LAHORE: Experts believe that toxic chemicals and microbial contaminants/agents created by natural and anthropogenic activities are fast becoming environmental hazards (EHs) with increased potential to affect the natural environment and human health.
In an interview, they opined that the interaction between human health and environmental risks was highly interconnected, which has been repeatedly researched and studied using the latest scientific methods.
In the race for economic development, profits and prosperity, our Earth is becoming more vulnerable with each passing day to the effects of climate change and pollution caused by anthropological activities, they lamented.
In an interview with APP, they opined that technological advancement in agriculture and rapid industrialization are drastically polluting the two pillars of natural resources i.e. land and water.
Toxic chemicals and microbial contaminants/substances created by natural and anthropogenic activities that are rapidly becoming environmental hazards (EHs) with increased potential to affect the natural environment and human health.
In this context, pulmonologist Dr. Zeeshan from Jinnah Hospital, Lahore, that the environment has serious effects on our health in different ways, by significantly affecting human health in two ways, either directly by exposing people to harmful carbonaceous agents or indirectly, by disrupting life-sustaining ecosystems.
In a recent report, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that thirteen million deaths per year can be attributed to preventable environmental causes.
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The report also estimates that 24 percent of the global burden of disease (healthy life lost per year) and 23 percent of all deaths, i.e. premature mortality, can be attributed to environmental factors, with the environmental burden of disease being 15 times higher in developing countries than in developed countries occur due to differences in exposure to environmental risks and the unavailability of access to health care for environmental reasons.
The report further states that five children die every minute in developing countries from malaria or diarrhoea.
Similarly, 100 children die every hour from exposure to indoor smoke from solid or fossil fuels.
Similarly, nearly 1,800 people die every day in megacities in developing countries due to exposure to hazardous urban air pollution.
And every month, nearly 19,000 people in developing countries die from unintentional poisoning.
Well-known ecologist Dr. Shafqat Munir Ahmad told APP that huge economic development and increasing population have resulted in prevalent environmental degradation.
Intensification of industrialization, agriculture and increasing energy consumption have been the most serious drivers of environmental health problems.
In developing countries, there has been a serious lack of public infrastructure, such as access to clean drinking water, inadequate health care and sanitation problems, due to the emerging problems of industrial pollution (as the growth of industrial units without planning creates serious public health problems, he added.
Climate change directly threatens human health and well-being, and it is fast becoming a serious health problem worldwide, he said, adding that in 2000, climate change was estimated to be responsible for about 2.4 percent of global diarrhea and 6 percent of malaria.
But now, according to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global temperatures are expected to rise further during this century, posing additional and increased health threats to the human population, especially in low-income countries.
Regarding the socio-environmental impacts in Lahore, well-known expert Safdar Ali Shirazi said that due to rapid urbanization in the last few decades, the provincial metropolis has lost its aesthetically important urban tree, green cover and around all green scenic covers.
He revealed that the loss of vegetation and trees were witnessed disappearing in many union councils of the city at an astounding rate.
Well-known pulmonologist and critical care physician Dr. Muhammad Ahmad said the dramatic incidence of rising asthma cases in global cities is increasing at an alarming rate.
He said various environmental synthesis reports give a precautionary warning that further erosion of ecosystems could lead to an increase in existing diseases such as malaria and cholera, as well as an increased risk of emerging viral diseases in the world.
When asked, Ahmad said that safe drinking or bathing water in megacities can pose serious risks (both acute and delayed) to human health, in addition to microbial contamination of groundwater due to arsenic-rich levels and high concentrations of toxic nutrients in wastewater due to agriculture. runoff is among the most serious threats.
Heavy metals such as lead (Pb), mercury (Hg) and chromium (Cr); pesticides; organic pollutants; microplastics; and emerging contaminants pose a challenge to human health.
They are responsible for various types of cancer, allergies, and neurological and cardiovascular disorders that lead to a large number of deaths worldwide.
Director Environment Protection Department Naseem-Ur-Rehman Shah said that the growth of industrial units across the country has led to a situation where our natural resources including land, water and fossil fuels are getting polluted and depleted at the same time.
He added that there is an urgent need to find environmentally friendly solutions to the problems that arise from the processes that create environmental risks for the sustainable development plan.
Dr. Mahmood Khalid Qamar, an environmentalist who has a Ph.D on mangrove sustainability, said that at the center of global environmental risks are conditions that include climate change, environmental degradation, natural disasters such as soil erosion, famine, flooding and rising sea levels . the most common problems that limit the path to sustainable development.
According to him, in the race for economic development and prosperity, planet Earth is becoming more vulnerable and polluted every day.
Likewise, technologically advanced methods in agriculture and rapid industrialization have drastically polluted the two pillars of natural resources, water and soil.
In this regard, he said that the miracle drug, microbial contaminants, arsenic compounds, toxic chemical contaminants created by anthropogenic activities should be immediately controlled by limiting human activities and informing about them,
These results of human activity are rapidly being incorporated into various foods with increased potential to affect natural hygiene value, the environment and human health, he said.
