Fossil fuels kill more people than Covid. Why are we so blind to the harms of oil and gas?
Excerpts from opinion article in the Guardian:
"Were we able to perceive afresh the sheer scale of fossil fuel impact we might be horrified, but because this is an old problem too many don’t see it as a problem
The fossil fuel industry through airborne particulate matter alone annually kills far more people every year than Covid-19 has in three years. Recent studies conclude that nearly 9 million people a year die from inhaling these particulates produced by burning fossil fuel. It’s only one of the many ways fossil fuel is deadly, from black lung among coal miners and cancer and respiratory problems among those near refineries to fatalities from climate-driven catastrophes such as wildfire, extreme heat and floods.
The way we befouled our water, air and land, allowed manufacturers to introduce dangerous materials – lead, PCBs, PFAs (sometimes called “forever chemicals”), dioxin, high-level radioactive waste, microplastics, pesticides and herbicides – may seem to later generations shocking, stupid and amoral. Often the deployment of these substances offered short-term and specific advantages while leaving long-term and widespread damage; often the few benefited and the many paid. But all this was normalized."
Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/28/fossil-fuels-kill-more-people-than-covid-why-are-we-so-blind-to-the-harms-of-oil-and-gas
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