Next thirty years – Climate crisis & human health by Ramesh Shrestha

Much has been said and written on the climate crisis. It was also a warning from the UN Secretary General as one of the five fires that is blazing. Here is a brief summary of two most important issues related to the environment and climate crisis: Plastic pollution and Greenhouse gases.

When did it start?

The first scientific conference on ‘Conservation and Utilisation of Natural Resources’ was organised by the UN from 17 Aug to 6 September 1949 with a focus on oil and coal. However, the deliberations of the conference was on how to improve extraction rather than conservation of natural resources despite conservation being on the title of the conference. It was only twenty years later that the UN Economic and Social Council deliberated the issues ‘The problems of the human environment’ at the request of the Swedish Permanent Representative at the 23rd session of the UN General Assembly in December 1968. This was followed by the first Earth Summit in Stockholm from 5-16 June in 1972. The summit declaration set out principles for preservation of the environment and an action plan containing non-binding recommendations for international environmental action. It requests the scientific community to identify and control pollutants of ‘broad international significance’. The declaration raised the issue of environment and climate change for the first time.

Plastic pollution and human health

The Plastic Health Summit held on 21 October 2021 in Amsterdam concluded that ‘every child born on this planet is born pre-polluted with dozens of chemicals that are found inside of their bodies’. Foetuses receive these hazardous chemicals from the mother who receives them through their food chain and environment such as cosmetics, clothing and household plasticware.

A new research that examined 7,704 cosmetics and personal care products manufactured by ten top brands (L’Oreal, Elvive/Elseve, Garnier, Nivea, Oral-B, Head & Shoulder, Dovce, Rexona and Axe) shows that 87% of these products have microplastics (Plastics: The Hidden Beauty Ingredient, Plastic soup foundation, April 2022). On 24 March 2022 scientists from Free University of Amsterdam reported presence of synthetic polymers in 80% of the blood samples of people who use these cosmetics and personal care products (Discovery and quantification of plastic particle pollution in human blood; Dept of Environmental Health, Faculty of Science, Free University of Amsterdam, March 2022).

Cosmetics and home care products are a multibillion $ industry. These are the products which make everyone clean and ‘beautiful’. How will individual consumers of these products absorb this news? More importantly how these industries will react to the findings of this study is yet to be seen. A more serious concern is how human bodies are adjusting to these microplastics and chemicals in our system? Is the human body able to break these nano and micro particles? Could any of these nanoparticles and microplastics lodge in our brain cells or in our vascular organs? If yes, how would it impact our nervous and vascular systems, the two most important systems in our bodies? I believe scientists are asking these questions and seriously engaged in finding answers. According to the findings of this study, these chemicals and polymer particles that are stuck in our bodies, especially that of children, could play a significant role in development later in life through impaired neurodevelopment, immune disorders and higher risks associated with hormone related complications. These findings are still very new and need further studies to be replicated before making any judgments.

We are surrounded by plastics as it has replaced natural materials we use in our daily life such as timber, paper and glass. We were late in realising its toxic effect on human health and on the environment. It is only in recent years that scientists have unravelled how we are swallowing nanoparticles of plastics and drinking certain chemicals discharged from ‘degenerating’ plastics. A variety of chemicals are added during the manufacture of various plastic products to give them desired colours, flexibility, thickness and hardness. These chemicals are leached in our environment once these plastics products are discarded which get into our food chain through various mechanisms including from seafood (Nature, Sci Rep 11, 2045(2021), Hayley McIlwraith, Ocean conservancy, 18 Oct 2021). We have become dependent on plastic. What will happen in the next thirty years is anyone’s guess. The answer depends on our lifestyle and how we dispose of our garbage.

Our industries use more than 300 million tons of plastic annually in various forms, of which about half are single use items such as wrapping materials, bags, cups, etc. At present about 14 million tons of plastic garbage end up in oceans every year. By 2040 it is expected to reach 32 million tons annually (International Union for Conservation of Nature, Nov 2021). The remaining end up in landfills. Recycling is expensive, technically complicated and inadequate to solve the plastic pollution. Are we stuck in a known unknown environment?

Greenhouse gases

Greenhouse gas emissions are one of the unhealthiest and most dangerous issues for nature and human health. The saturation of atmospheric air with carbon dioxide was shown to have increased atmospheric temperature as early as 1856 (American Journal of Science and Arts, Vol XXII Nov 1856). In 1896 the term greenhouse gas (GHG) was first used by a Swedish chemist in relation to gases emitted by burning fossil fuel. As we know now it includes a range of gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and various forms of hydrofluorocarbon gases. These gases are important in maintaining atmospheric temperature. In absence of these gases the atmospheric temperature will be -18c. but the problem is when the concentration of GHG increases the atmospheric temperature increases.

The meteorologists warned of the possibility of GHGs becoming a global issue in 1957 in a publication (Chemical and Physical Meteorology, International Meteorological Institute of Stockholm, 1957) but it was met with skepticism and was ignored. Based on what we know now the concentration of CO2 (one of the GHGs) in the air has been on the rise as shown in Figure 5, accompanied by rising atmospheric temperature as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 5. Concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide over the years; Source: Global Monitoring Laboratory, Earth System Research Laboratory, Scripps institute of Oceanography, April 2022.



Figure 6. Trend in atmospheric temperature recorded over the years that corresponds with increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration; Source: Berkley Earth Institute January 2021.



Thirty years ago, in 1990 about 32 billion tons of greenhouse gases (GHGs) were emitted. In 2018 the emission increased to 48.9 tons of GHGs. In the next thirty years our population is expected to reach 9.9 billion. Since GHGs are related to human activities and industries that manufacture commodities we need for our daily life, there is little hope of reducing emission of GHGs. Based on the above trend, our chances to reduce or stabilize the GHG emission, let alone reverse in the next thirty years seems bleak, if not impossible.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, atmospheric temperature will eventually have negative impacts on food production due to floods, droughts and change in the length of growing season and other ecological imbalances. It will also shrink biodiversity with the extinction of various plant and animal species.

According to a World Bank study as many as 260 million people may abandon their place of residence by 2050 as it would become inhabitable due to atmospheric reasons such as desertification, intensive floods, crop failure, (WB Press release, 13 Sept 2021), etc.

Are we in despair?

Despite mounting evidence, initiatives to solve both these problems – reducing plastic waste and reducing GHG emission is extremely anaemic. As our living standards are tied with these two issues the situation in the next thirty years is unlikely to change; it may actually get worse as living standards of many people in low income countries continues to improve. We are being constantly fooled by ‘scientists’ and few authors how we can fight climate change. The truth is that we can’t with the speed of work countries are doing to contribute to climate change and our daily regime which continue to encourage a wasteful life style. Are we in despair? Most likely, yes!

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