Despite these protections, the World Health Organization estimates that 23 percent of all deaths are due to “environmental risks” such as air pollution, water contamination and chemical exposure.

Such statistics are the reason that the UN Human Rights Council recently passed a resolution reaffirming states’ obligations to protect human rights, including by taking stronger measures to address environmental problems.

Here are some of the ways in which a threatened planet threatens the human right to health.

Destruction of wildlife contributes to zoonoses

Land alteration due to construction of homes, farms, and industries has brought humans into close contact with wildlife, setting the stage for the transfer of pathogens from wild animals to humans.

An estimated 60 percent of human infections are of animal origin. There are many other viruses ready to transfer from animals to humans. According to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, “About 1.7 million unidentified viruses of the type known to infect humans still exist in mammals and waterfowl. Any one of these could be the next ‘disease X’ with more destructive and deadly potential than COVID-19.”

Air pollution reduces health quality and shortens life expectancy

Nine out of ten people in the world breathe polluted air, which harms human health and shortens life expectancy. About 7 million people die each year from air pollution-related diseases and infections, more than five times the number of people killed in traffic accidents.

Exposure to pollutants can also affect the brain, causing developmental delays, behavioral problems and even reduced IQ in children. In older people, pollutants have been linked to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

Reduced biodiversity reduces the nutritional value of food

In the last 50 years alone, the diet of people around the world has become 37 percent similar: just 12 crops and 5 animal species provide 75 percent of the world’s energy consumption. Today, nearly one in three people suffer from some form of malnutrition, and a significant portion of the world’s population suffers from nutrition-related diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

Reducing biodiversity also reduces the effect and effectiveness of drugs

Natural products make up the majority of existing pharmaceuticals and play the most important role in treating cancer. However, an estimated 15,000 species of medicinal plants are in danger of extinction, and the Earth loses at least one life-saving medicine every two years.

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Sources of air pollution

All kinds of substances pollute the air: gaseous, solid and liquid, if they are contained in quantities exceeding their average content. Air pollution is divided into dust and gas pollution. The World Health Organization defines polluted air as such if its chemical composition can adversely affect human, plant and animal health as well as other elements of the environment (water, soil). Air pollution is the most dangerous of all types of pollution because it is mobile and can contaminate virtually all components of the environment over large areas.

The main sources of air pollution are:

• Industrialization and growing population,
• energy industry,
• transportation industry,
• natural sources.

The growing demand for energy has made the burning of hydrocarbons the main source of anthropogenic air pollution.

What is air pollution?

The most dangerous air pollutants are:

• sulfur dioxide (SO2),
• nitrogen oxides (NxOy),
• coal dust (X2),
• volatile organic compounds (benzapyrene)
• carbon monoxide (CO)
• carbon dioxide (CO2),
• tropospheric ozone (O3),
• lead (Pb),
• suspended dust.

Anthropogenic sources of air pollution include:

• low-altitude emissions,
• chemical fuel conversion,
• extraction and transportation of raw materials,
• chemical industry,
• processing industry,
• metallurgical industry,
• cement production,
• landfills for raw materials and waste,
• motorization.

Natural sources of air pollution:

• volcanic eruptions,
• chemical weathering of rocks,
• forest and prairie fires,
• lightning,
• cosmic dust,
• biological processes.

Contaminated air is absorbed by people mainly during breathing. It contributes to respiratory diseases, allergies, and reproductive disorders. In the human household, air pollution causes corrosion of metals and building materials. It also negatively affects plant life by disrupting photosynthesis, transpiration, and respiration. Contaminated air also degrades water and soil. Globally, air pollution affects climate change. Air pollution also increases the acidity of drinking water. It causes an increase in lead, copper, zinc, aluminum, and even cadmium in the water that comes into our apartments. Water with increased acidity destroys plumbing systems by leaching various toxic substances from them.

There are three main types of emission sources:

Point sources – these are mostly large industrial plants that emit dust, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, and heavy metals; area (dispersed) – these are household boilers and furnaces, local boilers, small industrial enterprises, emitting mainly dust and sulfur dioxide; linear – these are polluting sources that have a large extent. Responsible for emissions of nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxides, aromatic hydrocarbons, heavy metals (primarily lead from ethyl, now platinum, palladium and rhodium from automotive catalysts).

Consequences of air pollution include:

Acid rain is precipitation with a low pH. They contain sulfuric acid, formed in an atmosphere contaminated with sulfur oxides from the burning of sulfated coal, and nitric acid, formed from nitrogen oxides. According to some information, acid rain increases infant mortality and the risk of lung disease, as well as acidifying rivers and lakes, destroying flora and fauna, degrading soils, and destroying monuments and architecture.

Smog – polluted air containing a high concentration of dust and toxic gases, the source of which are mainly cars and industrial plants.

Stink (bad smells) – the result of pollutants in the air, which irritate the olfactory receptors. Most often the stench is a mixture of a large number of different compounds present in very small quantities. The impact of unpleasant smells on human health is usually psychosomatic. Solving the problem of air pollution associated with unpleasant odors requires the use of special analytical methods (sensory analysis, olfactometer).

