Wednesday September 30 9:23 PM EDT
''Life On Earth Is Killing Us,'' Study Finds
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Forty percent of deaths worldwide are caused by
pollution and other environmental factors, and climate change will make
matters worse, Cornell University scientists found in a study released on
Wednesday.
After studying population trends, climate change, increasing pollution
levels and emerging diseases, 11 graduate student researchers led by
Cornell ecology professor David Pimentel concluded: ``Life on Earth is
killing us.''
Increased temperatures caused by global climate change will further
encourage growth of human diseases and prod development of new illnesses,
they wrote in the October 1998 journal BioScience.
They predicted that millions of people would become ''environmental
refugees'', forced to flee their home areas in a desperate search for food.
``More and more of us are living in crowded urban ecosystems that are ideal
for the resurgence of old diseases and the development of new diseases,''
wrote Pimentel, lead author of the report.
``We humans are further stressed -- and disease prevalence is worsened --
by widespread malnutrition and the unprecedented increase in air, water and
soil pollutants,'' he wrote.
To help address the problem, policymakers should adopt fair
population-control policies combined with effective environmental
management programs, the researchers concluded.
Without international cooperation, the researchers predicted ``disease
prevalence will continue its rapid rise throughout the world and will
diminish the quality of life for all humans.''
The researchers evaluated data from a variety of sources, including the
World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. They
concluded:
-- Each year, air pollutants adversely affect the health of 4-5 billion
people, and the trend looks likely to worsen, with the number of
automobiles growing three times faster than the rate of population growth.
-- The snail-borne disease schistosomiasis causes an estimated 1 million
deaths annually and is expanding its range as human activities provide more
suitable habitats in contaminated fresh water.
-- Smoke from indoor cooking fires that burn wood and dung is estimated to
kill 4 million children each year.
-- Lack of sanitary conditions contributes to 4 million deaths worldwide
each year, mostly among infants and young children in developing countries.
They also focused on other trends, including increased tobacco smoking, the
spread of dengue fever by mosquitoes and growing use of agricultural
pesticides.
Jay
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