "We were hoping for better" results in the four years since the previous report.

One of the goals of that 2018 report was to persuade more countries to address what is widely seen as a neglected problem, especially in middle- and low-income countries. A major driver of pollution has been the industrialization and urbanization of nations, which as they rapidly work to build their economies predominantly have done so through burning fossil fuels.

"They're taking a very short-term view and they're making the mistake of investing in fossil fuels, which is, in my mind, a losing proposition because the costs of the pollution that fossil fuels produce outweigh any economic benefit that the fossil fuels produce," Landrigan said.

In Laudato Si', Francis urged countries that have developed through highly polluting sources to assist other nations to do so with cleaner energy sources.

"The same mindset which stands in the way of making radical decisions to reverse the trend of global warming also stands in the way of achieving the goal of eliminating poverty. A more responsible overall approach is needed to deal with both problems: the reduction of pollution and the development of poorer countries and regions," the pope wrote. Continue reading

• Brian Roewe is NCR environment correspondent

The Catholic Farmers Association (CFA) has developed an 'environmental conservation-type sustainable agriculture' and consumption method they call ‘life agriculture', the Gwangju Catholic Peace Broadcasting Company reported.

The term 'life agriculture' means life-saving agriculture employing eco-friendly farming methods to produce food safely.

"We do life agriculture because we must live, nature must live, and agriculture must continue for future generations. We say that it is for the preservation of the creative order but, in the end, humans must do life agriculture to survive," said Gyeongho Kim, vice president of the CFA, established in 1966 in Gwangju archdiocese.

A prolonged drought on the Korean Peninsula is viewed as an effect of climate change and is contributing, along with inflation, to soaring commodity prices and food shortages.

Eight cities were reported to be on the verge of serious drought and eleven cities were placed under cautionary alert by the government as per the National Drought Information Portal of Korea.

Neighbouring North Korea has also raised the alarm as it braced itself to face the worst expected drought in 40 years. Continue reading

As the 25th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, COP25 meets in Madrid December 2-13, the big emitters need to commit to a U-turn in their emission trajectory to avert the extreme impacts that scientists project.

Leaders in the top-emitting nations need to drive climate action in view of their high share in carbon emissions (Figure 1).

The top 10 percent of countries (20 of them) make up 81 percent of global carbon discharges, starting with China, the United States, India, Russia, and Japan.

Given the dominance of these large economies, their national policies make all the difference to whether we can expect a reversal in the carbon intensity of global economic growth.

A recent U.N. report calls for a 7.6 per cent a year emission decline for the next 10 years to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels.

Contrastingly, emissions have increased 3 per cent over the past three years, led by the United States, China, and India.

To motivate far stronger steps, it would help to be convinced that the payoffs from switching to a low-carbon growth path far outweigh the costs of making the transition.

The benefits of climate action include avoided damages from climate change. And there is growing evidence on the damages that can be averted by timely climate action.

India, according to a World Bank estimate, could incur damages of 2.8 per cent of GDP by 2050 in the current climate trajectory.

A recent estimate places the loss from climate change from extreme weather events for 82 countries at 3 per cent of GDP by 2050.

There are also costs to taking climate action.

For instance, the cost of switching from fossil fuels to low-carbon sources of energy.

These costs of acting, however, are much smaller than the above-mentioned costs of not acting. The costs of addressing the climate crisis rise with every delay in taking measures, thus placing a premium on timely responses.

Past estimates, however, understate the true damages of climate inaction.

For one thing, improved global elevation data show coastal levels and habitats to be much lower and therefore the risk of floods and storms much higher than earlier maps had suggested.

Furthermore, we are also seeing climate-aggravating feedbacks that were not fully appreciated before.

For example, temperatures are increasing energy consumption in air conditioning and refrigeration. Also, global warming is making forest fires more destructive, in turn contributing to new climatic extremes.

Armed with all this knowledge, the single biggest step the big carbon-emitting countries could take is to cut their fossil fuel combustion.

Eliminating all subsidies to fossil fuel production and consumption is a part of this agenda. Continue reading

This strategy started about five years ago with the largest Methodist seminary in Fiji.

Theology colleagues there have begun to integrate resource management into their curriculum.

Priests and Pastors can play an important role in preserving the fish stock in Fiji says Fijian marine scientist Akuila Cakacaka.

They can preach the idea that God has made the human race stewards of creation to nurture and care for it.

Or they can encourage the people to believe that God will always provide and creation exists to serve human needs.

Fijians belong to one of the 410 demarcated and nationally recognized areas of the reef where they have the rights to fish.

These fishing grounds are known as qoliqoli, and within each are often small, protected areas called tabus, which villagers can close for a short period of time.

Historically they served a symbolic purpose, but today, tabus are one strategy to help protect areas of the reef and maintain viable fisheries, in the hopes that communities can balance short-term with long-term needs.

If a pastor blesses a marine protected areas or tabu, a god-fearing society will likely respect its boundaries.

But fundraisers for the church and the need for quick cash can often lead to opening a marine protected area to fishing, making it harder to close again.

Cakacaka says the church is rarely included when NGOs or other development groups come to the village.

Religious leaders may be asked to bless the project, or pray for the work to be done.

But the groups don't directly involve the church in asking their perspective on conservation.

Akuila says if people think God will provide—even as the fish vanish— Fijians may continue fishing the way they are now.

Current fishing practices in Fiji are not only occasionally destructive, but also unsustainable he says.

Cakacaka, now based in Germany, is working towards a PhD that will address the influence of religion in harvesting marine resources from tabus, that are opened periodically in Fiji, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea.

However, he is also an authority on religious sermons; he gives some very passionate ones as a pastor himself.

Source

• Mongabay.org
• Image: Facebook

Speaking on World Environment Day, the Pope referred to the proper stewardship of the earth. "Are we truly cultivating and caring for creation?" he asked. "Or are we exploiting and neglecting it?"

He said an understanding of the "rhythm and logic of creation" has often been trumped by "the arrogance of dominating, possessing, manipulating, and exploiting".

"We are losing the attitude of wonder, contemplation, listening to creation," the Pope said.

"We are living in a time of crisis: we see this in the environment, but above all we see this in mankind. The human person is in danger: this is certain, the human person is in danger today, here is the urgency of human ecology!"

Pope Francis decried the fact that when a child dies of starvation, "that's not news", but a drop of 10 points on the stock exchange "constitutes a tragedy".

"Thus people are discarded as if they were garbage!" he said.

He said the human life of the person is no longer felt to be a primary value to be respected and protected, "especially if they are poor or disabled, if they are not yet useful — like an unborn child — or are no longer useful — like an old person".

A culture of consumption has "made us insensitive to a squandering and wastefulness of food", he said. "Remember, however, that the food that is thrown away is as if we had stolen it from the table of the poor, from those who are hungry!"

Pope Francis ended his talk with a call for commitment "to respect and care for creation, to be attentive to every person, to oppose the culture of wastefulness and waste, and to promote a culture of solidarity and encounter."

Sources:

Vatican Information Service

Vatican Radio

Image: Hub Pages