Ozone holes – reduction of ozone (O3) content at an altitude of 15-20 km. The rate of decrease is about 3% per year. Of greatest importance in this process are chlorofluorocarbons (freons), of which the released chlorine (under the influence of ultraviolet radiation) attacks ozone molecules, resulting in the release of oxygen (O2) and chlorine(II) oxide (ClO). The rate of global decrease in stratospheric ozone levels due to human activities (excluding Antarctica), estimated from satellite studies, is 0.4-0.8% per year in the northern temperate latitudes and less than 0.2% in the tropics. The ozone layer is a natural filter that protects living organisms from harmful ultraviolet radiation. In 1995, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded for research into the effects of freons on atmospheric ozone, and for research into the formation and reactions of atmospheric ozone.

The greenhouse effect is a phenomenon occurring in the planet’s atmosphere that causes the temperature of the planet, including the Earth, to rise. The effect is caused by atmospheric gases called greenhouse gases, which limit heat radiation from the Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere to space.

Air pollution caused by cars is responsible for about 1/4 of the deaths in major cities.

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Pollution of soils is associated with atmospheric and water pollution. Various solid and liquid wastes of industrial production, agriculture and municipal and domestic enterprises get into the soil. The main sources of pollution are houses and public utility companies, industrial enterprises, agriculture, transport.

Housing and communal economy

The main pollutants of soil are household waste, food waste, construction waste, waste heating systems, household items that have fallen into disrepair, garbage of public institutions (hospitals, canteens, hotels, stores).

All of this is collected and taken to municipal and local landfills, which occupy large areas of land and are sources of air and groundwater pollution by toxic substances. At present, the destruction of housing and communal waste is done by industrial processing of garbage at special factories.

Industrial enterprises

Solid and liquid industrial waste constantly contains some or other substances that can have a toxic effect on the soil, living organisms and their communities. For example, metallurgical waste contains salts of non-ferrous and heavy metals. The machine-building industry discharges cyanide, arsenic and beryllium compounds into the environment. Benzene and phenol wastes are produced in the production of plastics and man-made fibers. Waste from the pulp and paper industry, provide phenols, methanol, turpentine.

The main pathway of heavy metals into the soil is atmospheric. The greatest concentration in atmospheric emissions of enterprises have such metals as cadmium, mercury, lead, zinc, copper, nickel.

Agriculture

The main pollutants of the soil in this industry are fertilizers, pesticides used to protect plants from pests, diseases, weeds. Millions of tons of nutrients (nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, etc.) are removed from the soil each year with the harvest, which must be compensated. Therefore, the application of organic and mineral fertilizers – the most important means of restoring soil fertility. The need for pesticides in agriculture is explained by the fact that without them the crop yield drops sharply and is only 20-40% of what could have been obtained with their use. However, we should know that a large number of pesticides are toxic not only to pests of cultivated plants, but also to animals and humans. Unregulated use of pesticides leads to soil contamination due to the disruption of the cycle of substances in it. The peculiarity of these substances is that they remain stable in the soil for a long time, which leads to their accumulation in the harvest of crops.

The use of fertilizers in agriculture also causes a number of environmental problems associated with soil contamination by inorganic and organic chemicals. The accumulation of cadmium in the soil, which is naturally found in soil and water, as well as in plant tissues, poses a great danger to humans.

Organic fertilizers are often a source of biological soil contamination. Together with manure, pathogenic bacteria, helminth eggs and other harmful organisms enter it, which can enter the human body through food.

Transportation

Developed transport network, its progress is accompanied by negative consequences – negative impact on the environment. Environmental damage from the operation of motor vehicles is caused by toxic emissions. Thus, it has been established that every year motor vehicles emit into the atmosphere more than 12 million tons of various pollutants: carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur, soot and others. Most of these emissions are deposited on the soil, changing its basic natural parameters.

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As the environmental problems facing modern society intensify, the demand for society faces today, the demand for of environmental statistics has increased. The recognition that the well-being of humankind depends on the state of the environment has led to increased attention to environmental and sustainability issues that require decisions and actions. To implement these measures, the regular production of high-quality environmental statistics that will support evidence-based policy development to support data-driven policy decisions so that environmental policy issues can be identified and objectively quantified is of paramount importance.

Environmental statistics reflect basic information about the state of the environment and of its most important changes occurring in space and over time. They contribute to the quality of assessment through the use of a quantitative method to provide more effective, timely, and internationally consistent analysis. Environmental statistics are needed to conduct environmental assessments, produce environmental reports and develop environmental handbooks, environmental indicators and sustainable development indicators, and to promote environmental and economic accounting.

Member States of the United Nations have focused on this area of concern during the Rio+20 Conference in June 2012. The outcome document, “The Future We Want,” contains numerous references to the work of the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) in this area. This document repeatedly mentions the importance of data availability, particularly environmental data, as well as relevant information and indicators. The Environmental Statistics Development Framework (ESDP 2013), which includes a set of key environmental statistics indicators, serves as an adequate tool to address these information needs as they relate to the environmental dimension of sustainable development. At the forty-fourth Statistical Commission at its forty-fourth session, the SDGs were recognized a useful tool to adequately respond to the increasing demand for information in the follow-up to Rio+20 and the post-2015 development agenda (including the Sustainable Development Goals).

The problem of producing statistical data on the environment

Environmental statistics cover a broad set of data and is interdisciplinary in nature. The data come from a wide variety of sources and are collected Data are collected using an equally diverse and multiple methodologies. Specific statistics and methodologies are equally needed to effectively produce
environmental statistics equally requires specific statistical and environmental expertise, scientific knowledge, institutional capacity, and sufficient resources. Many countries still need significant technical assistance and capacity building in this area. Thus, the development of environmental statistics requires an appropriate framework to guide, coordinate and organize the data collection process at all levels

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