Let’s count the reasons to adopt clean energy.
About 1,600 children die every day from respiratory distress caused by air pollution;
and more than
19,000 people die every day due to illness caused by air pollution.
The most vulnerable are suffering and in many cases, dying. Our children are the most vulnerable. Their body mass and respiratory rate mean that they inhale far more pollutants per kilogram as compared to adults.
Too many families in developing countries must burn solid fuel or biomass to cook meals and as a source of heat in winters. While programs for decades have been making progress in ‘cleaner’ cookstoves, broader penetration of subsidized cooking gas and teaching methods to reduce exposure, the scale of those that depend on traditional methods of energy is enormous. Currently, according to WHO figures, 3 billion people still use solid fuels like wood, coal, and animal dung for their household energy needs.
We will not breathe healthy air until we confront this challenge. We cannot yet rely on portable air purifiers to provide mobile clean air for our children to breathe as we do for water filtration. Those that can afford it can give a bottle of filtered water to their children to take to school. But, they still cannot give their children thousands of liters of air that they will breathe when away from the home (we breathe between 10,000 to 12,000 liters of air every day. Our children can’t step outside and play as children must without exposure to toxins. High-efficiency pollution masks are uncomfortable for most children to wear in the heat when playing sports or physical outdoor play. That’s what makes the menace or #AirPollution an equalizer in the end.
One thing we can do to help is to ask our government representatives to invest in #CleanEnergy and #CleanTech so we can accelerate #EnergyAccess and improve #EnergyEquality. Renewable clean energy sources like solar, wind, tidal and hydrogen fuel cells are now cheaper than fossil fuels and biomass when we consider the costs to civil societies health and productivity.
We will all thrive …only when we are all thriving.
We can reduce, reuse and recycle at home to do our part. However, a significant improvement in highly-polluted environments requires that governments support and accelerate renewables and clean energy options while also advancing fuel and emissions standards and more importantly the oversight and enforcement of those pollution controls. Call or write your representatives. Contribute to a fund to help those less fortunate use a ‘cleaner’ cookstove or even purchase renewable energy micro-grid systems for communities in need.