Death
"Every year heat kills tens of thousands of people.
Their breathing grows shallow, their heart rates
flutter, their muscles spasm, and then they die."
Estimates of annual (premature) pollution-related deaths start
at 4 million and are mostly due to "local" pollution.
Death rates from "greenhouse gas" pollution are increasing
and are expected to multiply.
People who refuse to evacuate from extreme weather often do so to care for pets, or for the disabled.
"A rapid phaseout of fossil-fuel-related emissions...
[is] needed to save millions of lives."
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Previously, "an annual death toll in the millions was common, usually as the result of floods, droughts or famine." Since 1966, however, there's been dramatic improvement:
“There are a variety of causes for this steep decline in death rates in the [later] 20th century:
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Environmental interventions
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Improvement in nutrition
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Advances in clinical medicine…
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Improved access to health care
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Improvements in surveillance and monitoring of disease
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Increases in education levels
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Improvement in standards of living.”
“The sharp reduction in famine mortality represents ‘one of the great unacknowledged triumphs of our lifetime’.”
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Late 20th century “developments…[which]…reduced…famine…[were]
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increasing availability of food per person,
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increasing agricultural yields;
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improvements in healthcare
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[improvements in] sanitation;
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reduced food prices
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reductions…in extreme poverty”
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“technological progress,
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economic development,
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and the spread of stable democracies”
There were more than 100 million war deaths in the first half of the 20th century.
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In recent decades though, there've been fewer and fewer deaths from violence - in war (see chart), or otherwise.
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Worldwide, homicide rates may have dropped as much as 20% since 1990.
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Deaths by genocide have also significantly declined in the past 40 years.
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“We may now [the past 30+' years] live in the most peaceful time in our species’ existence.”
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What are the reasons for the great increase in life expectancy?
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In addition to the lists
mentioned above, there's also:
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Urbanization
Women’s education
Birth control
Women’s employment options
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Plus improvements with infant health, obstetrics, etc.
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And - “vaccinations or antibiotics, were necessary, but also…
Many of us have become so accustomed to
our 21st century lifestyle, that we've lost track
of how the current global culture has been the
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- most peaceful (see above)
- most healthy (see above)
- most prosperous
- and most populous
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epoch in human history.
Will we repeat the mistakes made 100 years ago?
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Or can we stop creating the atmospheric conditions
for more droughts and floods
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(and consequently more famine and fighting)?
The industrial revolution, with all of its pollution, brought us a multitude of benefits,
but we haven't been keeping up with the (ecological) payments.
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The longer we postpone the necessary economic transition (away from a pollution-
dependent social structure), the exponentially more traumatic the torment will become.
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Spread the word: a boycott will defund petro-dictators & fossil-fueled warlords, while fertilizing a green economy.